A great GOOOOD morning to all Conch-Lers,

Many thanks to all you that sent comments regarding the report. I was crying
for days and nights since nobody dropped any line about it, and I was almost
sending a message telling that nobody loves me, that an evil computer sent
me an automatic message, that I was going to leave Conch-L, and bla, bla,
bla...

Ok, since Andy suggested that we should include a polemic topic to stir the
crowd, let's choose another good one. Errr... Helmut asked me to tell you
that.... ok, ok, ok, please don't get mad!!! I was just kidding!! BTW,
things are quite calm around here aren't them. ;-))


DAY 7: the flight from Oahu to Kailua-Kona in the Big Island is quite fast.
The vision of Haleakala, in Maui, and Mauna Loa rising above the clouds is
beautiful, but the arrival is much more impressive, since you are going to
land in an old lava field. Everything all around is BLACK, completely black.
Again we asked for a Geo Metro in Avis and received an upgrade to a
beautiful red sport car: a Pontiac Sunfire!

The rest of the day was spent in a tour to the north side of the island,
going clockwise around the coast. I've read that we can see almost all
different types of climates in the Big Island, but I didn't believe until I
saw it with my own eyes. The area around Kailua-Kona is quite arid, with
large black stripes of lava crossing the fields. You find almost NO GREEN!!
After the Hapuna Beach State Park, you start to see more and more green,
until you reach the "tropical" cities of Hawi and Kapaau. Go ahead for the
breathtaking vision of the Pololu Valley Lookout. From sea level, climb the
Kohala Mountains up to 3000 ft in the dry grass fields of Kamuela and again
downhill to the green of the beautiful Waipio Valley Lookout. It is really
difficult to decide which one of these lookouts is the most beautiful. Then
back to Kailua-Kona just in time to see a beautiful sunset.

The Alii Drive after dark is a place full of life and people. A good place
to walk hand in hand with my girlfriend wife.

The funny hapenning of the day was when we came back to where we had parked
our car and... we didn't find it!!! Our legs started to tremble since we
were thinking that someone had stolen it. BUT there was another car of the
same brand (Pontiac Sunfire) parked in the very same place. Ours was RED and
that one was BLUE!! When we looked inside that car, it had the very same
things we had left in the back seat. IT WAS OUR CAR!!! Above it there was an
orange and bright public light that "changed" our red car into a blue one.
We laugh a lot after that, but you can't imagine what we felt in the
beginning. :-)))))

DAY 8: Surely it was going to be the Mauna Kea day. You'll find in many road
maps that it is not allowed to drive rental cars in the Saddle Road. Others
just say to check your rental contract. Since our Avis contract just said
that we were not allowed to drive in unpaved roads, there were no
problems... but I had a fixed idea to go up to the top of Mauna Kea. A fixed
BAD IDEA! As you can imagine from a certain point it was... an unpaved road!
A headstrong with a fixed idea means... means an almost burnt clutch. When I
gave up my attempt to reach the top of Mauna Kea, the car was almost crying
HEEEELP ME!! At least the vision half way to the top was really
incredible... as incredible as the bad burnt smelling. Thanks God there was
no major problem than the smelling and AVIS never noticed my
mischievousness. ;-))

Hilo, the Onomea Bay Scenic Route and the beautiful Akaka Falls were our
next stops. But my master piece touch of the day was yet to come. I had the
bright idea to visit the village of Kalapana, destroyed some years ago after
an eruption of Kilauea. After more than half hour walking over lava fields,
I heard "someone" telling me: "Edu, I'm not going to kill you now because
I'm too much tired"!!! End of Day 8!!

DAY 9: thanks God I had contracted a full day of scuba diving early before
my Kalapana adventure. It would be a day of "pepperoni pizza slices" for me
and, for my wife, a day of vacation from her marvelous and "brilliant"
husband. The Kona Coast Divers had the very best prices for a two tank
morning dive and another two tank dusk/night dive, one of them with the
manta rays: US$ 161 plus the BC rental. A bargain for Hawaiian standards and
I wouldn't loose that. It was also going to be my shell collecting day.
Since I know that 110% of diving operators don't allow shell collecting and
I know that to hide shells in the BC pocket is THE best way to get caught, I
developed a dissimulation technique along the years. I use one of my diving
gloves as a collecting bag. As soon as I get back to the boat I put the
glove full of shells in my diving bag. In the second dive I use the other
glove in the same way. Since this "collecting bag" is quite small, you need
to be veeeery selective.

The morning dive was in a place called Turtle's Pinnacle, a little bit to
the north after leaving the marina. Conus and Cerithium were found by the
dozens and I needed to leave behind TONS of shells. Back to the dive, the
water was CLEAN (it was so clean that we almost could see the California
coast!!), the animals were fantastic, the buddies were great... everything
perfect. The dusk dive, in a bay just accross the airport, was as perfect as
the morning ones plus a dive with the mantas that I'll remember for the rest
of my life. Some pictures can be found in my photo album:
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=983324

Among the shells I collected in both dives there are Cerithium mutatum,
Trochus intextus, Xenoturris kingae, Nassarius papillosus, a beautiful
Latirus nodatus of 3 1/2 inches, Conus imperialis, Conus miles, Conus
sanguinolentus, and some Conus that I don't know if they are C. circumactus
or C. lytoglyphus (or both). I don't know how good are the other diving
places, regarding shelling, but if you want to collect shells in Hawaii, do
some shore diving. It was a GREAT dive, even thinking that if I had a glove
twice bigger than mine I could collect much more!!

DAY 10: the day to visit the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. There are lots
of trails around the park, but we chose to do our sightseeing by car. We
visited the sulphur banks, the steam vents and made a stop in the Jaggar
Museum. If you go there, outside the Museum you'll find the Kilauea Caldera.
Inside take a look on the seismographs, since you'll discover that even
seeming that everything is calm on the ground, the beast is alive. We
continued on the Crater Rim Drive stopping here and there, ending with a
visit to the Thurston Lava Tube. Trying to avoid the very same mistake of
the Kalapana adventure, we didn't visit the Chain of Craters Road. It is
always good to leave something behind, so there will be a place to visit
next time.

From the National Park we returned to Kailua-Kona with two stops that
deserve your visit. The first one was the Punalu'u Beach Park where you'll
see a black sand beach. Yes, I said BLACK, 300% black, not even a grain of
white sand. The other one is the historical site of Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, an
ancient traditional Hawaiian village that preserves aspects of old tribal
life.

Again the day ended in the Alii Drive.

DAY 11: Nothing special to do, except to wash our dirty clothes and pack
everything to go to Samoa. Since our flight back to Oahu would leave around
noon time, we went to the rocks in front of our hotel, the Kona Islander
Inn. There I found some Cellana exarata and my wife collected a big Cymatium
nicobaricum of about 4 inches. Nothing bad, isn't it? I must confess that,
regarding shell collecting I left Hawaii with a LARGE smile.

The rest of the day was just to conjugate the verb "to wait". Wait in the
airport for another delayed flight of Hawaiian Airlines, wait in Oahu for
the check-in to Samoa, wait for the boarding, wait for the arrival....

At least we were arriving in Samoa, where days of 100% of "pepperoni pizza
slices" were waiting me... Meeting Don Barclay in the airport was like to
make a dream becomes true, since I was planning this trip for long two
years. Needless to say that we talked until around 2AM. :-)))))))))))

More side comments:

1) if you are a member of AAdvantage Mileage Program, you can credit your
Hawaiian Airlines flights from/back continental US and also the inter-island
flights, but not the Hawaii/Samoa/Hawaii flight... and I didn't know that!
Aaaaarghh!!!

2) if you have your right foot a little bit "heavy" like mine, you'll hate
to drive in the Big Island. There are no highways and all major routes have
speed limits of about 50mph. The problem is that you'll always find someone
that is driving on 35mph and that won't let you overtake him. It is
BOOOOORING, but these are the rules.

3) while planning your day, consider not only what was said in the item 2,
but also that the Big Island is BIG, much bigger than Oahu. It will take
much more time to arrive where you want, than you had imagined.

4) unless if there was a recent major lava eruption, don't expect to find
those rivers and cascades of lava you see in the movies. And without them,
all those helicopters flights have a very low cost/benefit relation. Save
your money.

5) if you love scuba diving, don't loose the night dive with the manta rays.


All the best,

Eduardo Moreira
Brasilia, Brazil