Waves with 50-foot faces are expected on Oahu’s North Shore today, and so are the dangers after a tourist from San Francisco died in high surf last week at Shark’s Cove.
Lifeguards at Waimea Bay have been using yellow tape and a bullhorn to keep onlookers away from the pounding shorebreak, where people were buzzing over the news that the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational was “a go” for today, depending on the surf.
Organizers will make the official call this morning when tens of thousands of spectators are expected to descend on the North Shore.
The world’s premiere surfing contest — named for the famed waterman who was the North Shore’s original lifeguard and reportedly saved more than 500 people during his career — is run only when wave heights at the bay are expected to consistently be at least 40 feet.
“The Eddie” has been held on only 10 previous occasions, most recently in January 2023, when North Shore lifeguard Luke Shepardson took the title, and before that in 2016.
The city’s Department of Ocean Safety is urging “extreme caution” along affected shorelines due to “extremely dangerous and life-threatening” conditions.
“Lifeguards warn all those wanting to watch the large surf to remain far away from the shoreline, off of all rocky shorelines and only expert surfers should enter the water,” Ocean Safety said in a statement following Wednesday’s death.
In anticipation of hazardous conditions and massive crowds, city officials announced parking restrictions around Waimea Bay and increased staffing of first-responders along the North Shore. Special TheBus routes also have been established to encourage people to avoid driving to the area.
The National Weather Service on Saturday extended its high-surf warning for north and west shores of most islands until 6 a.m. Monday. Forecasters expect surf to build to 40 to 50 feet today along the north-facing shores of Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai and Maui before gradually easing tonight and into early this week.
Surf building to 25 to 35 feet is forecast today for west-facing shores of Niihau, Kauai, Oahu and Molokai, with surf of 8 to 12 feet along west-facing shores of the Big Island.
The Weather Service warned the public to “expect ocean water surging and sweeping across beaches, coastal benches, and lava flows creating the potential for impacts to coastal properties and infrastructure, including roadways.”
The hazards include powerful shore and rip currents at most beaches and large breaking waves and strong currents at harbor entrances and channels.
“Stay away from the shoreline along the affected coasts. Be prepared for road closures. Postpone entering or leaving channels affected by the high surf until the surf subsides,” the Weather Service advised.
On Wednesday, Ocean Safety lifeguards entered surf with wave faces of 18 to 20 feet to bring an unresponsive 42-year-old man to shore via personal watercraft. Paramedics later pronounced him dead. The Honolulu Medical Examiner did not immediately have a cause of death but identified him as San Francisco tourist Guo-Chen Peng.
Pro surfer Mark Healey, 43, of Pupukea, will compete in his fifth “Eddie” today, even after a 12-foot wave at Waimea Bay snapped his 8-foot-11 Ron Meeks board in half on Friday.
Asked what happened, Healey said: “Wrong place, wrong time.”
“It’s incredibly dangerous and not even safe for experts,” he added.
In his surfing career, Healey estimated that more than 50 of his boards have been broken by big waves.
Waimea surfers on Friday agreed the biggest waves of the morning were 15 feet tall when measured “Hawaiian style” — from the back of the swell instead of its face — and plenty dangerous.
Ethan Kobayashi, 19, of Palolo, sat out Friday’s surf session with an injured left knee after it was twisted by a wave.
“Some people underestimate how strong the waves are,” he said.
Several surfers wore helmets and inflatable vests that rocket them to the surface if the power of a wave — or sets of waves — holds them down too long.
Even people “oohing” and “aahing” on shore are at risk of getting washed out to sea and into pounding surf and deadly rip currents.
“The lifeguard is saying that some people are getting too close to the water,” Kobayashi said after another lifeguard announcement.
He sat on a bench, safely away from the surf, which had been as high as 25 feet at Waimea Bay last week.
Lifeguards cannot force anyone to stay out of dangerous waters but they do their best to warn those who look like they don’t know what they’re doing.
The day they recovered Peng’s body at Shark’s Cove, North Shore lifeguards made an estimated 3,000 “preventative actions,” as they’re known, to keep beachgoers safe and eight rescues, according to the Ocean Safety Department.
Jeff Pike, a visitor from Akron, Ohio, spent the first day of his vacation Friday with his wife and three children at Waimea Bay. During big-wave season, Pike said, “we read you can’t swim at all on this side of the island.”
Surfer Ryder Jalbert, a 21-year-old math and psychology junior at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said, “Listen to the lifeguards. Anything they say goes.”
Kathryn Cahill, 44, and her husband, Kawika Cahill, 45, both surf but only in “not-big Waikiki waves,” she said. “This is too big for us. If it’s 5 to 7 feet, I don’t go out.”
So they drove to Waimea from their home at Diamond Head just to watch — and to watch safely.
“You never turn your back to the ocean,” Kawika Cahill said. “And stay out of the water if you’re not experienced.”
Ana Dagostini, a 12-year-old surfer from Brazil, took on her first Waimea waves while wearing an inflatable vest and helmet as her mother, Maira, videotaped her from shore through a long lens.
“We came to Hawaii to surf,” said Ana’s father, Benito, who watched from shore after twisting his knee while surfing.
“It’s not the waves,” he said. “The current is gnarly.”
Dane Teves, a 36-year-old architect from Kailua, got out of the surf and walked past bystanders watching the waves and said they need to be alert for “the big ones that come up and catch you off guard.”
Tom Tengan, a 62-year-old visitor from Fountain Valley, Calif., and a 1985 UH graduate, sat on shore with his wife, their three daughters, son and son-in-law — and nothing but respect for the waves.
“They look extremely dangerous,” Tengan said. “It’s humbling to watch.”
Sydney Steddick, a 24-year-old surfer from Waialua, rested on a towel watching her boyfriend, Finn Armstrong, take on the famed surf break.
The winter waves are too big for Steddick, so she loves surfing in smaller sets.
She called the sport “the coolest experience. You really feel the power of nature.”
