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OCEAN SAFETY |
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Hotels in Honolulu |
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Vacation Rentals in Honolulu |
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Drownings
in Hawaii are all too common. Waves can sweep in from two thousand miles of open ocean onto beaches magnificent to look at but unprotected by any reef. Not all beaches have lifeguards and warning flags; unattended beaches are not necessarily safe. Watch the sea carefully before going in, and never take your eyes off it thereafter. Fierce
rogue waves
can appear from the blue to drag waders - or even those walking along the shore - far out to sea in seconds, and powerful
undertows
may not be detectable until too late. If you do get swept out, don't fight the big waves; wait for the current to die down before trying to swim back to shore.
Sea creatures to avoid include black spiky
sea urchins
, Portuguese man-of-war
jellyfish
, and
coral
in general, which can give painful infected cuts.
Shark attacks
are much rarer than popular imagination suggests; those that do occur are usually due to "misunderstandings," such as surfers idling on their boards looking a bit too much like turtles from below.
Ocean fun
The nation that invented
surfing
- long before the whites came - remains its greatest arena. The sport was popularized early in the twentieth century by Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, using a 20ft board; these days most are around six feet....
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