Kalalau to Honopu (Pt 4/5) – July 16 2011

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Another adventure I had my eyes on for sometime now was to swim to the next beach west of Kalalau. On a map, the swim to Honopu Beach is not far at all, maybe a quarter-mile from shoreline to shoreline… However, the summer westward current is often strong, and the trip swim back can be difficult even for stronger swimmers. Boats and Kayaks are not allowed to land here, nor is camping permitted.

If you do decide to make the journey, you should definitely bring and use fins and definitely be comfortable swimming against a strong current. As you can tell, troy was not as comfortable as the rest of us. Lost Trailblazers; Jennifer Liu, Seth Eason, Troy Takara and myself; secured dry bags to our bodies to carry water, powerbars, some rope and some camera gear. I had a large 20L, orange dry-bag to ferry my triple-bagged DSLR over and also to aid as a brightly colored floatation device in the event of a worse-case scenario (Left photo courtesy of Jenelyn Castillo).

It’s not difficult to imagine how the shore-break near the rocks, rip-tides and high turbidity can make one anxious from the start. Despite some of our hesitations, we ALL reached Honopu Beach in < 30 minutes... though Troy did have a close call just rounding the corner where there was large shore break near the rocky shoreline. You can watch his video of the journey at his blogspot (Above photo courtesy of Jenelyn Castillo).

After catching our breath on the beach, we headed westward down the coastline.

As we got nearer to the far end of the beach, we saw that there was a HUGE land arch over a small estuary.

The estuary appeared mostly fresh at this particular tide, where a stream was actively flowing into it and was emptying out into the ocean.

The arch was truly amazing geographical feature, and was almost surreal since we were the only people at Honopu.

On the other side of the arch was an another AMAZING beach…

A Hawaiian Monk Seal and sand crab appeared indifferent by our presence and didn’t flinch as we moved in closer for some photos. I guess the wildlife here don’t know what to make of humans since they likely do not encounter them often.

I’ve never been to a beach where the only footprints on it were my own, especially one this large!

After what seemed to be an overload of amazingness, we followed the stream under the arch to a moderately sized waterfall. The stream had a few different species of Oopu in it, mostly Oopu nakea from what I could tell.

I really wanted to climb higher to explore beyond the first falls, but I had to make a judgement call in the case of a slip. There was NO ONE to help us in the event of an emergency, and even a minor injury to an ankle could mean not being able to swim back to Kalalu… or even make the hike out back to trailhead in Haena. We were also short on time as we made sure to tell the rest of our crew that we’d be back in ~ 2 hours.

We headed out, a little more cautious than on the way in, and made sure a floatation device was available in case any of us got swept by away from the shoreline and with the westward current.

We all made it back fine, with no close calls. It did take a little longer than on the way here since we were swimming against the current. Again, if you do decide to do this, make sure to use fins and that you are a good swimmer. Though the swim is not far, occasionally large swells and shore break do occur… in addition to the presence of a strong westward current. The current appears to be weakest in the morning, and stronger in the afternoon when the winds pick up. Also make sure to have a back-up plan in the event of a worse-case scenario.

Note this is a 5-part series. Preparation, further write-ups and Kalalau Photo Gallery can be found at the top of the page.

To view this location on a Google Map also known as my “Adventure Map“, Click Here. To view all the photos from our trip, click on the Kalalau 2011 Photography Gallery. For more adventures of the Lost Trailblazers, either look at my other blogposts and “Adventures with the Lost Trailblazers” photo gallery or check out David’s website “UnrealHawaii.com“.

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