Climate zone crazy

Aloha

 This island is a natural scientists paradise. yesterday I traveled back to beach 69 with a few friends from class and because I was just riding in the car got to really experience the beauty of this island. As we drove the 1.5 hours from Hilo to the Kona coast, over the north tip of the island I experienced an array of climate zones. Beginning in Hilo we traveled the winding roads along the tropical Hamakua coast. Every valley you pass over as you drive houses a large array of tropical foliage and some sort of magnificent waterfall breaking though the trees over rocks and to beautiful sprigs below. 










Entering into Waimea the scenery goes from rainforest to more of a rainy grass land area and then as soon as you can see the coast the land scape goes barren.

Waimea 

Few trees sprout from the dry, harsh land and all you can see for miles is dirt and lava rock. It is absolutely incredible to see how quickly the environment changes. This drastic change also serves as an amazing place for studying and comparing different climate zones and their organisms as well as how they interact with one another.

Area between Wiamea and the coast

Rainbows as we entered Wiamea coming back
from the coast. :)



         Once on the coast I got to share what real, developed and striving coral reefs look like to one of my friends in my class. While we went snorkeling as a class at 4 mile here on the Hilo side, the reefs on this side of the island are not really reefs at all, rather they are very small coral communities. Coral communities are individual coral colonies scattered about on a rocky sandy bottom. In short the snorkeling on the Hilo side when we went was awful, but the snorkeling at 69 has yet to dissapoint. There were schools of colorful tropical fish everywhere, a huge pufferfish, a parrotfish that was at least a foot and a half long and two green sea turtles. We also tried our hand at a little rock running while we were in the water. For those of you who don't know rock running is where you have a brick or large rock at the sandy bottom of the ocean, you hold onto it and you run along the bottom until you run out of breath. Then of course you swim back up to the surface. It is used as a training tool for paddle boarding, hawaiian canoeing and other water sports here on the island.














Aloha