Cruising The Big Island at 500 feet AGL

We have covered the bike ride and the scuba diving. The other really cool thing we did was take the Big Island Spectacular with Blue Hawaii Helicopters. This was a great two hour trip up and over Kilauea which is still active. Here is a photo of the Bride and I after returning from the flight. The Bride did not look as relaxed prior to the trip. She had never been in a helo before.

Our pilot was a Vietnam era pilot who had also flow for NBC in Los Angeles. He was the pilot of the chopper that followed OJ during the infamous Low Speed Chase.

We started up a valley and it was rainy and foggy and it did not appear we got more than 500 ft above the ground, but I looked at the altimeter and realized we had climbed up to over 6500 ft. We cruised around the smoking top of the volcano and then headed back down toward the sea, so we could see where the lava was flowing into the Pacific.

Then we flew the coast over to Hilo and explained how the Big Island is of one of the few islands with an active volcano and valleys. It has to do with the age of the island and the Big Island is actually big enough to have both. We circled a bridge next to what use to be an old Sugar Plantation. There use to be a railroad bridge next to the road bridge, but it was not rebuilt after a tsunami.

We continued our flight along the coast and it really was the picture you imagine when you hear about the cliffs of Hawaii. These cliffs were steep and high, with the blue water of the Pacific rolling in them. You can see the white surf crashing into the coast line. It was so absolutely beautiful. At this point another helo passed us (if you look closely you can see the dark speck—that gives you a good idea of the magnitude we are dealing with here).

We continued down the side of the Big Island and saw some amazing water falls. These sights were truly something out of a book. It was so amazing to see them for real.

Finally we headed up into the valleys where there were giant water falls.

We went up and down the different valleys looking at different water falls.

Finally we headed back to the heliport and have many fond memories of a great 2 hours in the air over the Big Island.

The next report is the Road to Hanna.

And so you don’t think I haven’t been working out—Tuesday I did 2300 yard in the pool and about 30 minutes of drills on the bike. This morning I did an easy 40 min run before work.