Joe and Judy Baumgartner Upon awaking the next morning, we went out to the balcony to watch our approach into Hilo. The early morning was bright and clear as we proceeded down the coastline. With no clouds forming yet, we had clear views of the observatory stations at the top of Mauna Kea, down across Mauna Loa, and a stunning view of the volcanic plume of Kilauea. We tied up at a pier a couple of miles from downtown, and right next to the airport.   Upon disembarking, we finally got “lei’d” in Hawaii. You could tell the cruisers from the rest of the folks by the purple flower leis we were all wearing. (Not to mention the bright, white legs on oh so many of us.) Hilo can be a pretty wet place. They get between 130 and 200 inches of rain a year. As the morning warmed up, clouds rapidly formed. Starting about noon that day the rainfall average was significantly added to. This microclimate of warm and sunny on the west side of the islands, and warm and wetter on the east side holds true for most of the Hawaiian chain. Also, the year round temps across the islands are almost always in the 80’s during the day, and the 70’s at night. Look out Al Roker, me sound like I know weather, uh. As I said somewhere towards the top of this thing, we had booked the Safariair helicopter tour of the volcanoes and waterfalls. This was the tour we were most looking forward to on this trip. We were not disappointed.  I love any type of flying, and Judy had never been in a rotary wing contraption. The combination of my anticipation and her trepidation got our “couples” karma out of whack. We were already a little uncertain whether the flight would get off with the building weather.   When we booked this flight over the Internet, we had requested the 1:30 PM flight just in case there was a major delay in getting off the boat. When you book these rotary wing tours you need to give your height and weight so the pilot can calculate center-of-gravity and weight and balance for the aircraft. We received an e-mail from them prior to leaving home; implying one of us was just a little too “tubby” for the 1:30 lift-off. We were shifted to the 10:00 AM flight. A representative from Safariair picked us up from the pier at about 9:15 and drove us to their facility at the Hilo airport. Once inside, we were weighed on a digital scale to confirm no “slimming” fibs were told over the Internet. After the rest of the tour group arrived, we were given a safety briefing, our seating assignment, and introduced to our pilot, Jim. The aircraft held seven people. Four sat in the back seat, and two paxs and the pilot sat in the front. We got really lucky here. Four nice people loaded into the back, Judy got the middle, front seat, and “tubby” got the left hand, front door seat. What a fantastic view for the hour-long flight. Jim gave us another flight safety briefing, and we went light on the skids. We all wore Bose noise-canceling intercom headsets during the flight. These worked fantastically. You could barely hear the airplane, but the piped over Hawaiian music and Jim’s superb and entertaining narration was crystal clear. The aircraft was equipped with a video camera system with forward and side mounted cameras and six videotapes. The tape has the flight video with Jim’s narration, and the Hawaiian music for $20. They’re worth it for the music!  It had started raining fairly hard as we departed the airport. Jim kept up his running narration of points of interest as we flew toward the Kilauea calderas. The rain stopped just as we started flying over older lava flows. Once we got over the southwestern side of the volcano, we could see the venting plumes from the lava tubes running down to the sea. Periodically we could see the molten lava as it broke through the surface. Once over the ocean, we could clearly see the orange-red lava flowing into the ocean from several tubes, sending vast clouds of hydrochloric acid into the air. That would be a baaad place to take a deep breath if you were on the ground.   After showing us the volcano area, Jim headed back to the north of Hilo. Along the winding river, flowing out to the sea, several huge and majestic waterfalls came into view. We descended and circled the waterfalls for about 15 minutes. Way, way too soon it was time to head back and land. After landing, we deplaned the rotary thing. A staffer grabbed our cameras and took a shot of each of us in front of the helicopter. Safariair is one class act. We were driven back to the pier upon completion of this fantastic tour. We later heard that the rains and low clouds had cancelled the afternoon flights. Tubby is now glad he didn’t listen real close to his cardiologist. Otherwise we’d have missed our flight.   The helicopter ride was silky smooth, Judy likes helicopters, and all is right in the world.  During our flight, Jim had told us that downtown Hilo is not really a “tourist” type place as far as its layout goes. So… momma made a decision and we went shopping. We jumped on the ever-present gratis Hilo Hattie’s bus and headed out. The Hattie’s representative handed out free puka shell necklaces. They did this in every port. (OOPS! Kids, the necklaces we gave you were the really, really expensive ones.) After Hattie’s, we walked across the street to Wal-Mart for more vacation fun. From there it was back to the ship for our now normal shipboard routine, and our departure for Maui. Interested in becoming a travel agent? Follow this link to find out more. Home Based Travel Agent