Where Land Disappears

Creation and Destruction

These are some shots I took whilst checking out the Big Island of Hawaii. I was staying in Hilo, a rainy old colonial town on the East side of the island, in a typically rustic old house at the end of a dense jungled street. A dead end road. Far I went. Circling the island in 18hours, with pitstops to deserted black and green olivine sand beaches, remote electricity-free towns where the people still live life the old Hawaiian way- in tune with the celestial dance of the Sun & Moon.

I did a lot of rummaging through thrift and gift shops, finding others' memories and stockpiling mine; crossing paths with aquarian mystics, wild bird people and local earth children- swimming with ancient sea-creatures into the depths of big blue liquid.The ocean more crystalline and opalescent than I've ever seen her, mottled by reflections of colourful flowers and light. In curiousity I would stumble upon secret surf spots, local fishing harbours, and cliff paths leading to sacred solitude and raw black sand beaches, red dirt roads and once-living-now-petrified black lava fields. Meanwhile, up in the valley, you could find me swinging off tree vines and crashing into Hilo river, jumping off steep-gorge faces into 50ft gulches and floating down rapid rocky rivers. Hillbilly me making up for mispent urban childhood. Hawaii has some of the most amazing variety of landscape contained within such a small space.

I awoke at 3am to drive up the eerily quiet Saddle Road, drenched in folklore tales of magical beings and local apparitions, up to the 14,000ft summit of the great dormant Mauna Kea Volcano, to watch the sunrise. (Mauna Kea is the largest mountain on the planet-measured from the bottom of the ocean floor to summit) Not one soul in sight. The air is so clean, it refracts clarity upon vision- everything looks so crisp and real; but real far out. The landscape is vast, wild and undulating, ranging from harsh lava desert to very cold arctic tundra with snow and ice capped mountains . The red earth is so potent, she stains everything she touches, bleeding colour onto snow laced mountain tops. At the other extreme, temperate prairies are overrun with mongoose and cattle, and along the North Shore there are tropical rainforests and the jungle of Waipio Valley-good remote surfing! After 12 hours of driving I found sanctuary-in the Place Of Refuge (top)..singing to Tiki Gods and dancing around the sacred old settlement, between the ancient rock walls and thatched grass tenements, reserved for taboo breakers and noble ali'i (the royalty), who's mana (spirit/soul/cosmic force) was powerful enough to absolve you from your deadliest sins-that's if you could swim past all the man-eating sharks

Stretched out above is Poliahu, in legend the sister of Pele-the Hawaiian Goddess Of Creation and Destruction, in geography a dormant volcano crater, blanketed by snow half of the year, and clouds most of the year.
Below is part of Kilauea Crater, in the Volcano's National Park, believed to be Pele's home. This is the most active volcano in the world, constantly spewing lava into the ocean at a rate of who-knows what. And deep beneath the oceans' surface, an island is forming , reassurance of the continual cycles of nature.

Surf's Up?

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