Two people drowned Thursday in Kaaawa when a plastic kayak they were on flipped over while during a school-sponsored outing. The victims included a 63-year old woman, and a 6-year old boy. Two other children were rescued.
The incident reportedly happened offshore just across from the intersection of Puakenikeni Road and Kamehameha Highway in Kaaawa.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporters Susan Essoyan and Leila Fujimori followed up with an excellent article today adding many details to the sad story.
What I haven’t seen reported yet is that this was not the first drowning in that exact area. A search of Honolulu newspapers turns up other drowning incidents over the years.
For example, back in October 2007, it took searchers two days to recover the body of a 16-year old student who drowned in a diving accident just outside the reef. We were living in Kaaawa at the time and watched as fire crews and family friends of the victim searched the area.
The victim’s friends first created an impromptu roadside memorial with handwritten cardboard signs, footballs, and other items, then began writing messages on a concrete post that marked stairs going down to the beach.
“Always in our hearts” is there next to “smoke a fat one for us!!!”
Later, friends created another concrete memorial marker in a small park a short distance away which featured hand prints and short messages.
The dangers of the area are part of local lore. A 1982 article in the Honolulu Advertiser described a Honolulu Theater for Youth staging of local ghost stories. In a story set in Kaaawa, a female ghost called from the ocean while searching for her drowned baby.
Here are photos I published at the time of the 2007 drowning.
In the first photo, friends stand vigil at Kaaawa Beach Park while a helicopter can be seen in the distance searching along the reef near that same Puakenikeni Road location.
A roadside memorial.
And messages were left on a concrete post above stairs to the beach.
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What I find most stunning and incomprehensible is a adult alleged supervisor for this group over loading a plastic kayak with which she was presumably unacquainted with young children without life preservers. Talk about negligence!
Agreed. Once I witnessed a 4-yr old’s mother in our “group” take her and 2 classmates hanging onto an innertube at Waimea Bay. The further she took them out the more alarmed I became and when the lifeguard didn’t see they passed all others out there I screamed. Three military guys heard and went out to bring them back in. Stupid mom would have kept on going. Big lesson to me not to trust another person’s comfort level in the ocean or a pool with small children.
Kaaawa is no more dangerous than other beaches. The problem is usually tourists ignoring all common sense, signs, and warnings . I’ve seen pregnant women sit right on the ledge at China Walls in large surf laugh off pleas to move back. Those who jeopardize their own and their children’s lives often think they are too smart to listen to locals until bystanders or lifeguards rescue them.
I feel for the innocents but get so frustrated at the Schofield machos and thoughtless people who lift up caution tape to enter the surf. When Waimea and Pipe are giant why would anyone stand with their backs to the waves? I don’t get it.