Waikiki Part 1, Waikiki MLCD off Queen's beach

Last Saturday, I went out with Russell and Risa and took some video at the Waikiki MLCD. This area is my "local" beach (since I live in town), and it's also the area I go to the most and know the best. Beyond that, the snorkeling here was the seed that prompted this blog and my current video adventures.

Perhaps I should say, it was half of what caused me to make this blog.

The Waikiki MLCD was one of the places that formed my "baseline" for what a reef should look like. The other was Three Tables in the Pupukea MLCD, which is different since it is in the country and the coral is still very healthy. I knew enough to expect the reef to have a lot of algae and be mostly dead (it's in a city, I'm not expecting a cathedral), but I was surprised to find that it still was full of life. I didn't realize I was setting myself up for a fall by going there, but I went out to Lanikai and snorkeled there... Only to be tremendously dissapointed by the fact that there were no big fish, and very few fish at all in comparison, despite much more healthy coral! When I found similar conditions next to the Makai pier, I decided I was going to find out the truth about Oahu reefs and get the public to see it.

The Waikiki MLCD has been protected for 25 years, and it shows. There are lots of fish, many surgeonfish and uhu (parrotfish), and on the outside there are many reef predators, specifically 'omilu (bluefin trevally) and kaku (barracuda). I've seen some of them in Hanauma bay, but surprisingly I see much larger schools in the Waikiki MLCD, and I have never seen as many kaku, or 'omilu as large anywhere else.

You can snorkel in the shallow reef right off the beach at Queen's (in front of the Banyan tree and beach volleyball), and you will see many fish, but if you go out past the buoys on the ewa side and follow along the outer reef toward Diamond Head you will really find something special.

Here is a bit of what it's like:

The shocking thing, really, is that this is Waikiki. This is Waikiki! If somebody with more skill and experience was behind the camera, this could be a documentary... There really are fish everywhere, so much so that in 30 minutes of footage there were very few times when there was not at least one fish in view. But this is Waikiki, a dead reef in front of an overdeveloped "theme park" (well, to be fair this is at the end of the developed area and in front of Kapiolani park, but still). And it looks as good, maybe even better than Hanauma bay! The reef IS mostly dead, but the fish sure are alive.

What this says to me is that almost no place on Oahu or in Hawaii is doomed to being "barren". It also tells me that tourism is not the main problem. It says that even a degraded area can come back to life if given protection.

I'm not sure what all the answers are, but I am sure that this small patch of protected reef says more about what a healthy reef can be than Hanauma bay or even Pupukea. It's alive in the face of degraded habitat and invasive algae, despite sitting in front of the city, and in the face of any tourist or local who puts on a mask or goggles and sticks his head under the water. And it's the real deal, with BIG 'omilu and kaku and weke 'ula and kala bigger than dinner plates.

It's the reason I have to snorkel around Oahu. I want to find more places like it, and I want everyone to know that there COULD be more places like it, all around the island, if we decided to hold reef ecosystems as a sacred trust and treat reefs as living things. I'm going to go look for places like this, because I know they should exist all over on Oahu. And I'm going to call for us to try to create places like this around Oahu. I'm not out to take away everyone's favorite fishing spot, or tell people not to fish and eat fish (I love fish myself and have since I was a child), but I AM going to say that we need this, and we need it everywhere on the island, not just in a tiny patch off Waikiki.