Alan Nelson's Daily Commentary for 16 September 1999

Kona, Big Island, Hawaii

We await the reawakening of the volcano. And the wait continues. Actually, our wait is probably done. Only if we find out early in the morning that the volcano is erupting would we be able to catch a helicopter over to the other side of the island. For all practical purposes, our hopes for seeing red lava have dwindled to nothing. I think that's the only negative of these vacation days.

We spent all of today snorkeling. Snorkel Bob outfitted Peggy with snorkeling equipment that fit well. Even corrective eye lenses built into the mask. Peggy also brought along my contact lenses and so I too saw better detail than I had before. I saw many species of fish that were old friends from the Kwajalein Atoll but some new ones also. I had not seen puffer fish at Kwajalein (though they are certainly there). I saw many today. These are the fish that can puff themselves from small fish size to large grapefruit size so that predators can't swallow them. That means they don't worry about people who are snorkeling either and so us humans can get very close to them. I also saw my first moray eel. They just look ugly! I did not try to get close to it.

There was more coral here than in Kwajalein. The water is also a bit cooler. At one spot where we snorkeled, another freshwater spring kept the water a bit nippy. It was more of a problem here than it was yesterday because where salt and fresh water met, it obscured visibility. It was really quite a nuisance because it was unpredictable. One moment visibility would be fantastic and then suddenly poor. Diving down 4 to 5 feet usually got down to clear visibility. It's just that breathing down there with a snorkel tube just doesn't work very well.

I had not even turned on the digital camera all day. I have a few underwater pictures but on "real film." Peggy and I were sitting down to dinner at a restaurant with an outdoor seating area and noticed the sky filling up with color and illuminating these boats out in the harbor. I actually ran back to the hotel room to get the camera and caught the boats before the lighting changed. That was a bit lucky.

But my luck didn't end there. Rain is never far away, and low sun angles always create the possibility of a rainbow. On our only sunset on the western side of the island we were treated to this one.

As I turned around from the rainbow, I was greeted with this view of the sunset. A little creativity in camera angle here, just below the bottom of this picture is a city street with traffic and pedestrians. I just didn't choose to include that in the picture.

I took the three pictures within a minute and 27 seconds. That was between the time that salad and my entree of grilled mahi mahi arrived at our table. It was good to have one last sunset bring this chronicle to an end. Tomorrow we leave for the 14 hour trip that spans six time zones. Then I'll be back at work at Goddard Space Flight Center. I will be adding one last update to this journal sometime next week when we have the panorama pictures stitched together.

It has been a grand month of watching videographers at work, writing a proposal in the midst of radiosonde training, watching how the TRMM scientists were working their craft, frustration in not getting to collect any radiosonde data, a bit of necessary drudgery in reprocessing the radiosonde data, and some great vacation times at the beginning and the end of this trip. Thanks for joining me.

It would be great if you would let me know how you have used these journals, or if they have been of any use to you. Or any other comments you might want to pass along.

Alan Nelson
(alan.nelson@gsfc.nasa.gov)