Pt 3. Mauna Kea Summit and Sunset at 14,000′

Posted on April 16, 2012 by JasonM

Thanks for stopping by! If you missed parts one and two, read them here!

Green Sands Beach & The Manta Ray Dive Both were pretty awesome and the dive was an experience of a life time. Here’s the vid

Mauna Kea Summit

Sunday was a simple day, thankfully. We had planned to hit up some waterfalls early in the morning but we were SO tired after last nights dive with the Mantas!

Luckily, one of the master divers from last night’s dive convinced Kathryn that we had to go to the summit to see sunset and that the extra 4000′ made a huge difference. (she needed convincing of that) so we swapped our POS Aveo for Wrangler Sport.

My birthday keeps getting better. I always wanted to drive one of these!

Kathryn got us lost on the way out to Mauna Kea. I blame it on her POS GPS phone! I was clearly at a T intersection and made a distinct right hand turn- the GPS said to keep going! What the hell? I didn’t even get a “rerouting!” I’m never trusting any phone but my iPhone again.

At the summit we drove around to all the keks. Kathryn found out what its like to exert yourself at 14,000′, she said her legs felt like lead and she became light headed. I’ve been up this high before and could push push through the sensation, but Kathryn, she was loopy as ever!

The worlds biggest telescope is in one of these. The door was locked and we couldn't get in though.

For those of you that don’t know, Mauna Kea is a 14,000′ volcano and the highest peak in the Pacific Basin. The red soil from the volcano.

This video tells the rest of the story and has a time lapse of our sunset. It was very pretty and I will visit here again the next time I’m on island.

: My birthday keeps getting better. I always wanted to drive one of these!

: The worlds biggest telescope is in one of these. The door was locked and we couldn’t get in though. :(

Thanks for reading! These three days really are the best birthday I’ve had in 26 yrs. It was so much fun and it was something I really needed. Next year I’ll have to book a trip to the moon to beat this birthday trip!

Browse the archives to see what I’ve been up too. I started this blog just before Christmas 2011.

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Best Bday Ever pt 2: Giant Manta Ray Feeding Frenzy Dive

Posted on April 14, 2012 by JasonM

Hey! Thanks for visiting. Check out Birthday Pt 1: Green Sands Beach a secluded, one of only two beaches with green sand in the world.

Day 2 Manta Ray Dive

The manta ray dive off the Kona Coast, Hawaii was incredible! Hawaiian Legend says that each night a blessed Hahalua or giant manta ray takes the sun at sunset and delivers it under the island for the eastern sunrise each morning. It is said that if one of the mantas touch you that you are blessed.

I received a pat on the head by a manta during the dive, what a blessing for my birthday! Actually, at roughly 1,000 lbs per foot I’m lucky to have survived an impact with an animal the size of a small car. 24 giant manta’s were arrived that night to eat the plankton attracted by our light. The largest, Big Birtha, is 16′ across. Video by me and my GoPro and Martina from Manta Rays Hawaii.

The dive was incredible. As soon as I settled on the black sand sea bed a fat four food moray eel swam through around my legs and flippers. He was out to see what the party was all about, I guess. Let me just say, when a fat four foot eel swims up to you 3 minutes into your dive you know you’re in for a great dive experience. 24 giant mantas visited us for the show. The dive was after sunset and pitch black. We brought dive lights that illuminated the entire cove, tricking plankton into thinking it was day time and covering around the light beams. The manta follow the food and our party must have seemed like a chinese buffet. The mantas swam directly at our lights until their sensors detected us floating in front of them. Then they would veer into the masses of plankton consuming as they go.

Mantas are individually identifiable by the markings on their stomachs. There were 24 giant mantas with us that night. The biggest is Big Bertha- 16′ across and roughly 16,000 lbs. She is the Mother Ship. All the floating smaller ships traveling in all different directions made the feeding frenzy look like a scene from Star Wars.

The whole experience was amazing. Kathryn got to see the entire frenzy from the surface with other snorkelers. She said that the mantas swam right to surface and did back flips inches from her face. They were EVERY where! You can see the snorkelers in the video and us chilling on the ocean floor. (I had put rocks in my lap to weigh me down)

Below is mine and Martina’s from mantarayshawaii.com footage of the event. I had forty mins of footage on my GoPro and she put together a 20 min video. I combined them into a 4 min below and posted hers at the end. Check it out! They’re incredible.

Birthday pt 1.

My Best Birthday In 26 Years pt 3 Summit of Mauna Kea posting soon. I have a great time lapse of the sunset from 14,000′

See my last post on Obama Care or read what I’ve been up too these last few months.

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My Best Birthday in 26 Years pt 1 Green Sands Beach

Posted on April 12, 2012 by JasonM

I would take an experience over a thousand drunk birthday celebrations. Thats why, for my birthday this year, instead of a trip to the bar or to lame-ol’ Waikiki I booked a trip to the Big Island, Hawaii for a mini-adventure. Well, I didn’t book it- Kathryn did. Lucky for her, too, ’cause if I were writing the itinerary we’d have spent three nights sleeping in the jeep and careening around the island non-stop surviving on Red Bull, Power Bars, and potato chips. Lucky for us both, she made a great itinerary.

Happy Birthday, Love, Nevada DMV.

We hit the ground running at 8:30AM, ran over the Hertz and found out that I couldn’t rent a car- my license expired! thanks a lot Nevada. So, Kathryn hopped behind the wheel of our piece of shit Aveo and we sped off to South Point.

From where we parked we opted to hug the coast for 2.5-3 miles until we ended up at Papakolea Beach. Also known as Green Sands Beach. Green Sands beach is one of only two in the world. The other beach is on the Galapagos Islands. The Green Sand gets its color from the Olivine cinder cone that forms the back wall of the bay.