by Jesse
Earth, air, water, and fire continue to mix in spectacular fashion at Kamoamoa on the south coast of Puna.
We started out around 5 last evening, after my friend, Mike, got off work. We headed south on Rt 130, past Pahoa while a rich sunset began to color the sky in the west. We reached the end of the pavement near Kaimu. This is where sensible people park, take a few pictures of the lava that crossed the highway on it's way to Kalapana, and leave. We were having none of that, instead I turned my truck to the right along the not-too- well-worn track around the barracade, and headed across the lava flow.
A few hundred yards and we were back on pavement, for a quarter mile or so... then more lava, more pavement, more lava, more pavement, then the edge of the world. The lavascape stretched ahead for 4 miles. Even in the failing light, distant objects dance as the heated air rises over the cooling landscape. For the next half hour, we made our way over a tortuous track that only a caterpillar operator could love. We parked where the road turns mauka toward what's left of the Royal Gardens.
We could see the hot lava now, red spots and a line of smoke coming down the mountain from Pu`u `O`o. Distances are hard to guess out here, but it looked to be a mile or less. I took a compass bearing on the steam plume, off to the left where the lava entered the sea. Then we shouldered our packs and set out. We lit flashlights long before we reached the edge of the active flow about a quarter mile mauka of the plume that I had used as a reference point earlier. We elected not to approach the flow closely at this point. It was encroaching upon old lava, heavily overgrown with vegetation, and the night was punctuated frequently by methane explosions, like the mortar shells of an enemy gone mad. We took a few pictures, and started picking our way makai, toward the plume. New black sand underfoot greeted us as we approached the surf. A huge magnificent brand new black sand beach sparkled in the flashlight beams like the sky on a clear dark night. To the right, billowing clouds of hydrochloric acid vapor rolled into the sky lighted red from below with starbursts of exploding lava arching over and through... rockets from a new years celebration in hell.
We approached closer... and stopped... maybe this way... the bombs are coming from over there (let's not go over there). We edged closer to the sea (the six foot swells seemed friendlier). Then Mike said "I see it".
Just beyond the point of rock, a blood red waterfall cascaded into the sea. We took some pictures. Then Mike said "we can get much closer over there".
I said "really"?
Like a rabbit ready to bolt at the first snap of a twig (if there were any twigs out here), I followed Mike along the beach, then up on the rocks, and suddenly we were standing in the presence of Pele! Alive, breathing, boiling the sea fifteen yards away. Despite the breeze from our back, the heat was at times nearly unbearable. I stood there with my mouth open for a long time before I remembered my camera.
After an hour, and two rolls of film (each), and a filled up video tape, we started back to the truck. My compass proved that we would have been in serious trouble if we had merely relied on sense of direction out there. Fourty five minutes later, exhausted, we intersected the "road" just mauka of where we had parked. We made short work of a 2 liter bottle of Gatorade and bounced our way back to civilization. I slept really good last night, and this morning I discovered that somebody ate my Nikes. They were the expensive kind... Nike Air... both them suckahs got flats.
Aloha,
jesse
PS... just a short note to the nice couple we met from Indiana (in case they are reading this). It's really fortunate that we convinced you to turn back instead of walking out there without flashlights. :) jc