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Published: February 25th 2009
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Getting up was a project after such a big day. But the group somehow was nearly all gathered for breakfast when we came down at 7, the official time to begin. Tired as everyone was, we were excited about meeting Pele, Goddess of Fire. We were to wear red if we wanted her to look favorably upon us.
We were also supposed to bring gin but that was overlooked in our excitement.
Legend has it that those who meet Pele must provide her with a gin offering. At least that is what a gin-imbiber rumored after surviving a lava flow very close to his place.
Kalapana is our destination for supper. That village was devastated by lava from Kilaueia a few years ago and the lava is still flowing over there.
To prepare us, we spent time at the museum.
But first, we had an extended lesson on plants and herbs important to Hawai'ians. We learned about Taro (Kalo), the staple starch in their diet. We learned about Ti which has leaves that work very much like aluminum foil for cooking and storage. We learned about . . . the rest must have come by osmosis
but is probably why we could not identify the pretty flowers at Akaka Falls.
Meeting Pele was brought up and we learned about how it is that the Big Island has so much volcanic action. Continental drift apparently has slid the plate over a hot spot. As that happened, volcanoes rose from the plate at the bottom of the ocean and rose above the water to form islands. As the plate continued to move during millions of years, a whole series of islands arose.
The Big Island is moving off that hot spot. Off the southeast coast is new volcanic action building an island that will come through the surface of the ocean in the near future. Meanwhile, Kilaueia still releases lava which flows down to the ocean near what is left of Kalapana.
The oldest islands of the Hawai'ian chain are to the northwest. They have more ancient formations and are the most eroded. We will see that on the islands of Kawa'i and O'ahu later in our program.
Then we saw a video of the destruction of Kalapana, which included the struggle to save the Catholic Church. It was a very moving story showing
Kalapana Catholic Church
This is the one that was saved. both the vulnerability of human communities and their resolve.
We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in Hilo before returning to the hotel for an hour or so of rest before heading for Kalapana.
On our way to meet Pele, we stopped at a county park which features "lava trees." In a manner sort of like petrification, lava poured into a forest. It flowed around the trees, scrubbing away the underbrush but more slowly filled in the trunks of the trees as it passed. The flowing lava continued on leaving behind these solidified "casts" of stumps and fallen trees. The forest has grown back up around these lava features. I can't tell you how old these stumps and logs are but they pre-dated the Kalapana event by many years, as the size of the live trees shows.
Not far from the park, we stopped at the little Catholic Church that had been saved. Everyone in town, including members of the Protestant Church (the other church in town), helped move it to this site. While we could not get inside, we were able to look through segments of the stained glass to see it was a "painted" church,
Group picture
Can you find Ann and me? Click on the picture if necessary. decorated inside to make it appear the space was much larger than it was. We did get a picture at another "painted" church later in our program.
The stairs of the church were perfect for a group picture to be taken.
We got back on the bus and traveled toward our destination. However, county deputies refused to let us go past a check point. The winds were carrying the vaporous sulfuric acid and other dangerous gases from the mixture of the lava and sea water back past the overlook near Kalapana. So we retreated to another spot along the shore where we could watch safely but which was considerably further away.
The bus dropped us off at a local drive-in from where we went out onto the lava field to walk a little closer to the lava/ocean contact. It was well past sundown and so pictures were not that effective, though those who have seen Marty's know there is one that worked after dark. From where we stood up the hill across the street from the drive-in (as far as we were comfortable walking on the uneven lava surface old and cool enough for some grasses to
have taken hold), we saw flashes of red reflecting off the column of white steam arising from the lava/ocean confluence.
It is hard to tell whether or not we needed the gin. But we rode back to Hilo mellowed by getting even that close to the Goddess of fire.
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Marty
non-member comment
Group picture
I like your group picture because it has Susan in it