Military personnel in Hawaii are sometimes explicitly warned by their COs to stay out of the water at Sandies. A red lifeguard tower stands stark sentry atop the beach, and flags usually indicate dangerous surf. They calmly survey the conditions before donning fins and paddling out to partake. A loud whomp of the wave crashing on the sand punctuates the irony of his statement. During summer, when the south swells stack up like corduroy on the horizon, Sandies starts to jump and the parking lot fills up.
School is over, and the days are ruled by the waves.
And the kids come from out of the bamboo. On the barren, rocky and windswept southeast shoreline of Oahu, where the ocean is a hundred shades of unreal blue, country and city meet. Everyone has a board and lots of time. In recent years, the number of women in the water has skyrocketed, making the wave lineup as much a social scene as the beach where kids wrapped in mirrored wedge shades sprawl on straw mats under the sun. I ask a petite lady holding a bright blue Morey boogie board in the parking lot.