Home in Hilo

Aloha! One of the classes I am taking this semester is Biology of Marine Mammals. For lab on Wednesday mornings, we take a boat out in Hilo bay to observe and collect data on humpback whales. During the winter months, humpback whales come all the way down to the warmer waters of Hawaii to mate and raise their young, so my professor takes this as an opportunity to study the whales and allow his students to learn how to collect data that can be applied to real studies. Humpback whale populations have significantly declined in recent years. The data we collect can help us understand their population dynamics better as well as determine the population growth/decline rate. We have only been out once so far, but above is a picture captured by one of the students during lab. It is so incredible that I have this opportunity to study these magnificent animals up close :) Fun Fact: In Hawaii, getting too close to any marine mammal can result in a massive fine. However, if you are carrying a

Aloha Everyone! I am settled in at UH Hilo and classes are underway. Last week my parents dropped me off, but before that we took a nice vacation around the big island! I have included a link below to all the pictures I took if you care to scroll through (sorry there's a lot- I always take so many pictures!). We flew into Kona and spent a few days there first. We took a surfing lesson (I wasn't so bad), snorkeled with dolphins, saw 3 humpback whales(!), and ate at Scandinavian Shave Ice many times. My favorite part was seeing all the geckos :) Next, we went to Volcano National Park and stayed at the military camp there. We got to hike a lava crater, see the steam vents, see the Kilauea crater, and take many pictures of rainbows. We also drove to the southernmost point in the US, stopping at a small macadamia nut and coffee farm on the way back, at which we discovered that dehydrated macadamia nuts are superior to the normal kind. Our final stop was Hilo, where we visited t