We already pretty much gave up on the idea to visit Whakaari (better known as White Island), New Zealand’s only active offshore volcano, because the only authorised boat tour was constantly booked out and our name was buried somewhere down their waiting list. But apparently some people are gullible enough to trust the NZ weather forecast and cancelled their trip for what was supposed to be a rainy Friday (hahaha).
Landing in Crater Bay is done via inflatable rubber dinghies in full protection gear with helmets (not sure how useful those are when the volcano erupts and car sized lava boulders are flying through the air) and gas masks which came in quite handy close to acidic gas vents on a moon like crater landscape.
Funny how small you suddenly feel when you are so close to such raw displays of the power of nature! To think that people actually used to live on this island for months at a time mining for sulphur until a rockslide wiped out the entire mining operation in 1914 and mining eventually ended in 1930 for good.
A terrorist? An astronaut? No, just Bea in full volcano gear!