We woke early for breakfast on our first day on the Big Island and headed up to the buffet to fill our stomaches before our morning tour.

We had booked the "Secrets of Puna" tour from KapohoKine Adventures through NCL based off their description: "Cool off under swaying palm trees in a natural lava rock lagoon and feel the warmth of a black-sand beach between your toes. Drive across the black lava flows to the Puna District and Kilauea Volcano where you'll walk across the lava flows and find the new black-sand beach of Kaimu. Enjoy a Hawaiian barbecue lunch then take a drive to the Lava Tree State Park. Finally, your guide will share a beautiful coastal lagoon with you, protected by a reef."

While the tour was interesting, we felt it wasn't anywhere near worth the money we paid for versus what we could have done ourselves. Some of this had to do with our driver and fellow passengers. The driver was very downbeat about living in Hawai'i, complaining about how he had come out there and struggled to find work and how he was doing this tour part-time to make ends meet. Our two fellow passengers made this worse because they kept asking questions about housing prices and the job market and prices of goods because they wanted to move here, which only got the driver talking more about how depressing living there was, as opposed to talking about the beauty of the island.

Our first stop was at the Star of the Sea "Painted Church" which dates back to 1927 and features beautiful painted scenes of the story of Father Damien who worked with the lepers of Kalapana. The church has been moved three times to get it out of the way of the lava flows of Kilauea, the last time in 1990 when the town of Kalapana was destroyed by the Goddess Pele.

Our next stop was the site of the 1990 lava flows that destroyed Kalapana and created the new Kaimu black sand beaches. We were surprised not only by the devestation, but also by how nature was trying to reclaim the land with new foliage coming up through the lava.

Our next stops were at MacKensie State Park and the Malama-Ki Forest Preserve where we learned about the ironwood trees brought to the islands in the early 1880s that took over much of the island scenery.

It was time for lunch, so we headed to Puna Girl Farms. Puna Girl Farms is owned by a Cherie McArthur, who bought an eight-acre macadamia farm with her husband in the mid-1990s. They spent a year clearing land and bringing the farm back to life to grow macadamias. Lunch was a Hawai'ian barbeque with chicken, pork ribs, corn and salad. We had a chance to sample some of the farm's products and bought a few to take home with us.

Following lunch it was supposedly time to "cool off under swaying palm trees in a natural lava rock lagoon" as was advertised in the excursion description. Instead we found ourselves in what could best be described as a public swimming pool. While part of it might have been natural lava rock, the rest was a man-made pool and the palm trees didn't provide much cover.

We stopped next at Cape Kumakaki, the eastern-most part of the island, where lava flows in 1960 nearly destroyed the Cape Kumakahi Lighthouse.

Lava Tree State Park, located in the Nanawale Forest Reserve, is an amazing example of the power of the volcanic lava flow. Many years ago, lava flowed into the forest of 'O'hia' trees, burning them, but also encasing them in 'tree molds' as the lava solidified against the trees, leaving solid forms of lava that look like trees, complete with bark texture.

We walked amid the lava trees as well as on a mile-long nature walk with a number of native plants.

We returned the to the ship around 2PM, where Janie, Thomas and Rebecca took part in a lei making class. Janie and J. R. had booked a 'date night' in the ship's steakhouse, so we got the kids some buffet dinner before dropping Rebecca off at the kids' club. When we had booked our dinner, the hostess asked us what we were celebrating, and Janie said 'nothing, except being rid of the kids for the night.' So the restaurant served us a 'congratulatons' cake congratulatng us on having a kid-free meal.

After dinner, we all got back together for our pass-by Kilauea. Unfortunately, Pele was not cooperating with us as the lava flow was very light and it was hard to get a good picture.