From May to December 1997 I was/am/will be working in Hilo, Hawaii, which is on the island of Hawaii, commonly referred to as the Big Island. This page is a brief view of what goes on here. By the way, you can click on any image to get a larger one. It all started off at the beginning of April. I'd received word that I was to be working in Hawaii from May to August, along with a fellow Physics & Astronomy Co-op student, Michael Letawsky. We also heard that there were two engineers going down there as well, Chris Salvian and Andrew van Wensen. We met briefly in the Elliott building lobby, and didn't see each other until the beginning of May in Hawaii. Once in Hawaii, we struggled to cope with the heat. Our first night there, Mike and I were staying at Tim Jenness' house. The heat and humidity were unbelievable! Nothing at all like Victoria. The next morning my supervisor (Frossie Economou) picked us up and we went to work for the first time.

We work at the Joint Astronomy Centre, which is in Hilo, Hawaii. It's an establishment of the United Kingdom's Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, so there are a lot of British people working here. The two telescopes, the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) are both operated out of the JAC, UKIRT on behalf of PPARC and JCMT on behalf of PPARC, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research and the National Research Council of Canada. Mike and I both work for UKIRT, and Andrew and Chris worked for JCMT. The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope is the largest telescope designed to operate solely in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is located near the summit of Mauna Kea, the highest volcano on the island of Hawaii at an altitude of 4194 meters. Its primary mirror is 3.8 meters in diameter and very light for its size (about 6.5 tons). Numerous instruments are placed at the Cassegrain focus of the telescope, including a high-resolution spectrometer and an infrared camera. But enough about work.

For the first two weeks we stayed in Hale Kawili, which is adult student housing right next door to the University of Hawaii at Hilo. After that we moved to a real house. This house was just great. Four bedrooms, a sizeable kitchen (with breadmaker!), nice yard with pineapple, bananas, and avocados ready for the picking. The only thing it didn't have was a microwave. No big deal, though. We ended up doing a bit of damage to the place in our three months. The kitchen sink clogged nice and tight. One of the televisions mysteriously stopped working. The dishwasher in the basement leaked. A fan blade was broken. Nothing irreparable, luckily. Our primary source of transportation was Andrew's car, a 1984 Dodge Colt. Sara dubbed it the "PassionWagon". Notice the fine detailing along the bottom of the driver's side door, and the lack of a gas-cap to make fueling up a quicker and more economical process. Sure, the car might not look like much, but it got us around the island. Without it we would have been stuck in Hilo and very few of the fun adventures we had would have happened. This car might have been the best thing that happened to us, I'm afraid to admit. I should probably mention that in June we had an addition to our intrepid group: Sara Ellison, who came to Hawaii from England.

Hilo is the largest city on the island of Hawaii with a population of 45,000. To tell the truth, there's not a heck of a lot to do around here. Once you've been to Richardson Beach Park or Rainbow Falls so many times, they start to get boring. I've been through Kaumana Caves three times so far. If either of the other two UVic students come down to Hilo, I'll probably go there again. The night life in Hilo is rather dead. There's maybe one nightclub to speak of, but there are a few assorted bars. JAC used to be in a darts league, and they got together every Tuesday night at a different bar to take on another team. Once I went, and the other team didn't have enough players, so I got roped in. Well, we were playing the final game (of 1001), and both teams were shooting for doubles to win. I step up, and what do I throw? Double seven to win. For the wrong team. I heard mutters of "That's the last time we get a Canadian student." Oh, and it tends to rain a lot in Hilo. About 30 miles south of Hilo is Hawaii Volcanos National Park, which encompasses Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, and the summit of Mauna Loa. This park is like no other I've ever been to. The lava flow is usually readily accessible and, unlike other violently explosive volcanos, Kilauea is rather subdued. Thus the nickname "the drive-in volcano." We have made numerous trips into the park and surrounding regions, and subsequently taken a plethora of pictures, a surplus of snapshots, a flood of photos, very few of which are up here. Various members of our group have hiked right up to the active flow. Everybody except Brad, of course. Andrew has been the only one to go there twice, and he's got some nice shots. The two lava shots are both his. It is a fascinating feeling you get when you're walking across rock that's younger than you are. There are numerous craters in the park that have been active in the past 100 years, including Halema'uma'u and Kilauea Iki, shown here. Kilauea Iki was last active in the '50s, when it had the largest lava fountain ever seen from Kilauea. At around 1800 feet, it must have been a tremendous sight. The only crater actually active now (as of September 1997) is the Pu'u O'o crater, which is a few miles east-southeast of Kilauea Caldera. The other craters have steam vents, telling the world to not forget about them. Any crater could go up at any time, but it looks like they're quite quiet now. There are also some unusual signs in Hawaii Volcanos National Park that you don't see every day.