Burn baby burn

Lava is hot.  2800 degrees F hot.  Hot enough to glow.  Hot enough to instantly evaporate sea water.  And hot enough to remove your leg hairs when you stand too close to it.

We hiked out across the black rock fields to a billowing cloud of steam and were amazed at the power pouring out from deep inside the Earth.  And of course we did what any normal primate would do:  we poked at it with sticks and stuff.

Hilo is Heaven

I can't say we are enjoying Hilo.  It just isn't enough.  We love it here.  There I said it.  Will Hilo will say it back?  These things can take time, I know.  There are a lot of restrictions on boats and for people living on their boats in Hawaii which makes the politics of just hanging out here complicated.  But with some luck we'll overcome them.  So far only the politics have been the downside.

Hilo has a lot going for it.  It's a low key working town with few tourists.  The weather is perfect for us:  daily sun and rain.  The mooring we are on is behind a protected breakwater and just off a pretty public park where we can land our dinghy.  People paddle their kayaks and paddle boards by us everyday from the park where they also picnic and fish (often both at the same time).  There are no less than 4 parks within a mile of us.  We can walk down town and never have to worry about surf landings with the dinghy.

Literately from the minute our feet first touched the soil people have gone out of their way to help us out.  They've been AMAZINGLY friendly.  After being here almost 7 weeks now I keep waiting to see the other side of the coin, but it's all good.

When Kate and Michael were here we toured a lot of the island.  We even swam with dolphins:


If you're thinking it can't get any better -- it does.  We bought a great little car and now we are hitting the hiking trails.  We've hiked lava tubes, waterfalls, near very active lava craters, tropical rain forests, and taken tons of photos which we haven't even begun to sort through (sorry).

We've been behind on our slog updates as internet is a bit patchy and we've been busy getting settled.  We'll get some photos up soon.