Snorkeling Oahu's Electric Beach

I've been to crowded Honolulu several times, even staying a night near the airport on my very first visit to Hawaii over thirty years ago when I connected through on my way to the neighboring island of Kauai. I later took a couple of vacations to Waikiki, Honolulu's most famous beach. On one of those visits I rented a car for a few hours and drove around the entire island, witnessing the quieter and more rugged North Shore along with the picturesque East Shore with its exclusive coastal communities.

I stayed for exactly 36 hours on my recent return to Oahu. While I overnighted in a hotel at the quieter east end of Waikiki, it was the North Shore that was the main subject of my itinerary. I planned two days of snorkeling the coastline's most popular reefs, from Kulima Cove adjacent to the Turtle Bay Resort near the far northern tip of the island, south to ‘Aweoweo Beach Park near Haliewa. Shark's Cove, Three Tables, Waimea Bay, and Laniakea Beach were stops in between. However, sadly, my early October visit coincided with the first seasonal swells that make the North Shore one of the most famous destinations in the world for surfing.

If the waves weren't treacherous, the visibility at my targeted sites was poor. While the skies, temperatures, and scenery were all beautiful, the snorkeling, in contrast, was lousy. I thought about Hanauma Bay on the distant East Shore, where the overall water conditions were reportedly superior that day. The bay is a protected marine preserve known for its reef and abundance of sea life. However I was visiting Oahu on a Monday and Tuesday, the two days of the week the park was closed.

I decided to head to Waikiki in Honolulu to check in to my hotel early if possible. While the world-famous strand of beach is known for its hotels, shopping, and sunsets, snorkeling is not popular except at Sans Souci Beach, which my hotel fronted by no mere coincidence. While I waited for a key to my room, I chatted with a girl in the lobby's shop who said the reef off the hotel is popular with turtles and the occasional reef shark and stingray. A short time later on the beach, the lifeguard even said that an endangered Hawaiian monk seal and her pup had been paying visits. I couldn't wait to enter the South Shore's water, placid and inviting, the complete opposite from conditions on the other side of the island.

Alas, when I finally dived in, the visibility was poor, the silt or sand making it impossible to see much further than the length of my arm. A trio of especially large bluefin trevallies terrified me when they appeared out of nowhere. A surprise encounter was not how I wanted to see my first reef shark in Hawaii! At least watching the sublime sunset a couple of hours later exceeded every expectation I had on that activity.

The next morning the conditions at Sans Souci were only a little better. My short snorkel was a disappointment in the murky water; the only turtle I saw was from the beach when the creature poked its head up for air. I considered driving along the East Shore at least for the scenery until a chat with the barista/scuba diver in the coffee shop convinced me to check out Electric Beach on the far Western Shore. It was late enough in the morning that I'd beat the notoriously heavy traffic in urban Oahu.

Electric Beach was actually on my list, the only snorkeling spot highly recommended on that side of the island. A few massive resorts packed together on manmade lagoons just to the south of the site bely the rugged natural beauty of the coastline extending a dozen miles north. Across the busy road from Kahe Point Beach Park, my actual destination, was another massive development: a power plant, which gives the area its nickname Electric Beach.

Lots of snorkelers already in the clear water reassured me that after twenty-four hours on Oahu, I'd finally have some luck. The power plant had constructed some walls and enclosures that defined a narrow beach at the south end of the complex, probably contributing to the high surf when entering and leaving the sea. But frankly if you can't swim through some slow, big waves, you probably shouldn't be snorkeling in deep water.

In fact, the reef at Electric Beach is quite deep, which is why it's also popular with both scuba divers and free divers. Yet the water was incredibly clear, showcasing an abundance of coral and marine life. Quite notable were the many sergeant majors swimming close to the water's surface and a variety of butterflyfish hugging the reef.

Pylons and other manmade structures encrusted with coral marked a sort of pathway out to sea, ending with two giant water pipes deep below releasing warmer water from the power plant. I could not only feel the increased temperature but I could see it: thermoclines that blurred the water in spots. Visible from the shore, a line of light froth actually marks the area at the sea's surface. Meanwhile below, a number of fish like unicornfish and what appeared to be a school of parrotfish rode the strong current.

The pipes are far away from the beach, easily a distance of two football fields. I couldn't imagine swimming that far without fins, or without being amid a group of other snorkelers for some sense of safety. Fortunately there were also reefs and plenty of sea life closer to shore for the less intrepid.

After an hour's swim I took a break on shore and chatted with a couple of snorkelers who had seen a green sea turtle close to the beach. Within a minute of re-entering the ocean a short time later, I encountered the very reptile they described. In fact, I discovered three more individuals, two of them closer to the pipes releasing warm water. Four turtles on a short swim was usually as good as it gets at any of the best snorkel spots in Hawaii.

Later in the afternoon, I snorkeled out to a mooring far off my hotel's beach. The visibility wasn't nearly as good as at Electric Beach, but I could still see a turtle resting below me on the sea bottom. I floated a minute, enjoying it come in to focus as it joined me at the surface for air. Diamondhead, Honolulu's iconic volcanic peak, was visible between apartment buildings to our right with the endless string of Waikiki's hotels to our left. For me they were merely adornments, distractions from the wild Oahu I came to witness on the reef.