Viewing Kilauea Volcano Lava Flow into the Ocean by Sea

On the Big Island of Hawaii at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, you can hike (4-6 hour round trip) to see the lava flowing into the ocean and creating new land, or fly above the volcano flow on a commercial helicopter tour. However, a nice women who reads my blog emailed to ask me, since I live here, if I knew of any boat charters to view the lava spewing into the sea.

Well, since I spent an hour today trying to find out, I thought it would make a good blog post.

I called several boat charters from the yellow pages but most of them were sport fishing charters and no one could give me a business name of who did lava viewing tours by boat. One captain told me if their boat left from Hilo it would take all day as they had a slow boat and it would be a rough ride. Another captain told me although it sounds like a good idea, the location is prohibitive -- there is no place to lodge near the park, and it would be a long rough water trip out of Hilo.

Next I called the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and spoke to someone there. She said that she didn't know of any boat tours but even if she did, they are not suppose to recommend any commercial businesses. She did tell me though that a person sent them a video tape of their boat trip to see the lava flow, and when a ledge or cliff of lava rock broke off and fell into the ocean, it sucked the boat down and swamped the back of their boat with water! I don't know how close they were to viewing the flow, but that sounded pretty scary.

I did a internet search for volcano tours of lava Hawaii, and found an article about boats leaving from the Hale Beach Park near Pahoa in Puna, but it didn't have any contact names or phone numbers. I emailed them and will update this post when and if I get any new information. If you know of anything, please share via a comment.

You can see a daily report of the Kilauea volcano eruption from the US Geological Survey called the Kilauea Daily Update.

Comments

[Sheila]

Oh my goodness!! Thank you so much for all your

great research and time! (I'm sorry it too so long

to investigate.)

What a great post! I think a lot of first time

visitors (like I was several years ago)are

under the impression that you just park the car

at the end of the lava flow and watch the liquic

rock flowing :-)

One tour company said that they that they had

"heard of a boat tour company out of Hilo" that

had only just started offering tours to show the

new Poupou entry. Maybe it's too new or maybe

they hadn't heard it correctly.

[DoubleBrush]

I am glad you liked the post Sheila. Don't feel bad about how long it took me to investigate, I usually spend quite a bit of time on many of my posts!

[Kapuhi]

I would also recommend looking at some helicopter tours! I don't know, maybe a boat tour was requested because Sheila doesn't like flying. :) Not unusual! But I do know of some very safe helicopter companies who are happy to take you not only to see the lava, but to circle Kilauea's actual active vent, Pu'u 'O'o.

My husband and I have hiked out to the lava many times, from both the Chain of Craters road and from Kalapana side. However, *nothing* would induce me to get close to Pu'u 'O'o! :) I sure would like to see it by air, though.

Here's me at the lava a few years ago:

I'm the world's biggest scaredy cat, and not much on hiking far! But, I will say, if you can find a way to see the lava, it is totally worth it. I complained the whole way out the first time, but after that, I was ready to go again without complaint, simply because it is so incredible.

Aloha!

[DoubleBrush]

Re: Helicopter Tours, use my link "helicopter tour" in my post.

At HVN Park, you can tell when you are getting close to the flow because all of the cars are lined up and parked on the side of the road, and people are walking. After you pass by all of the cars, the pavement stops. Then it is more walking on uneven terrain of old lava flows.

In the day time there was a ranger there directing people where to walk. Even though he said it was safe, we could see orange molten lava through the cracks we were walking over. It was soooo hot that I felt like the bottom of my sneakers were melting off!