Day 19 - White Island Volcano

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Today we're technically at sea all day as we make our way to White Island Volcano for a two hour stop this evening. White Island is an active volcano situated 48km from the east coast of the North Island in the Bay of Plenty. The island is about 2km in diameter and rises 320m above sea level while the rest of the mountain actually rises 1600m above the seafloor. The volcano had major eruptions in 1981-83, but the last major one took place on July 27, 2000. It left the island blanketed with mud and a new crater was created. The island is usually on an alert level rating of 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-5. Naturally, we're hoping for a level-5 when we get there, complete with lava roaring down the side of the mountain and into the sea!

The nice thing about being out at sea is you won't feel guilty about sleeping part of the day away. So we slept in until about 10:30, then watched an episode of our favorite show ever, The West Wing (as it turns out we're both HUGE fans) and then had a leisurely brunch. It was off to the gym around 2pm, then shower, and then a nap. Again, not feeling guilty here!

Around 5pm our ship approached White Island and our onboard naturalist started his commentary about this amazing site. We made our way to the top outdoor deck to watch, listen and take pictures. As we circumnavigated the island, we could clearly see the volcano's caldera and vents releasing steam that made their way high into the sky and drifted off as clouds. It took about an hour to make our way around the island. On the north side of the island, a large cross-section reveals the layers of rock accumulated over numerous eruptions. Unfortunately, we didn't see any catastrophic eruptions while we were there but it was still fascinating to see the steam vents. Even from a distance, seeing these huge white plumes of geologic activity is thrilling.

Afterwards we met up with our dinner table friends, Melitta and Karen, for dinner at the Waterfall Cafe. The cafe is the ships casual-nice restaurant on deck 10 and overlooks the port side of the ship. Karen and Melitta are sisters and haven't seen each other in 3.5 years. Melitta lives in Ontario, Canada and Karen in Dargaville, NZ and their using this cruise to catch up while spending some quality time together away from husbands and kids. They've been great fun to hang out with and we hope to stay in touch.

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Photos

White Island
Inside the volcano

Kip on deck
Enjoying the White Island as we circumnavigated

The dinner gang
Melitta in white and her sister Karen in orange! We had a great time with them and wish them all the best with more vacations like this to catch up in the future...