Keawakapu Beach

It’s amazing how much difference one day can make…….we have days and days of perfect conditions…..and then thunder showers in the mountains last night sends water, red dirt and debris gushing from the gulches into the ocean and today our pristine ocean was “red dirt brown” !!!!!  Commonly know as “run off”…… I haven’t seen it this bad for at least a couple of years!  Despite the dirty water, the paddling conditions were perfect though, so I went out paddling in the brown water.  It looked worse north, so I paddled south in hopes of finding some clear water.  Down at the boat ramp it was clear as can be!  I could see the coral and fish and five turtles came to visit me!  It was so nice down there that I didn’t want to paddle back.  I ran into a paddling friend who had just come out and I gave her a run down of the situation.  We paddled north and the water got continually brown the farther north we went, so I headed in.  I paddled as close as I could to the shoreline because I wasn’t thrilled about jumping into brown water!  I made it in and there was no way I was swimming in that water, so I took my board home and headed south to find a beach I could swim at.  I took the Piilani Highway so it would be faster, only to find out that the road was closed down to Keawakapu Beach!  I had to detour around in Wailea down to South Kihei Road and wind my way back to Keawakapu, only to find that the parking lot there was also closed!  How frustrating!  Everyone was parking on the road so I did too and had to walk down to the beach.  Luckily, it was beautiful at Keawakapu and NOT brown!  I went for a great swim and just as I was kicking back in the sun to dry off…..a big dark cloud loomed over and then it started to rain!  Then it rained harder……and I had to jump into action and grab all my stuff and walk in the pouring rain all the way down the road to my car!  I was soaked and so was my beach stuff but I was glad to be in my car.  By the time I got home, the rain was pouring at my house too!  I like the rain, but today was a lot more work and frustration than I am used to!!  I hope it isn’t long before everything is back to normal at my beach!!