Honolulu Weekly

It’s a perfect summery Friday morning at Ala Moana Beach Park, just past 7am, and there are dozens of swimmers working their way through the water in elegant backstrokes, perfect-form freestyles and methodical breaststrokes. Among them are surfers paddling in and out from the break and more than half a dozen paddle boarders, slowly churning the water in long strokes. The sun is bright above the quiet beach. But in the water, things are not as calm as they appear.

With the rapid rise in popularity of stand-up paddle boarding, safety concerns from swimmers who have spent decades doing laps in the near-shore lagoon at Ala Moana Beach Park are escalating.

“You gotta watch the whole time you are in there,” said Lehua McColgan, who looks happily amphibious in her post-swim goggles and cap. “I’ve been swimming here an hour every morning for the last 30 years and now I have to keep my head up the whole time, otherwise they’ll run right into you.”

The Department of Land and Natural Resources held a public meeting about the problem in early May–the result of which is a plan to section off the lagoon with buoys so that certain lanes are designated for paddle boarders. It’s a proposal that has plenty of swimmers claiming that the DLNR failed to thoroughly assess the issue or even the way that swimmers and paddle boarders actually use the lagoon. They say the department opted for a quick fix in order to quiet those who have been complaining.

“A number of problems raised by swimmers have been largely ignored,” wrote Michael Ling, a regular swimmer at Ala Moana. “Do these public meetings serve any purpose or are they shibai?”

DLNR officials admit that they’re hoping to avoid the long and complicated process it would take to draw up official regulations. But they also say that this is the appropriate place to start.

“We had the meeting in May and we thought it was a good meeting but some groups of swimmers came back and said they didn’t agree with it,” said Ed Underwood, administrator of the DLNR’s Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation. “This is a trial period. If we were crafting new rules, we’d have to go out to the community, designate times for swimming and paddle boarding and all that stuff. So we thought, what can we do in the interim to see if we can’t amicably work something out?”

But the swimmers who originally approached the DLNR for help insist that the proposal is a non-solution that actually further complicates things for them.

“They say they’re gonna put a line in to keep the swimmers and paddle boarders out of each other’s way,” said McColgan. “But when it’s low tide, the swimmers have nowhere to go. The paddle boarders get in people’s way and they come from all areas. If there could be specific places for entry and exit, it would be better.”

Just how dangerous the shared waterway is remains somewhat unclear. Ling said he knows of swimmers at Ala Moana Beach Park who have been clocked in the head so hard they needed numerous staples to close the wound–and one case in which a swimmer who was hit by a paddle board experienced “three months of diplopia or double vision, requiring numerous tests and physician visits.”

“There’s always people complaining,” said lifeguard Blayne Fujita. “I haven’t seen any really bad collisions where people have a bump on the head or anything.”

And while swimmer and paddle boarders may pass each other in the water without incident the vast majority of the time, Ling insists that the threat of collision is too severe to ignore, or push away with the creation of a couple of lanes.

“The situation is dangerous,” wrote Ling. “Serious injuries have already occurred and the potential for death from these injuries is real.”

State officials have acknowledged the risk in the shared space–it was the reason DLNR Chairperson Laura Thielen gave for the public meeting in May–but Underwood said that the state can only go so far in making any already-risky activity safer for those who willingly choose to participate in it.

“Any water-related sport has an inherent risk,” he said. “Look at Waikiki. You have canoers, swimmers, surfers, all jammed into one area. This activity is taking place statewide and there’s always going to be risk when you’re in the water. I can understand their concern but I believe a paddle boarder should be able to see a swimmer coming and not get in their way.”

Still, seeing a swimmer before colliding with him or her doesn’t prevent an accident.

“Usually, the beginners, they’re not in control,” said David Jinbo, dripping salt water after an early-morning surf session at Ala Moana. “It’s a learning process. I realize paddle boarders are somewhat arrogant, and that’s true with some surfers, too, but everybody’s got to learn and everybody’s got to learn to share.”

Todd Mihara paddle boards there about twice a week. He’s usually out past the lagoon, in deeper waters, but posits a similar stance to Jinbo’s. He said the swimmers’ concerns have to be everyone’s concerns.

“We got to coexist with the surfers, the boogie boarders, everyone,” he said. “Even in the lagoon, I think the paddle boarders are staying on the edges, especially since they heard from the swimmers about this issue.”

For now, DLNR officials are working to convene a group of both paddle boarders and swimmers so that they may be able to hammer out a solution that works. Underwood said that even though the lagoon has long been an area solely for swimmers, such exclusivity can’t be enforced.

“The bottom line is, the swimmers don’t want the paddle boarders there at all,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about that. They have to work together.”