Twin fireballs swirled at the edge of the slope, beacons burning bright orange in the pitch dark of the night, hissing and steaming as the lava stream snaked into the Pacific.
This was creation, up close. After 3 million years, Pele, the restless volcano goddess of Hawaii, was still active, still island-building.It was past midnight on the deck of the SS Constitution, and many of the passengers were groggy after their don't-miss-the-volcano-erupting wake-up calls from the purser. We milled about by the starboard rails, peering in the blackness toward the gushing spectacle a few hundred yards away as if it were a July Fourth fireworks display. "Geez" was the operative word; adjectives were hard to come by, especially at 1 a.m.
The Big Island of Hawaii was growing, a natural phenomenon that has been going on now for more than a few eons. And some of us had the chutzpah to presume that this show was for our benefit.
A visit to the volcanoes on Hawaii - among the stops during a seven-day, four-island cruise of the 50th state - was just another shmear of frosting on the tropical cake. It was a week in which I was:
- Charmed by Maui
- Wowed by Kauai (koo-aye)
- Dazzled by sunsets at sea
- Amazed by a total solar eclipse (but don't expect another one until the year 2017).
Hawaii is not a big state in terms of square miles but it's big when you consider visiting it from end to end. North to south, the island chain is the length of the U.S. East Coast. The major islands are separated by only a few hundred miles. Cruising is the relaxed way to check out the immediate archipelago, and American Hawaii Cruises owns one of the few games in town.
The line's two ships, the SS Constitution and the SS Independence, are the only cruise ships in the world registered in the United States, so stars-and-stripes patriotism can be a rationale for selecting American Hawaii. During a week on the Constitution in July, I found the food, service and amenities to be very cruiselike - lots of food, little of it memorable; gentle service people; utilitarian cabins, predictable entertainment. The fresh-water swimming pool and the well-equipped exercise room on the sunny sports deck were bonuses.
American Hawaii does it up right, as much for what happens off the ship as for what happens on it: Five days of excursions are offered - for most tastes and budgets - that make this much more than just a holiday of gorging and sunning and sleeping at sea.
Consider it a Hawaiian sampler.
Both ships depart from Honolulu, and many passengers book-end their cruises with a stay on Oahu: Baking on the beach at Ala Moana or strolling the Kalakaua shopping street is irresistable to most first-time visitors. The Constitution embarks on Saturday evening - leaving behind the lights of Waikiki's towers tiny and white, like a brilliant computer graphic - and spends Sunday at sea, circling an island or three.
The usual agenda also calls for a day at Maui, two on the Big Island of Hawaii and two on Kauai. By the end of the week, after all the leis and the luaus, the snorkeling and the surfing, the cliffs and the waterfalls, the lush fields of green pineapple and tall sugarcane, you're well equipped to pick a favorite place for the next Hawaiian vacation.
I'll take Kauai.
Our shipload of passengers was cheated out of a day there, but it was worth it, because the major aim of our trip - a once-in-a-lifetime "theme" cruise - was to view the July 11 total solar eclipse with the least distraction.
Isolated at sea as the massive shadow of the moon swept toward us (I began to hum a 20-year-old pop tune called "Slippin' Into Darkness"), the Constitution's passengers absorbed the phenomenon in different ways. A gray-haired woman from Los Angeles wept. "No matter how much we study we can never comprehend God," she said.
The rest of that Thursday was spent unwinding (cameras and emotions) and sailing north. Napping was a big activity that day. Five days on a cruise is exhausting anyway. So I rested up for Kauai.
Kauai is verdant like no other Hawaiian island - "bright as a lime," notes one guidebook - and slightly aloof: It's 100 miles northwest of Honolulu, geographically separated from its sister islands, and has villages for cities and an easy-going population of about 45,000 people.
Kauai is one big volcano, Waialeale, and the oldest Hawaiian island. And the wettest; the top of Waialeale is supposedly the rainiest place on earth - 471 inches each year. But on the beaches, no problem.
The surfing is fabulous on Kauai, but because I had a half-day kayak trip booked for the afternoon, there was only time for a swim at Kalapaki Beach, near Nawiliwili Bay, where the Constitution docked.
Despite the Las Vegasy trappings of the glitzy hotel behind it, the Kalapaki strand is a crescent of nirvana for beaches: soft sand, warm water with gentle waves and terrific southern exposure for sunning.
There's a good two-lane road that circumnavigates most of the island, and next time I plan to rent a car and visit Hanapepe, Waimea, Barking Sands, Hanalei and the movie-set beauty of Bali Hai (yes, that Bali Hai).
But there's no monopoly on beauty in Kauai. Halfway up Huleia River on our 3-mile kayak trip, we could see the spot where Indiana Jones escaped from the Hovidoes Indians in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." There were no Hovidoes (but plenty of mosquitoes; bring the Off) as we paddled body-sized yellow kayaks through the gorgeous Huleia National Wildlife Refuge. Banana trees to the left of us, coffee bean plantations to the right, papayas and guavas dead ahead.
You need to be minimally athletic to sign up for the river trip, as well as for some of the other excursions offered by American Hawaii. The biking trip down the Haleakala volcano on Maui is all downhill, but it's 38 miles downhill. The Fairwind snorkel sail is a delightful day off the Kona coast - a trio of frisky dolphins led our trimaran on a chase - but only a little delightful if you don't snorkel or scuba-dive. There are scads of helicopter trips, too - over the volcanoes, over the craters, over the coastlines. I don't do helicopters, but many did.
The "in" island of the '90s, Maui, the "Valley Isle," has a full variety of attractions, from the enormous Haleakala Crater (touted as big enough to hold the island of Manhattan) to the modular hotel-resort community of Kaanapali to the museum town of Lahaina, tailor-made for visitors with its seaside restaurants and dozens of kitschy shops. Sugarcane used to be Maui's major crop; now it's tourists.
Maui from the aft deck of the Constitution was a sprawling green gem as we sailed past it one morning, its soft slopes contrasting with the stony sea cliffs of Molokai - a sleepy island outside the tourism mainstream - across the straights.
Take your pick of a dozen available shore trips (including whale-watching excursions in the migratory season from Christmas till Easter), but I elected to rent a car and cruise the land for a few hours. Maui's west side is easily negotiated by auto; the Hana Drive, with its 25 miles of twists and turns and switchbacks, is best left to the tour buses. Anyway, Hana isn't worth the time if you have only a day.
Lahaina Town is a front-street village that bakes because the West Maui Mountains block the trade winds (in Hawaiian Lahaina means "cruel sun"). The first Hawaiian capital under King Kamehameha, Lahaina was a whaling capital before it became a T-shirt capital. Actually, one shop worth a stop is the Crazy Shirt emporium, which is part whaling museum and has a lovely terrace facing the beach.
Schedule Lahaina around lunch. The waterfront bistros like Kimo's and Lahaina Fish Co. have terrific views, even if the fish is pedestrian; foodies might do better to sample David Paul's inventive cuisine at his grill in the classy Lahaina Hotel in the town's historic district, or venture 6 miles east of town to Chez Paul, for expensive country French.
On our way back to the ship, we detoured a few miles north of Lahaina to the corporate resort of Kaanapali, with its grandiose hotels, gallerias and sandy beaches, and later cruised through the Iao Valley, a cool oasis of moss and ferns.
Mark Twain called the park "the Yosemite of the Pacific," which might be overstatement, but it is filled with lush plants and sweet-smelling flowers, and you get a good idea of the height of Maui on this trip: One drives down into the valley - actually, the crater of the West Maui volcano - and the bottom is still 2,200 feet above sea level.
At the edge of the valley, at Black Gorge, is one of Hawaii's most insignificent - yet one of its most curious - tourist attractions. It's a formation of black rock. You look at it through a tube, to isolate it from the rest of the landscape. From the correct angle, the rock looks like a profile of John Kennedy.
For most passengers, excursions are the meat and potatoes of a weeklong cruise on the Constitution, except for the meat and potatoes.
Macadamia nuts are not served on board (I loaded up on them at the ABC Discount Shops - about $3 a can), but everything else that's fattening is dished up at mealtimes. Breakfast and lunch buffets had the obvious and not-so-obvious: a different fruit pancake daily, stir-fry shrimp and scallops, beef with broccoli, gooey spare ribs. Desserts were easily avoided, and the fresh fruit was the automatic alternative to the pastries and sticky pies. The coffee, the native Kona blend, was outstanding throughout the day.
Dinners approached nouvelle, which was OK, because on a ship you can always order a second entree, or a second anything. The native fish dishes, including mahi-mahi, were dull, and the beef and steaks alternated between chewy and tough. A scampi and a Hawaiian chicken recipe rated high marks, and Coquilles St. Jacques were right there, the perfect blend of scallops, cream and puree.
Fire was the image of Hawaii that I took away. The fire of the sunsets, spectacular purples and oranges courtesy of Mount Pinatubo's ash and pollution; the firebell of lava that poured into the black sea off the Big Island; the burning corona and flashing red flares that lit up the edge of the solar eclipse. And the remnants of eons of fire at the big volcano, Kilauea.
On our trip around the rim of the volcano, we passed from lush rain-forest foliage into acid-rain desert, and then there were the craters: gray and black, sterile and flat, desolate, spewing tiny geysers of gas from the cracks, or vents, in the dusty moonlike surface.
We circled the volcano's caldera, snapping pictures of the hardened lava under our feet, lava that was still cooling. There was a slight smell of sulphur in the air. There was no fire here - the only eruptions on the island were on the coast at the cinder cone of Pu'u O'o, whose fireballs we would see from the ship later that night.
Deep under the surface the liquid-fire magma was moving, the earth was shifting, and Hawaii beneath the sea was growing. Atop the moonscape of Kilauea, the silence was eerie. Steam rose from the rifts, but Pele, the volcano goddess, rested. For the moment.