NARRATOR: Hawaii's beaches are amazing creations,
growing larger every year.
Many are forged in the fire of volcanoes.
Lava singes the coastline,
exploding into new, ebony sands,
or detonating into jewels of green.
But white sands
are made out of parrotfish poop.
In the myths of Hawaiian culture,
black crabs become offerings to the gods,
and birds become sea foam,
dancing on the waves.
When humans dance on these very same waves,
they dance with danger,
riding giants all the way back
to the Living Beach.
NARRATOR: The beaches of the State of Hawaii
are legendary.
White,
green,
red
and black sands
beaches among the most welcoming in the world.
The word of welcome here is "aloha,"
though it means many things,
both a "hello" and a "goodbye",
built into a single word, then,
is a great opposite.
And built into its beaches and lands,
Hawaii also contains this great opposite,
its every creation
is the result of destruction.
These islands are forged from volcanoes.
Every bit of land here, all the way out to the coast,
exists because of these red-hot furnaces.
Through volcano science,
and a volatile goddess,
it's possible, in Hawaii,
to see how living beaches begin.
WARREN COSTA: Hawaii is the most
isolated archipelago on the planet.
We're about 2,500 miles from any
continent or large land mass.
NARRATOR: Because of this,
the kinds of plants and animals to be found in Hawaii
are limited in number,
and what does flourish here
has arrived by means of "the three Ws".
COSTA: It's "Wind, Wing and Water".
So you have the wind: things blow in that way.
Or by wing: they fly in.
Or water: they either swim or float.
And in Hawaiian, we turn that W upside down,
it's the three Ms,
so we have Mwana, for the ocean,
Makani, is for the wind
Manu are the birds, so those are the wings.
NARRATOR: Arriving by means of mwana then,
are these thin-shelled black crabs,
camouflaged against the rocky beach.
Known as "A'ama" by native Hawaiians,
these little creatures scuttle from rock to rock.
They're also capable of vaulting leaps,
propelling themselves with four sets of legs
and a pair of front claws.
The black crab's body is extremely flat,
making it easier to disappear between crevices and cracks.
Though it appears to be spitting,
this crab is actually expelling salt water
from its exoskeleton.
Picking their way across rocky beaches,
these scavengers eat algae and other debris,
keeping their ecosystem clean.
In Hawaiian, the word a'ama translates into loosen,
as in to spread, or to relax the fingers.
In some way, this might be a reference
to the finger-like sprawl of the crab's claws,
but more directly, its meaning leads back to myth.
The black crab is considered a delicacy,
and ancient Hawaiians believed it to be
a wise offering to the gods.
When those gods would receive an offering of a'ama,
they'd be all the more likely to loosen in their resolve,
and to grant a wish, long denied.
Among those Gods, two stand as rivals.
Pele-honua-mea is the hot-tempered
goddess of the volcano, known as Pele, for short.
Na-maka-o-kahai is her sister,
the goddess of the sea,
and the ancient Hawaiians believed
that every beach
was created in a clash between these two.
JOHNSON: The ancient Hawaiians were very
remarkable observers
of their natural surroundings.
I'm amazed by the fact that these, these,
these various legends and tales
capture so much of what we see,
and try to explain, scientifically.
NARRATOR: Hawaii is an eight-island chain,
stretching from northernmost Kauai Island
to southernmost Hawaii Island,
nicknamed today as Big Island.
The ancient Hawaiians correctly observed
that traveling south along this chain,
each island is geologically newer
than the one to its north.
In the myth explaining this,
Pele created a volcano at water's edge
which made molten land,
but Namaka rose up, like a spiteful tide,
to put that volcano out.
This happened over and over,
and it created a new island every time,
until Pele made her lasting fire in Kilauea Volcano,
on Big Island.
RANGER ROBINSON: But when the lava flows
from an eruption,
and it's going into the ocean and making new land,
this is where Namaka and Pele
continue their fight.
NARRATOR: And this fight can create new beachfront property,
virtually overnight.
This is Punaluu,
one of the volcanic black sand beaches
of Hawaii's Big Island.
But what is the science that runs parallel
to the creation myth for this beach,
and for these entire islands?
The Hawaiian islands are the result
of an underwater magma source,
called a volcanic hotspot.
This hotspot remains stationary,
deep within the earth.
But closer to the earth's surface
is a tectonic plate, upon which land can build,
and that plate is slowly shifting over time,
like a conveyor belt.
But beneath that conveyor belt,
the fixed hotspot keeps pumping new magma
to the surface.
That surface is the bottom of the Pacific Ocean,
where the magma cools and builds up, over time,
until it emerges into the open air as new landmass.
ROBINSON: The plate drifts away and so does that volcano,
and makes another one,
and another one, and another one,
and this is why we have the chain of islands.
NARRATOR: On the youngest island then,
is also the youngest surface volcano.
This is Big Island's Kilauea,
continuously erupting since 1983,
one of history's longest unbroken flare-ups.
ROBINSON: Where we are here on Kilauea and Mauna Loa,
we are directly above the hot spot:
this is where the magma's coming out,
forming the newest land on Earth.
NARRATOR: Land that will become a beach,
but is seen here at its molten point of origin.
Kilauea's open mouth
is larger than the entire Louisiana Superdome.
Kilauea means "spewing" or "much spreading".
Among Kilauea's eruptions
was a 1969 explosion along its flank.
The new vent that opened here
launched incredible amounts of lava into the sky.
ROBINSON: That fountain of lava
was 1,900 feet high at times.
The lava shot up in the sky,
it solidifies before it hits the ground
and for miles, these cinders rained down
across this lava flow.
Completely changed the landscape forever.
NARRATOR: The Hawaiians have three words for lava.
When lava solidifies smoothly, it's "pahoehoe".
When lava solidifies roughly, it's "a'a".
And when lava is at its most alive,
when it's flowing freely,
it's always known as "pele".
The long eruption of Kilauea
has destroyed at least 180 structures
in its fiery progress.
But as much as pele destroys,
she also builds.
Which returns us
to the creation of this black sand beach.
COSTA: The black sand is formed
as the molten lava is actually going into the ocean.
So you have that molten rock going into the sea
and being quenched very quickly and cooled.
And it begins to fragment into
these little pieces of volcanic glass.
It's very fragile so as it gets
tumbled around by the movement of the surf
it breaks down into finer and finer bits.
NARRATOR: Eventually, these bits of basaltic rock
get crumbled up finely enough
to be considered sand.
Created in a flash, these black sand beaches
can add substantial new landmass.
Almost 500 acres of new land
have been added to Big Island since 1983.
But even more dramatically,
these black sand beaches
have been known to shear away,
from time to time,
like a balcony crumbling off a skyscraper,
ROBINSON: Here on the island of Hawaii,
this volcano is very steep, underwater,
down to 18,000 feet deep.
One day where we had lava flowing into the park,
and it had added on some new land,
we had 40 acres drop off.
Half acre, two acres, three acres,
by the end of the day, 40 acres had disappeared
below the ocean.
So black sand beaches,
usually they're very ephemeral.
They'll be gone in a couple of years.
NARRATOR: But, for the short term,
these black sand beaches
are attractive tourist destinations.
Walking here at Punaluu,
bathers actually run the risk of scorching
the bottoms of their naked feet.
This is because these black sands are sun absorbent
and they hold their heat like coals,
in comparison to other, lighter colored sands.
One species of animal chooses to bask
on these hot, little lava rocks.
The Hawaiian green sea turtle.
On this isolated archipelago,
the Hawaiian green is now considered
a unique genetic species,
distinct from its Pacific cousins.
The Hawaiian green's body
has a larger flipper size,
and a muscular crop in its esophagus,
meaning it has a different kind of "turtle neck".
Hawaiian green turtles have these distinctions
because they come from a single genetic stock.
They breed away from other populations
in the wide Pacific.
Most sea turtles embark on incredibly long migrations,
swimming through international waters.
Hawaiian green turtles nest on the French Frigate Shoals,
a northwestern Hawaiian atoll.
From this speck of land,
they make a comparatively short trip south,
feeding back around the main islands.
These Hawaiian waters have become their entire world.
Wind, wing, and water.
And one of their distinctive behaviors is this,
basking on the beach during daytime hours.
Other Pacific greens rarely come to shore,
and when they do, they're females,
and they only come to lay their eggs.
But both sexes are relaxing here.
Not a lot is conclusively known about why or how
these particular greens adapted into such sunbathers.
Ongoing studies suggest that the warm,
volcanic rocks and sunlight
might allow these turtles to better synthesize Vitamin D,
burn away algae built up on their shells,
and possibly even accelerate
the development time for their eggs.
Underwater, a Hawaiian green turtle
can sleep for several hours without surfacing for oxygen.
It manages to do this by slowing down its heart rate.
As many as nine minutes can pass
between individual heartbeats.
But this kind of submerged metabolism
is only possible if the animal remains unstressed.
Another possible reason Hawaiian greens learned to bask,
is to avoid one of their main predators:
tiger sharks.
Basking on the beach then,
might be a learned survival tactic for these turtles,
even while it looks like they're enjoying
a lazy, Hawaiian vacation.
But while these turtles doze on land,
some details of their bodies become easier to spot.
The shell of a Hawaiian green
is the shape of a streamlined teardrop,
perfectly adapted for swimming.
In the mature animal,
this shell is often quite dark in color.
What actually makes a green turtle green
is the color of its body fat, beneath the shell.
The mature animal takes on this hue
because it's a herbivore,
with a diet consisting of green-y sea-grasses and algae.
Also easy to spot are the five plates
running down the center of these green turtles' backs.
To either side of that center line,
they possess four plates.
All of these plates are properly known as "scutes".
But, for this turtle, scooting back into the water
is proving to be a bit of a challenge.
The Hawaiian tides can be forceful ones,
for swimmers of any experience level.
In Hawaiian, the green turtle is called "honu".
Mythology says that honu guided
the first Polynesians toward discovering
these beaches and shores for the very first time.
Moving from green turtles to green sands,
this exotic beach is less than an hour's drive
from Punaluu.
At the southern tip of Hawaii's Big Island,
Papakolea Beach is one of
only four green sand beaches
in the entire world.
The sand here is rich in a mineral called olivine.
Olivine is made up of magnesium, iron
and other elements, and, like its name implies,
it's a shade of olive green.
But how did that olivine get here?
Again, the goddess Pele's creations
come about through destruction.
Her second youngest volcano here is Mauna Loa.
One of the largest volcanoes on Earth,
it makes up more than half the surface area
of Big Island.
Adding its below-sea-level depth
to its height above ground,
it stands taller than Mount Everest.
Mauna Loa means "long mountain",
and throughout its history,
lava has come rolling down those long slopes.
Over time, these molten rivers
can form long, cylindrical tubes,
like this one.
ROBINSON: Caves like this form when a river of lava
flows down the mountain.
These rivers of lava will flow,
and then they'll crust over from the sides
until they crust completely over.
As long as there are volcanos still erupting,
lava will still flow down the mountain under the crust.
When the eruption ends,
the lava will drain out the downhill opening
and leave behind these big tunnels.
NARRATOR: An erupting volcano's flow
will stop and start countless times over its life,
and create these tunnels.
Old lava cooling at its outer edges,
becomes hardened rock,
and new lava channelling down that trough
of least resistance,
eruption after eruption,
layer after layer,
building onto itself like strips of paper mâché,
until those layers of flow build up into a full tube.
One of Mauna Loa's lava tubes
runs a marathon 31 miles,
before it finally arrives at the beach.
When lava emerges from these natural pipelines,
it's still incredibly hot.
JOHNSON: It's an excellent insulator.
It's really quite amazing.
The temperature change from top to bottom
over tens of kilometers
can be only a couple to 5 degrees.
NARRATOR: And where hot lava meets cold seawater,
a beach is born.
COSTA: Lava and water.
When that happens, things explode.
NARRATOR: The lava pouring out of the tube
super-cools, turning into instant volcanic rock.
But as soon as it's formed,
this volcanic rock is also blown apart,
detonating like fireworks on the 4th of July.
The sky-high debris rains back down onto the ground,
but it's less like solid rock now,
and more like ashy cinders.
ROBINSON: These are called Pele's tears.
Pele the volcano goddess.
They're just teardrop shaped. Just beautiful.
These little nuggets were formed in the air,
solidified before they came raining down
in a hail of cinders, and a hail of Pele's tears
through this area.
NARRATOR: These cinders, over time,
will accumulate around the lava tube
from which they emerged,
building into a cone-like mound of rubble.
Because it happens next to the shoreline,
this kind of formation is called a "littoral cone".
But its volcanic crumble can be easily broken apart
and eroded by the nearby sea.
Half of the shape of Papakolea's littoral cone
is still visible today.
It brackets the green sand beach.
After the lava events stopped happening here,
49,000 years ago,
the other half of the cone washed away
as sea levels rose,
and what remained behind flooded,
becoming this cove.
The lava that had been flowing
from Mauna Loa to Papakolea though,
was rich in that mineral, olivine.
JOHNSON: Whatever the density contrast is
between the water and pulverized material,
what is the heaviest will stick closest to the beach,
and what's the lightest and/or smallest
will get swept further away.
And olivine is denser than the bits of, you know,
ashy material, so it stays put,
and you get a beautiful green sand beach,
pure, pretty much pure olivine.
NARRATOR: Green sand already makes
for some of the rarest beaches in the world,
but it can transform one step further.
Depending on the environmental conditions around it,
sometimes these Hawaiian beaches can rust.
JOHNSON: Olivine, when it weathers in a certain way,
it'll turn red.
NARRATOR: This can happen
because of the particular iron content in the olivine.
Iron corrodes when it contacts salt water and air,
and on a beach, it swiftly encounters both.
This tarnishes the element, reddening it.
And if the metallic content in the olivine is high enough,
then the entire color of the beach might transform.
JOHNSON: So when olivine is fresh, it's green.
When it's weathered, it's red,
and it forms the red beach.
NARRATOR: Because of its rarity,
olivine is known locally as the Hawaiian diamond.
These sands are so enticing
that tourists often want to pocket handfuls of the stuff,
to take home as a souvenir.
But there is another myth here,
called "Pele's Curse".
The notion behind this curse
is that removing any sand from the Hawaiian Islands
will result in bad luck.
Every year, the Hawaiian post office gets packages
returning the sand, alongside notes of apology.
These packages have an accumulated weight
of thousands of pounds,
and they're often addressed to Queen Pele.
But this myth is not an ancient one.
Most likely, it was invented in the 20th century by Islanders,
trying to keep Hawaiian beaches in Hawaii.
However, if the tourists knew what certain beaches
were actually made of,
they might not try to pocket them at all.
Some of the whitest,
most picture-postcard sands in Hawaii, are made from
surprising materials.
ROBINSON: Well, in Hawaii we have all kinds of beaches.
The powder white sand beaches
are from where parrotfish eat coral
and poop it out.
Those beautiful white sand beaches
are parrotfish poop beaches.
NARRATOR: The parrotfish is any one of a number
of colorful species.
The entire family is named for their parrot-like beaks,
which make them unlike any other fish.
With these chompers,
they nibble away at coral reefs,
feeding themselves while also keeping the reefs
clean of dead materials and overgrowth.
The sounds of a gnawing parrotfish
can actually conduct through water,
audible to divers nearby.
Further back in these fishes' throats
are more teeth,
grinders to break the corals down
into smaller and smaller bits.
Interestingly, the parrotfish has a flexible sex.
During its lifetime, the male often swims
with a harem of females.
But if that male dies,
one of the harem will transform,
becoming a male, in order to take his place.
Also compelling about the parrotfish
is that it lacks a stomach.
This means that the corals it consumes
quickly shoot out its backside,
turned into fine, new grains.
Watch a parrotfish for any length of time,
and it'll release a contrail cloud of new sand
into the waters behind it.
In Hawaiian, one particular parrotfish
is known as "uhu palukaluka",
which translates to "loose bowels".
These fish really are responsible
for an amazing amount of Hawaii's non-volcanic beaches.
An average parrotfish will excrete
approximately 200 pounds
of freshly minted sand every year.
When multiplied by every parrotfish in the region,
this creates multiple dump trucks' worth
of new beachfront property.
It's a fact that might undercut the romance,
the next time you're watching
"From Here To Eternity".
Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr
famously kiss on the white sands of this beach,
rolling around in parrotfish poop.
Located on the eastern side of O'ahu Island,
Halona Beach has also become known as "Eternity Beach"
since the 1953 movie shot here.
JOHNSON: It's just a little pocket beach
that's formed by a little sheltered area
where the sand can deposit.
And that was the site, in the movie,
of a very famous kiss.
NARRATOR: A kiss now considered
one of the most iconic in cinema history.
When the movie was first released, however,
this scene in the frothy surf
was banned for being too suggestive.
Maybe it's for the best that they didn't shoot
at the Halona Blowhole, right next door.
When the tide is high and the winds are strong,
this gap in the coastal, volcanic rock
can produce a geyser-like spume.
JOHNSON: It's not like a blow dryer,
a nice gentle breeze.
It's like a jet, in a way, right?
It's a lot of compressed air, into a small volume,
blowing out a very small hole.
So, people have gotten injured.
I mean, it's a dangerous thing to do because,
there's a lot of force that goes into it
and a lot of force that comes out.
NARRATOR: The waves of Pele's sister, Namaka,
can be some of the most forceful in the world.
These waves function as agents of creation
or destruction against these coasts.
When a wave is smaller,
it's called a constructive wave.
This means it's pushing sediments up the beach,
and then leaving them there,
before that small wave recedes.
The constructive wave
is actively building upon the beach.
It's in front of these kinds of waves
that the sanderling can be spotted.
This little bird zig-zags at the spilling edge,
waiting for a chance to forage.
When these small waves recede,
the sanderling goes to work,
quickly probing for insects, snails or crabs.
It's black legs beat against the beach, up-tempo.
The sanderling has no hind toe,
unlike other wading birds,
and this makes it a speedier short-sprinter.
In keeping with Hawaii's three W's
of Wind, Wing and Water,
the sanderling is a migratory shorebird
that travels to the islands,
and it stays from October to June.
In Hawaiian, the sanderling is known as the "Hunakai".
Poetically, this translates as sea foam.
This hunakai works in concert with the water's moving edge,
chasing the waves with the same intensity as a surfer.
Surfing waves are known as destructive waves.
These big breakers don't leave sand on the beach,
but rather rake it away,
when a crashing wave rolls back.
But beyond its technical name,
a destructive wave
is capable of doing some serious damage.
LIFEGUARD OVER SPEAKER: Very dangerous shore break.
Number one beach in the world for broken necks and backs.
If you have children with you,
please keep them far away from the waterline.
NARRATOR: Sandy Beach at O'ahu
is a popular surfing destination.
It's also an unofficial capital
for neck injuries and back injuries.
When any wave rolls toward land,
it starts to drag against the bottom of the shore
as it shallows.
This causes the bottom of the wave to slow down,
while the top of the wave keeps rushing forward
at an unchanged speed.
In essence then, this causes the wave
to trip over itself, becoming a destructive breaker.
Here at Sandy Beach,
the water remains very deep, right off shore.
This means that when waves roll in here,
there's no friction with the ground slowing them
until the very last second,
at which point the waves break abruptly,
building and crashing almost at once.
JOHNSON: So people might catch a wave,
and if they're coming straight in on the wave,
rather than at an angle,
they'll get driven right into the sand.
NARRATOR: In other locations,
a pile-driving wave might simply
knock you deeper underwater,
but at Sandy Beach, it can slap you against solid sand,
with a brick wall's resistance.
Hundreds of spinal-cord injuries have happened here.
Sandy Beach is a place of raw, natural power,
a place maybe best reserved for more experienced surfers,
like one President of the United States.
JOHNSON: President Obama likes to come body surfing here,
when he comes back, actually.
This is his favorite beach.
NARRATOR: Surfing has long been
a part of Hawaiian beach culture.
From the wooden longboards of the first peoples,
through to early 20th century Olympic swimmer
Duke Kahanamoku,
who popularized surfing worldwide,
to the fiberglass and epoxy bodyboards of today.
There is science to surfing.
Wind types,
wave types,
and how they interact with coastal reefs,
rocks or shoals.
And there is spirituality to surfing,
deeply connected to the Hawaiian practice of Aloha.
BALLARD: Growing up around,
you know, being surrounded by water,
really in its true nature and form,
it just teaches you all of the sustainability
that the ocean provides.
You know you do your best to live aloha
here in Hawaii.
My name is Rochelle Ballard, and I'm a professional surfer,
retired off of the world championship tour.
Now I do retreats with wellness and surfing.
I like to continue to have my livelihood at the beach.
NARRATOR: This is Sunset Beach
on the North Shore of O'ahu.
The waves here can be mighty ones,
gaining much of their power from the tapering, volcanic reef
that stretches for almost a mile offshore.
BALLARD: If you look at the coastline,
if you were to like, take that viewpoint from up above,
you can see this just huge playing field
where the reefs are all aligned and almost,
you know, designed perfectly for surf,
for the waves.
NARRATOR: No matter what direction
the open ocean might be swelling,
its energy tends to get pulled into
this oceanic alleyway.
But as those swells hit the reef at different places
and at different angles,
the physics will result in different kinds of waves.
There are thousands of wave variations
that can happen here.
BALLARD: The way that the reef is formed
in all these particular areas,
allows for channels, and it allows for
the crests and the peaks of the waves to form up
from a deeper ocean point
into shallower reefs,
and it forms these beautiful big waves
that are really close to the beach.
And then the waves can form and you know,
peel left and right.
NARRATOR: To ride this environment
is to straddle the worlds of Namaka, the sea goddess,
and Pele, the volcanic maker of lands,
working together in rough concert.
BALLARD: A big wave usually breaks in a deeper water,
and that's a large face that you travel down
and it has a lot of massive water
and a lot of white wash.
And then you have a barreling type of wave,
and a barrel is a tube, it's tubular,
and then you can actually ride the inside of the wave.
And then you have waves that break down the line
and they're really long.
So at a wave like Sunset it has that channel
and it has a long ride,
but it's a massive reef that has like
five different take-off spots,
and it can break at one foot
and it can break at 15 foot,
and it's all surfable.
It's all a flow of nature
and a union of all things.
NARRATOR: And part of that flow
is simply knowing how to choose a wave.
Rather than being pushed back to shore
by every oncoming breaker,
selective surfers learn how to push beneath certain waves
using their "duck dive".
BALLARD: I just had this moment
like, not that long ago where I actually
I was on the beach and I'm like,
Oh there's a duck down there,
and I see him actually like go under the wave,
I'm like: There's the duck dive.
It came from the duck!
NARRATOR: One of the very few native species
to be found on these remote islands
is a relative of the duck.
The "Nene,"
also known as a Hawaiian goose.
The nene is the rarest goose in the world.
Descended from Canadian geese
who found their way here by wing,
approximately 500,000 years ago.
So long ago, in fact,
that the volcanos forming Big Island
would have only been emerging from the sea.
However these original geese arrived on the islands,
over time they grew stranded.
The nene evolved into a totally non-migratory bird,
with specialized adaptations for this lonely archipelago.
The nene's wings shrunk
from the size of their Canadian ancestors' wings,
as time progressed.
Though it can fly and swim,
the nene spends most of its time on land,
and nests upon vegetated beach strands.
The name "nene" comes from the vocalizations
this bird makes, a kind of honking "nay".
A group of nene, together, are known as a knot,
and their distinctive necks
look like knotted twists of yarn.
Among its evolutionary adaptations,
the nene has claw-like toes,
and reduced webbing between those toes.
This gives the nene's feet more articulation,
allowing it to better navigate particular terrains,
such as Hawaii's fields of cooled lava.
But when humans introduced
non-native species to Hawaii,
these new animals became a serious problem
for the nene.
COSTA: Many of the nene succumbed
to introduced predators like feral pigs,
rats,
later on, you know, mongoose, which is a more recent,
you know, introduction in the 1800s.
In the 1950s,
I think there were something like 20 or 30 left.
You know, literally on the brink of extinction.
By that time, laws were created to protect them
and they started these captive breeding programs.
NARRATOR: Now every wild nene has a band around its ankle,
because Hawaiians have worked hard to bring this species,
the state's official bird, back from the brink.
COSTA: So they would capture the birds,
they would set them up somewhere
where they could successfully breed and nest
and have their young live past that gosling stage.
And then slowly they started
to reintroduce them back into the wild.
NARRATOR: Today, this vulnerable species
is on the rebound,
with population numbers of approximately 2,500.
It has become common again,
to see the nene in its very particular environments,
flanking the beaches, the grasslands,
or waddling across the lava plains.
On these lava plains it is easy to visualize
the original path from inland volcanoes,
to coastal beaches.
That path can be destructive,
with highways gummed over
and whole communities relocated.
And that path can be constructive,
creating rugged, breathtaking sculptures
like the Holei Sea Arch,
which bows at the edge of where water meets land.
ROBINSON: If this is a 60-foot sea cliff,
this is kind of an interesting way
of explaining how a sea arch can form.
The waves are pounding the sea cliff over and over
and it gets up in here
and it keeps pounding that sea cliff more and more,
and it makes a cave here.
And it hits back up here and it makes a cave.
Eventually, as these waves keep slamming into
these 60 foot sea cliffs,
they'll eat out behind,
and what you end up with is a big sea arch.
Standing there by itself.
We have like, 30 to 60 sea arches
in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
NARRATOR: And these sea arches are primary illustrations
of the ever-shifting relationship
between sister-goddesses
Namaka
and Pele.
In Hawaii's creation myth,
fiery Pele is constantly shrugging outward,
stretching toward the coast.
ROBINSON: We know of over a hundred lava tubes like this,
and every day, Pele is making more.
NARRATOR: And Pele's advances are always met
by Namaka's dousing waters.
Beaches, building and changing,
growing and receding.
COSTA: Lava flows change the landscape,
just in my own lifetime.
It really makes you realize that
we're not living in a place
that's set in stone, excuse the pun,
but it really is a living place,
a living earth.
NARRATOR: In Hawaiian philosophy,
everything from creation to destruction,
is united under one sky.
A new island still waits
to emerge into that open air.
Just beyond Big Island's southeastern coast,
and beneath the waves,
is the youngest volcano in the Hawaiian chain.
Called "Loihi,"
it will be the next to position itself
directly above the magma hotspot.
JOHNSON: It's building as we speak.
It's not going to be an island for
tens of thousands of years probably,
but it will break the surface.
NARRATOR: And when it does,
Loihi will be surrounded by the ocean on all sides.
It will be edged in nothing but coastline,
Pele and Namaka's newest place of negotiation,
a future ring
of Living Beaches.
♪ THEME MUSIC ♪