As we only had two nights in Hawaii, I wanted to make the most of it, so I decided to book us on a helicopter ride across the island. A few days beforehand, Adrian had a nightmare where I raised my arms while I was under the rotors, and lost both my hands. He had also seen quite a few movies where the people in the helicopter fare very badly. So he was quite worried about flying in a helicopter over the world’s most active volcano. As we entered the cockpit, Adrian made sure that my hands were firmly by my sides, even though the rotors were still. There were five of us in the helicopter, with Toshi as our pilot. I sat next to him as his co-pilot. We were all buckled in, with our noise-cancelling headphones and microphones for talking with the rest of the crew.

Toshi pointed out the landmarks, crops, and formations as we glided through the clouds to the other side of the island. We were staying on the dry side of the island, black and desolate apart from the fluorescent green of the irrigated resort townships with their McMansions and golf-courses. As we crossed to the other side of the mountains, the land suddenly became lush, filled with squares of eucalyptus and macadamia nut trees. Finally, we were flying over Volcanoes National Park. Most of the park is vast rainforest, but amongst this life we saw huge black gashes caused by recent lava flows. The most recent lava flow occurred a few months ago, and is still pouring out to the ocean through a lava tube. As the lava stream cools, it retreats from the surface and forms a red hot tube underground filled with fast flowing lava. I have walked through old and cold lava tubes, but I have never seen one in progress. As we flew over the top of the tube, we saw the white water vapour from recent rains, as well as the blue sulfur dioxide from the lava vents. Part of the roof of the tube had collapsed, and we were able to peer down and see a pool of red hot lava swirling below the crust. In other nearby spots, some of the lava was still on the surface, visible in intense red waves that contrasted the the blackness of the rest of the landscape.

We followed the lava tube for a few kilometers, until it reached the Pacific Ocean. There, it poured out into the water, with black eruptions emanating from the cliff, and a huge plume of white water vapour rising from the point of contact. Yellow sulphur formed a ring around the entry point, and the island of Hawai’i grew larger beneath us as we watched. We flew back to the helipad via some spectacular valleys and waterfalls, and we returned to our hotel safe and sound, with all our limbs intact, and our minds full of the images of lava swirling below us.