County Fair Time

County Fairs are always a fun event for me, seeing all the local groups and special interests that make our island unique. This was my first time to this event and I was participating with our photography club and also singing with our local choral group so that was action packed.

In spite of the limited attractions to agricultural and home craft displays that are usually predominant in these venues. I noticed that the star attractions are geared towards children and that covered games and rides.

Which was a little disappointing, but I took advantage of the twilight timeframe to go out explore and find some interesting shots to take in this colorful event.

Following are some of the highlights, I was able to capture at the Hilo county fair.

Screaming to their hearts content!

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Fireworks

Holy smokes, its really glowing right now! Vivid red hot colors contrasting against cold steam and vog are putting out a show tonight. While I was waiting for the sun to come down, the lava entering the ocean was churning and screaming in hot fiery colors and getting more intense as the sun came to its close.

I'm glad I decided to stay and watch the evening lava show come out in all its glory, and yes it was worth the wait. Even the tour boats bobbing dangerously close to the cliffsides were giving the boatloads of tourists amazing scenes of the lava pouring into the ocean. Their views look directly from the lava pouring down the cliffs to the ocean, something I would not be able to photograph since standing on the edge of crusty and unstable cliffs is more than a foolish thought, its immediate death. I'm sure most of the tourists on the boats thought the few people on land were just as crazy standing so close to the edge of live lava pouring down into the ocean.

The skies that evening were also quite beautiful, colorful sunset hues also gave us show over the kilauea mountain range. Sunsets are not typical on the east side were we get sun rises starting off our early days on the east side.

It was a fun hike exploring this area and seeing this amazing show, I'm glad I got to do this and have the opportunity to show you a little about my world here in East Hawaii.


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Getting a Close Eye View of an Active Lava Flow

As you can see this part of the island is alive and active with lava continuously flowing down from the Kilauea Volcano down to the ocean.  Even recently, just a few weeks ago this area you are seeing had an active flow spreading through this virgin forest and torching all the beauty around this wilderness. Its sad to see but Pele ( the goddess of Fire) does not spare anything in her pathway to the ocean even through vast areas of untouched beauty. In spite of this singed area, we are constantly reminded that this island is still alive and growing new lands and new beaches. 

Fortunately the tradewinds here are blowing all the smoke and what we call vog down southwest and off to the other islands. The vog is quite toxic to alot of people and whole agricultural industries have been devastated in our own county alone because of this recent phenomena.

Walking through the torched forest is not only eery but the ground is still very hot and soft to walk on, making me feel a little aware that I might still be walking on very tender crust that may easily collapse at any moment. Even though the active flow has moved further down to a new ocean entry, the ground closeby is still fragile and quite dangerous.

I decided to keep on hiking all the way to the lava entry since I saw quite a few hikers continuing towards the lava " I know blind, leading the blind ", despite the fact that the ground was still warm in this area where the lava entered recently.  But since I was following behind a hundred yards, it was a good indicator that things looked relatively safe. Here's a photo of me at least a few hundred feet away from the entry.

It is getting close to dusk and there's still alot of light but I really wanted to stay later and see the red glow and embers from the lava entering the water so I decided to stay a bit and walk around to see some more amazing discoveries along the way...here's a preview of what I'll be showing you on the next installment - Fireworks!

Unfortunately, I forgot my tripod again so the shot is a little blurry with the reduction of light, but stay tuned for some amazing captures that I was able to get in my next post.

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A Hike, Active Lava Flows and a New Beach

I usually drive past this portion of East Hawaii on my way to playing volleyball closeby. On my drive I always see the amazing plumes emanating from the lava flows entering the ocean. 

One day, I decided to take a nice long hike along the ocean to see how close I can go and wanted to see for myself the destruction and activity in the area since the flows have been very active again in the area and has also torched alot of virgin forests. Its about an hour hike to see the lava entry along the coastline which is a very scenic area.

Starting with cloudy and sprinkling skies I was relieved not to hike in the hot sun against black lava. But that quickly changed as the skies turned in a beautiful pure blue and made my hike a little more heated. Fortunately, I followed the paths along the shoreline so the vistas were quite spectacular and the trade winds were really picking up, it made the hike more bearable.

Along the way I past an old beach that was covered with the recent lava flows and despite being overtaken by lava, a good portion was still left intact with fresh new sand born on its shores, it is called Ka'awaloa.

Isn't it just spectacular and the new sand is so fine and an intense black color.

We are getting close to the active part of the lava entry which is just around the next bend, along the way I'll show you some of the recent areas that have been torched from a recent flow not even a few weeks old. Stay tuned for my next posts showing the rest of my hike to this amazing area.



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