Posted on: Sunday, April 22, 2001

Crowds at Hanauma Bay heighten swimming risks

By Suzanne Roig
Advertiser East Honolulu Bureau

HAWAI'I KAI — Every day, four lifeguards monitor horseshoe-shaped Hanauma Bay, looking for people in trouble.

With two drownings at Hanauma Bay this month, the lifeguards and their managers find themselves assessing the risk of swimming at the site. In general, they say the bay waters are not dangerous. But monitoring thousands of swimmers, many of them novices, is a difficult task.

Because Hanauma Bay caters to snorkelers, most of the swimmers are face down, and many are barely moving as they peer through their masks.

It's a stressful job, said Capt. Bruce Lee, who oversees lifeguards from Maunalua Bay to the north side of Kailua Beach.

"It's not my favorite place to guard," Lee said. "There are large numbers of people, 95 percent of whom are visitors who don't know the water and are face down.

"You don't know if they're dead or alive until they move, and many are only in two or three feet of water."

In some cases, Lee said, swimmers have drowned amid a throng of snorkelers without drawing anyone's attention.

Two drownings occurred earlier this month. The first, on April 5, involved a 53-year-old man who regularly swam laps outside the reef.

The second drowning, on April 11, involved a Taiwanese visitor.

On April 5, about 3,400 people were at Hanauma Bay; and 4,000 were there on April 11, said Alan Hong, general manager.

In 1999, the most recent year for which events were tallied, Hanauma Bay had more than 2.3 million visitors. Of those, two people drowned, 141 were rescued, 94 received first aid and 33,709 sought minor first-aid treatment. The figures made Hanauma the top-ranked beach park for both drownings and rescues in that year.

Warning signs are posted along the beach and along the upper ledges at the sides of the bay in an effort to encourage safe swimming, Hong said.