This is a story from our trip out to the Kalapana G61 ocean entry near Pahoa, Hawai’i. My wife and I ventured to the Big Island for our honeymoon and it was a trip that neither of us will ever forget!
First off I have to send out a huge mahalo to bruddah Bruce from Extreme Exposures, because without him this image wouldn’t have been possible. If you’re ever on the big island definitely look up Bruce and Tom- two of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. I also have to thank my amazing wife Kelcee for putting up with my shenanigans and getting up at 12:30am to go shoot lava. She was a trooper!
There’s a story that goes with this one and it’s a bit of a doozy. Ever since I was a kid my dad always told me stories about things that my grandfather had seen when he was growing up in the islands- everything from menehunes to the occasional spirit. I was hesitant to believe a lot of that stuff, but I had never gotten to truly experience anything quite like that first hand. This trip changed that.
We left our condo near Pahala at 12:30am to make it over to the Kalapana area to meet up with Bruce at 1:30am. We met up at the local gas station, loaded up with some gatorade and water and started to head down the gravel access road toward the flow. It was raining, visibility sort of sucked and I was starting to worry that we wouldn’t be able to make it out to the flow on account of the weather. That’s when things got a little crazy.
We were approaching the electronic sign that informed potential hikers of the dangers and gave a brief description of what to expect on the hike out to the flow. That’s when Bruce and I saw something that just didn’t seem right- it still gives me chicken skin thinking about it. We both saw a young Hawaiian women holding a red umbrella hitch hiking toward the lava flow. Let me preface this by saying that it was almost 2am, pouring down rain on an access road who’s end point was a lava flow. There’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that it was Pele. My wife Kelcee didn’t see her and she was gone before Bruce and I knew what we had seen.
When we got out to the flow it was absolutely going crazy- breakouts everywhere and the heat was absolutely intense! I had brought a lei of ti leaves with me to drop out on the flow and I did so while we were out there- and thank goodness too because legend says that it’s extremely bad luck if you don’t stop for her and pick her up. In hindsight I don’t think it was a bad omen or anything like that- I think she was just letting us know that she was there and watching over us. It’s definitely something that I will never forget!
That was just the start of our amazing honeymoon. In the gallery above you will find a collection of my favorite images from the trip to the Big Island. I hope that you will enjoy them!
Hawai’i (The Big Island), Hawai’i
