Pololu Valley, One of the Seven Valleys of the King, Morning Hike

Our third summer hiking adventure brought us to Pololu Valley. The northernmost of the Seven Valleys of the King on the Hamakua Coast. Sounding like a broken record at this point but every other time I've hiked down to the black sand beach it's been very muddy and/or raining. But just like our Akaka Falls day, it was all sun all the time. I'd planned on hiking barefoot and my cousin upon reaching the trailhead ditched her hiking boots and joined me. YESSSSSS

The biggest marginatas (yea, that house plant but it's great grandfather Goliath) filter the edges of the switchback on one side and enormous ironwoods on the other. I've climbed some of these trees on previous hikes. Examining those now, either there's been a lot of erosion and it wasn't that close to the cliff edge before or I was young and out of my mind. Either is plausible. 

Even though it's full sun, the ironwoods provide shade for much of the hike down. Down is always the easy fun part. And we were mountain goating it.

We're halfway down here and this shoot would reflect that better if I didn't solely possess a 85mm right now. I could only backup so much and still remain alive. 

Getting closer...

You can see a few of the other seven valleys here. 

The black sand beach had a gold dust layer of olivine on it glistening in the sun. Fun fact: This volcanic eruption born green beauty is what gives us the August birthstone gemstone peridot. 

I adore the contrast of black sand beaches. I don't just blend in here. 

Mmmmm the contrast of black sand and white sea foam. 

Lava rock comes in shades of black, red, blue grey, brown and yellow based on a couple of factors, one being cooling time. There's an intense surf break here and high winds changing these normally jagged rocks into smooth stones all along the beach. 

Eeek! Portuguese man o' war! Not a jellyfish but a siphonophore which is super weird and cool..unless you get stung by one then you will not think it's cool..at all. It's basically a colony of clones with various functions that all work together as one. Creepy. It has a cute little cloud shaped balloon and below that hanging tentacles of tremendous pain. Those tentacles contain things called nematocysts, tiny teeny capsules with a Neopoleon complex as they are loaded with coiled AND barbed tubes that deliver paralyzing and deadly (to small ocean creatures) venom. And they can still sting you when washed up on the shore, disguised as a truck-stop vending machine condom. Which is a double edged sword as NO ONE will pick that up off the beach but people step on them ALL the time. We stumbled upon (thankfully not literally) two on this adventure, both suffering sapphire blue but they also come in hot poker pink and violent violet. 

London Running from Man o'war..kidding.

Drift wood script font.  

Full sun at high noon, I know better but we were ready for the climb back out and lunch in the artist community of Hawi so we set the timer and 3..2..1. Ohhh good enough!