So today we had a fun day of adventures. In the morning, groups traveled to NELHA, the home of one of the OTEC stations. OTEC means Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, and it is used to produce clean energy that doesn’t pollute the air. Using OTEC, Hawaii has been able to reduce the amount of energy imports. One other interesting thing was saw was a monk seal. He was only 4 1/2 weeks old, and the facility was helping him get ready for ocean life again. We learned how to properly tube feed a monk seal, and there was even a demonstration. Our groups split up and my group went on a hike at Pololu Valley Lookout. It was a beautiful view there and we took some great pictures.
We then went on rope swing and we had all of us pulling on the rope, and the dude on the rope went so high. We then hiked back up the mountain in record time (it takes 30-40 min to hike, and we did it in 17). We even stopped for fresh pineapple and a nice smoothies.
On our way back we stoped at a tunnel that was carved out by lava two hundred years ago. We learned about the rock formations that occur with cooling lava – pahoehoe (the cool, smooth type) and aa (the rough, jagged type). We also learned about how different minerals are formed in the rock. For instance, the red rocks contained rust and the yellow rocks contained sulfur. my group went all the way through the tunnel and headed back to the van.
