Near the end of a recent swim, I saw this smallish Green Turtle. It was cruising along in shallow water near the ladder I was aiming for. It disappeared into the rocks, but I hung around hoping for another sight of it, and was rewarded when it came back out and swan past me before returning to the shelter of the rocks. I didn’t follow since I don’t have a shell to protect me from the bumps the turtle was undoubtedly encountering.
These falls are 442 feet high and there’s greenery all along the cliff the falls tumble over. There’s an endemic goby fish that spawns above the falls, but lives in the ocean. It has a suction disk that enables it to climb the falls at spawning time. There’s a shrimp that does similar, but without the suction disk!
Some Firecracker flowers amongst banana leaves at Akaka Falls State Park. Posted for Terri’s Flower Hour. See more responses here.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Colors of Lava and Black.’ See more responses here. I thought a collection of colorful lava fit the bill. These were taken on two of the trails in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Kau Desert Trail and the Puna Coast Trail.
Finally, some red lava erupting from Kilauea volcano. I posted a few days ago (here) about the pressurized situation at the volcano when I visited last week. This is a screen shot from one of the live webcams at Kilauea (here). This most recent eruption began a little after three yesterday morning and ended around 6 hours later. I missed it by a week!
I was down at Kilauea Volcano this past weekend, checking out the state of the volcano. Since December 2024 there has been a series of 54 episodes of the current eruption. Episode 55 was expected about three weeks ago, but changes in the volcano have not produced another fountaining episode. Instead, there have been lots of small earthquakes, signs of lava movement underground, and a continuing build up of pressure. The volcanologists aren’t sure what to expect next, so some areas and trails have been closed for safety.
Two changes really struck me on this visit. First was that the crater viewing area at the Jagger Museum was open again. This closed after the 2018 draining and collapses in the crater, which rendered the museum unsafe. Now the museum is gone, having been removed over the past few years. However, the viewing area is still there and they’ve done a nice job of redoing it into a perfect space for volcano watching.
The second thing, which can be seen in these photos, is just how much the crater has filled in since the 2018 collapse. The crater floor was 1600 feet lower after that event, but now is back up to where it was before, and the active area is reaching the level of the rim!
I was hoping something dramatic would happen during my visit, but was disappointed. In the meantime, the rumblings continue.
Anyone who has visited Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and driven down Chain of Craters Road to the coast, likely ended up taking a photo of Holei Arch, which is near the end of the road.
Anyone who visits that spot in the future will not do that, because the arch is no more. It collapsed while the park was closed during the passage of Tropical Storm Nolo. The exact time of its collapse isn’t known. It was there on Wednesday, September 23, but gone by Sunday evening on September 27.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Stairs/Steps.’ See more responses here. Captions on the photos as usual.
