At 1:15 p.m., about the time the first ocean effects from the earthquake were expected to arrive on Oahu, almost everything appeared normal off Point Panic at the Kakaako Waterfront Park except for a dearth of body-boarders.

Two long-boarders were encroaching in the bodysurfing-only area. When firefighters from the Kakaako Fire Station attempted to advise them of possible unusual currents or tides generated by the earthquake, the two long-boarders hurriedly paddled out of the body surfing area across the channel that leads to the Kakaako Small Boat Harbor and kept on surfing.
A few minutes later, a Honolulu Fire Department helicopter skimmed the water a few hundred yards offshore above the heads of about a dozen surfers and later, a lifeguard on a personal watercraft pulled up to a pod of surfers to explain that an advisory urging people to stay out of the water was in effect.
The lifeguard rode away and the surfers stayed put.
Sid Nakahara and his father Hubert were taking in the view from the ocean-front promenade.
Nakahara said his father, now 90, lost his sister-in-law and his infant son, and nearly his wife, in the 1946 tsunami that devastated Hilo.
Nakahara said his father had to fly over to Hilo to identify his son’s body and to help his wife, Mildred, who had been visiting Hilo and who was found alive in the rubble left in the tsunami’s wake.
Nearby, a Japanese wedding party posed for photographs, unfazed by the advisory urging them to move away from the shoreline.
The Department of Emergency Management has warned the public to stay out of the water and away from shorelines until 7:30 p.m.
The 8.0 quake struck around dawn about midway between Samoa and American Samoa.