Tim in Hawaii: The West Coast of Oahu

Yesterday was President's Day and though I started emailing early, thinking it was a work day, I looked out my window around 8:45 and saw hordes of sunbathers and snorkelers on the beach at Ala Moana and figured out it was a bona fide holiday over here. So, I decided it would be a good time to check out the beaches and surf on the west shore. I hit surfline.com and it looked like a very calm day for that area with most wave face readings at very low levels; generally, 3 feet or lower and almost no wind.

The drive to the west coast is not a long one and is mostly interstate (H-1). Within an easy half hour I was on the west coast highway at Ko Olina and heading north. The west coast highway tracks the beach the entire way until it ends at the Yokohama Beach park on the northwest corner of Oahu. The scenery is beautiful though not as stunning as on the east coast because it lacks the views from 500 foot cliff overhangs.

My first pullover was at a small public beach park where there were many families enjoying the holiday together (see below). The water was a beautiful blue-green and the surf was good with many surfers congregating 70 to 80 feet off shore, but I noticed that the ocean floor was mostly reef and decided it was not a swimming or body-surfing opportunity and so headed northward.

My first stop at a public beach park on the southwestern coast of Oahu

My next stop was at the Kani Kui beach park. I walked down to the water and the shoreline was very rocky (see below). No one was swimming but several were fishing. I caught a photo of a rather large girl pulling in a rather small fish (see below).

The rocky shoreline at Kani Kui beach park

The big girl with the little fish

After 10 minutes or so I was back in my pick 'em up truck and driving northward. I stopped once or twice to photograph the mountain points that stop at the sea (see below). You can see the rain in the mountains but it was sunny and clear on the beaches all day. One of the towns I drove through was Maili and there were several sandy beaches that looked very inviting. I did not stop, however, as I decided to try and make it as for northward as I could on this trip to see what my options were for the next one.

A view of the mountains that meet the sea on the west coast highway, Oahu

I ditched that plan when I hit Makaha Beach and saw a lot of tents set up, heard live music and saw a number of videographers on the beach documenting the activity in the sea. As it turned out it was the 16th annual Makaha Beach surfing championships which take place over 6 weekends during the winter. On this day, the competition was limited to individual paddle surfers and 4-person outrigger canoe teams. The surf patterns were perfect for the competition and exactly the type I had been looking for; you can literally ride one wave from its initial swell all the way onto the beach which for the paddle surfers was for a distance of almost half a mile; truly awesome stuff. Unfortunately, because of the competition all onlookers were limited to a portion of the beach that had no wave breaks whatsoever but I did some swimming around for the fun of it (see photos below).

The band stand and tournament staging set at Makaha Beach, Oahu.

A view from my roost on the beach looking seaward at the surfing competition at Makaha.

Another view from the beach at the competition - Though hard to see, this was a picture of a family of 4 (Dad, son and 2 teen-aged daughters winning the outrigger canoe surfing competition)

After an hour or so at Makaha Beach, it was back in the pick-up and all the way north to the end of the west coast highway that ended at a public beach park on Yokohama Beach. This turned out to be the most beautiful beach and water that I had seen yet on Oahu and the wave action was fierce but a lot of fun. Despite wave faces of 6 to 8 feet that land with a force previously not experienced by me there were many children aged 7 to 14 in the surf without any close supervision; by that I mean their parents were under a tent 100 feet or so from the surf and without any means of helping the kids if the had trouble with the surf. You can see from the photos below that the shoreline is fairly steep at its edge.

This is your vantage point if you are at the water's edge looking back toward dry land

This is your vantage point from water's edge looking along the shoreline at the wave break

I am including a picture of one of the youngsters fleeing the surf (see below); she was well aware that if you are 10 feet or more out from the shoreline before one of the large waves comes in (even though you are only in 12 to 18 inches of water) that the pull is so strong that you will be sucked into the wave and at its mercy. At the end of a wave break from the large waves, the white sea foam is so plentiful that it covers up everyone that was caught by the wave and covers them up for a few seconds despite their bests efforts.

This is that smart and speedy girl who appeared to be no older than 9 or 10 and was by herself in the surf

I tried several times to move toward the beach or just hold my ground before a big wave and was instead pulled backwards or knocked off my feet and pummeled by the wave. The good news is that these large wave sets do not come in regularly and can easily be anticipated so you can avoid them but I could easily imagine how incredible the force must have been before the big tsunami that killed some many several years ago near Thailand. The further good news here is that this undertow does not take you out to deep water; it only pulls you for a short distance into the wave and then the wave immediately propels you swiftly up onto the beach as your bathing suit and hair become filled with sand (see photos below).