More Hawaii notes, this time with some pictures

As soon as we arrived, we hit a local market for provisions. I could not convince myself to indulge in Boone’s Farm Blue Hawaiian…

… but we did buy all sorts of tropical fruit. We got rambutan, which is a relative of the lychee, but looks like an overgrown strawberry with curled spikes …

… and these cute fingerling bananas which I’ve grown very fond of. This may be the first non-Cavendish banana I’ve ever had, aside from an occasional plantain. They have a delicate taste, but the sweetness has a slightly sharper edge, almost a hint of citrus. I wonder if I can find these in Portland?

Here is Magic Sands Beach, a tiny little spot in Kona, but the first opportunity we had to plunge into the Pacific on this trip.

One night we did a tour in a glass-bottomed boat, where I caught a brief shot of a manta ray.

The next day we hiked the Kilauea Crater. The hike starts up on a 400-foot rim surrounding the crater, …

… and then descends to the floor of the caldera.

The ferns growing on the crater rim hike are amazingly lush and large.

On the drive back towards Kona, we stumbled upon a tiny, rustic, rural graveyard dug from a lava-riddled hillside.

Tomorrow, we catch a shuttle to Kauai.