The farthest developed area for tourists on the west side of Oahu is probably Kapolei. With the water park right off the H1 freeway and Ko Olina farther down the road. In Ko Olina you have a very nice golf course, dinning options, the popular Paradise Cove Luau and a number of hotels, as well as housing. The hotels include Disney’s Aulani Resort, Four Seasons Resort Oahu, Marriot’s Ko Olina Beach Club, and the Beach Villas at Ko Olina. However, this post is not about this area; but I will eventually post about them. Instead, I’m going to post about one of my most favorite local beaches, Pokai Bay, Waianae.
If you drive down to the west side, and instead of taking the Ko Olina exit, just take a longer drive down, you’ll enter into Nanakuli. In general, most people who do not regularly go into this area past Ko Olina, call the whole coast Waianae. There are four main distinct sections of the coast, all four share the same zip code. However, for those familiar with the coast, they would know Nanakuli, which is the section right after Ko Olina, Maile, Waianae, and lastly Makaha.
There are a number of reasons that make the Waianae coast different, as well as special. These are political, historical, and basically controversial. However, I don’t quite want to go into those reasons in this post. I’ll lightly mention a few things, but overall something like this deserves a special post with deeper research and a number of references before I share anything publicly. Topics such as these require as much facts and objectivity as possible, and I would not want to misinform or mislead anyone to any opinion good or bad.
Let me start off with some generalizations. First off, this coast has essentially preserved some local culture that has become lost or removed from Oahu. As time passed small towns and plantation villages started to disappear, and what began to grow was urbanization, suburbs and more modern and American ways of life. Secondly. some reasons for this preservation and almost country life style of living for some was that the Hawaiian Homesteads were setup on this part of the island. Many of Hawaiian ancestry have made this place their home. Because of this setup, and the people living on this coast, development did not happen like in Honolulu or in other parts of the island such as Pearl City, Waipahu, or Mililani, and a few others. This part of history has some good and some bad. Essentially, the economic difference as well as racial/cultural tension had influenced crime and essentially gave this part of the island a negative reputation. Actually, similar areas such as Ewa and Waipahu shared similar reputations; but, the Waianae coast was viewed a bit differently.
The Waianae coast, which includes Nanakuli, Maile, Waiane, and Makaha has gone through a lot of change and with like many communities, you have good people trying to make a positive difference. There are still some aspects to be concerned about, but overall Waianae is a great place. For me personally, I love the drive through there. The air is fresh, people are still selling food on the side of the road, and there is a life style that I haven’t seen as much since I was a kid. The view of the nearby mountain range and the crashing waves of the oceans gives me a wonderful feeling. In the evening, the sunset is beautiful. Since your are at the most western part of the island, you’ll get a great view of the sunset.
Okay, let me talk more about Pokai Bay. Throughout the coast, you’ll see beautiful beaches. Actually, immediately when you enter Nanakuli you’ll see beaches that are tempting to go to. Now here is a funny thing I noticed with some people I talked to. For those who do not go through the Waianae coast often, the drive can feel long and almost tiring. There is only one main road, the only road that you can legally get into and out of Waianae. I say legal because there are other access points that are restricted. I should note I was one of those people. I rarely travelled to that side of the island, and when I did it felt tiring driving all the way in, especially to Makaha! Then a couple of years ago I was invited to a beach party at Pokai. I was overwhelmed by how pretty it was out there. Since then I try to go when I can. Not to mention I was seeing my friend more often that lived far out on that side. Eventually, I stopped noticing how long the drive was. Unless there was traffic. Traffic sucks on a road that is the one any only way in and out, haha. Now it’s hard to describe by words alone, so I included some pics and video.
Let me mention some not so positive things about this place. Like many of our public facilities on Oahu, they are not that clean. They mainly provide walls and a roof to do your business and change clothes. Unlike other areas, such as Ko Olina, you can expect a nice restroom at the lagoons. With public facilities, especially recently (as of June 2016), we have been experiencing an increase in vandalism, island wide. For the most part, the facility at Pokai is still useable. In addition to that, there is a small homeless population in the area and living near the restroom. Overall, they seem harmless. I haven’t seen or heard of any issue with them.
So here’s the good stuff. First expect an environment that is positive. Every time I have gone, everyone just enjoys themselves. The weather is normally warm, sunny and beautiful, the water cool and dense. The bay seems to be highly concentrated with salt in the water, so this is actually where I learned to swim comfortably and get used to balancing myself and floating in the water. So if you consider yourself a weak swimmer, this is a good place to practice. One last thing I love about this place is the sand. It’s so soft and fine. The beaches in Waikiki and Ala Moana seem rough, but the sand here in Pokai feels so much comfortable being on. My experience here is what brought me back to enjoying the beach after years of staying away since I was a kid. Back when I was a kid, I was sheltered, couldn’t swim, afraid of the water, and easily sun burned. I had no interest in beaches while growing up in Hawaii. I’m sure that sounds like blasphemy, but my early childhood experiences were not great haha. So it took a friend who introduced me to beach therapy that I started to come back to the beaches. After Pokai, I loved being in the water. I really want to go to Pokai right now as I type this haha.
Oh, I should add one other thing. There are two sections of the bay. The part that I’ve been talking about is the public area. There is a section across the bay that apparently is under the U.S. Military, but non-military from what I am told can go to that section. I’ve been told it’s much more maintained. But I’ve enjoyed the public area too much that I haven’t ventured off to that side. I believe that section is also called “Pray for Sets” beach. But I’m not entirely sure. There is supposedly a plaque or rock somewhere that has that name. But there seems to be confusion between this spot and another spot when I’ve talked to people. There is also confusion on the name, some people call it “Pray for Sex.” It should be “sets” which refers to a surfing term. Another possibility is that another beach was nicknamed “Pray for Sex.” I’ll need to take a trip later around the coast and verify all that.
I hope you find my post on Pokai Bay helpful. As you can see, I included some pics I took while I was there during different occasions. Click on the pics for a better view of them. I’ll be talking about other beaches in future posts and include more pictures of course.
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