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The volcano, and 'plume'.

This page is solely photos of the Volcano and she is affectionately named Madame Pele (Pélé for pronunciation).

Cindy and I took a LOT of photos of the Volcano, and I'll try to cull this down to a reasonable page.  Unfortunately, I don't have a high quality lens, so I couldn't take any great shots of the night sky.  The f-stop is too slow.  The stars were absolutely breathtaking, and it was almost impossible to locate the constellations because there were so many stars that we're just not accustomed to seeing with all the light pollution we've grown accustomed to.

     
Helena is so serious...           Ocean in the front!               Jeeves, to the 'plume'!        Do you think they have enough
                                                                                                                              warning signs?

   
They take their warnings        The 'plume' from the volcano tube in the distance...
serious here...

 
These folks are actually         There's the walking path.
rebuilding on the land
they own, only there's a load
of lava on top of their land.

   
The backpack chairs are an AWESOME idea, everything in one convenient package!

   
Warning:                              Two shots of the 'plume' while we're trekking over the
You gotta have a flashlight     lava flow...
for the walk back, it's
required because it's SO DARK!
Seriously, you'd be in trouble without them.

 
To give an idea of the terrain we traversed...
Notice the yellow stripe?  That's so you know where the
path is to get back out!  It is THAT DARK!!!

     
The 'plume' from the             Now you see why the backpack chairs are a great idea!  Sit back and enjoy the show.
viewing area, roped off.
We're about 1/2 mile
away from the Plume...

   
What we're here to see, it gets better as the sun goes down...

     
I liked this sequence of the sun setting into the 'vog' behind Mauna Loa.  (Cindy did the photography sequence I think...)
     

 

 
A little shot of the visitors to Hawaii...

   
Just starting to see the heat at the bottom of the plume...

 
   
That red 's actually light emitted from the lava flowing directly into the sea through a 'tube' underground below a shelf of cooled lava,
The plume is actually steam, gas, soot and copious amounts of sulfur dioxide from the meeting of the volcanic lava and the sea...

   
Those little white specks in front of us aren't flashlights, they're
a bunch of little camera screens...

   
 
Once the Sun finally had set, then the real show started.  Unfortunately, these photos, while awesome, are nothing compared to being there on
a night when Madame Pele is active.  We found out that the previous several weeks, the tube was apparently plugged and there was no plume
at all.  The day we arrived the lava had cleared the obstruction and started again!  A day earlier and we wouldn't have seen anything!
   
 

I'll just leave out the commentary for a bit and let you see what we saw...

   
 

                                 
These were about the last real close up shots I could get, but not quite.

   
I really want to get a better lens solely for night shots of stars and such...
These were pretty good, though...
  The sky darkened in this dramatic fashion, too.

   
 
Here's where we start to see lava debris actually shooting out of the water.  The second and third shot were the best I could do...

I hope you have enjoyed our little page on the volcano activity on the Big Island.

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