Hawaii, the paradise... (2)

Before boarded the plane to Honolulu, I promised my little Michelle to bring back 2 images for her.  One was the lava flowing into the ocean and the other one was the Milky Way nightly skies from Mauna Kea.  

When we got to the Big Island, the first thing I asked about was the "lava flowing into the ocean."  Sadly, I was told that after years of volcanic activities, about 3 months ago, the lava stopped flowing into the ocean because the lava tube broke... The lava is now flowing to an inland area instead going out to the ocean. 

My one and only hope for this trip immediately turned to a shot of the Milky Way!! 
    

The first day when we got to the Big Island was the new moon, so the sky was perfectly dark with nothing but stars!  The next morning, we drove up to the top of Mauna Kea just to lock down a perfect location for shooting at night.  The entire way up to the mountain made me deeply worried about my chance to get a Milky Way shot because we drove all the way up through clouds and rain...  When we got up there, surprisingly, the sun was shinning.  I had a long talk with the young guy who worked at the Mauna Kea Observation Center.  He showed me their world-class weather forecasting computer system where the sky was monitored and reported every 6 hours.  "For the next 4 days", he said with great confidence, "it will be dry and clear up here!"  Great, isn't it???!!!

We took our time early that evening, as we knew we would get a clear sky for the night.  Photographed the volcanoes at the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, which was about 60 miles from Mauna Kea.  Had a great dinner, then we headed up to Mauna Kea.  Guess what, I have to say the drive up to the mountain was one of the most dangerous drives I've ever made.  The visibility was so low that all we could see was the waves of clouds coming at us...  This went on for about 40 minutes, and I started to wonder if the young man at the observation center really knew what he was talking about...  I replayed his confident conclusion about the clear sky over and over in my head and could not believe that he had no clue about what he was talking about!!!

To my amusement, about 2 miles from the top of the mountain, the clouds suddenly disappeared -- yeah, I meant "suddenly".  All we could see was the dark sky and bright stars.  The place was unbelievably quiet.  There was absolutely nothing but darkness of the sky, brightness of the stars and the silence of the surroundings.  

Honestly, I have never seen so many stars so bright in my life!!  I took my SHOT, but realized that there was so much more the camera could not capture for me...       

I was so totally in love with the place that I got up at 4:30 AM the next morning and drove up there again, through clouds and rain, to capture the sunrise from the ocean of clouds.  Once again, it was so quiet up there, made me feel I was so close to a different world.  There was nothing but coldness, high winds and the unending beauty of an amazing sunrise above the clouds. 

I wish I knew how to photograph nature's wonders.  For the first time, I felt deeply how limited my photography skills were...