Hi everyone, I have just bought this domain and this is my first post about my visit to Hawaii and the interesting people I have met there from all over the planet.

This was my first visit to Hawaii from the UK and after travelling nearly 17 hours from Heathrow, London I finally arrived to find what can be described as paradise. I have always wanted to travel to Hawaii and learn more about the history of the islands, from the original Polynesian settlers to when Captain James Cook ‘discovered’ the island in 1778. Then there was the infamous Japanese Pearl harbour attack that pushed the US into the second world war.

Not only was the history of the islands an interest to me, but also the geographical layout of the islands, from the beaches with over 750 miles of shoreline to the volcanoes that are still very much active.

One of the first items on my agenda was to visit the National Volcano Park and experience what it feels like to come close to the interior of the earth. While there I took part in a guided tour of mount Kilauea and it was here that I met the first person I am going to mention as I found his story as to how he found himself in Hawaii compelling and as promised I would give his details in a post of mine.

As we peered into a Lava lake, I noticed him taking a strange look at the people around him and then all of a sudden, while making sure there was no one looking he quickly jumped down and onto a ledge that had some volcanic rock around. He took a rock, put it in his pocket and rejoined the group as we continued on our tour. This gave me an opportunity to quickly approach him and talk about what he had just done. He was startled at first when I told him I noticed that he took a volcanic rock and I asked him why he had done it? He said it was part of a private challenge he was part of with his relatives back home in Southend. A challenge? Now, this seemed odd, very odd indeed, I had to find out more to this challenge. I questioned him further on the challenge and as it turned out he was part of a group of men (in total 4 men) who were being challenged by their dying grandfather to collect volcanic rocks from all the active volcanoes in each continent (one from each). I thought to myself this is a ridiculous challenge, why would anyone want to do this?

He said it was because of his inheritance from his grandfather, the first of his grandsons to complete the challenge would receive half of his estate when he died – apparently, he had a rich and rather eccentric grandfather then! He then told me that this trip and the next five that he planned were to travel to all the continents and get photographic evidence of the rock from each destination, along with flight tickets. He also managed to get his wife and two children on a rather long holiday to Hawaii (the wife wanted to come here, but for the beaches – not on a wild goose chase collecting rocks!). So as promised, I will mention his name and something about his on-line business that he runs back home in Essex promoting other companies’ businesses on the internet. His name was Jonathan and he runs a website dedicated to ‘SEO’ from his home town of Southend in Essex, that’s east of Chelsea for me. He told me to tell everyone that it’s the best SEO company for Essex and that I should mention it here. Strange chap, and must have a very odd grandfather!

Here is a picture of the volcano in question: