BY EMILY HARRISON / KALAMALAMA STAFF WRITER
North shore is like an escape on the island. Sometimes being down in Honolulu or even Waikiki is just, simply, too much. There’s so much noise, too much light, too much human development.
It’s too much.
Sometimes, you just need to get away and remember where you are.
We are on an island. So why doesn’t it feel like that?
Well, a trip to North Shore will cure that city sickness right away.
Waimea Cove
The first thing that needs to be done is to create a kid of planned-out day of what you’re going to do.
If you want to spend all day cooking in the sun and swimming in the waves, hey that’s till a plan.
But there is so much to do and see along the north shore. There are so many towns and places to shop. It’s a great little getaway and taste of the island.
I, for one, really hate the city. I grew up in a small town and in the country, nonetheless, and I guess you could say I always liked the beach life. I never necessarily thought of myself as an island girl, and even now, I don’t consider myself to be an island girl.
But I still appreciate the life.
My roommates enjoy Waikiki. They enjoy the restaurants and the clubs and stuff like that. And I’m definitely more of a bookworm.
I like to kind of be in calm environments and natural environments. So, when we get the chance to go to North Shore, I’m all on board.
Yesterday, my roommates and I took a girls trip up to North Shore. We went and stopped at Waimea. If you don’t know what Waimea is, it is a beach up on the North Shore of Oahu. It is probably best known for its rock to jump off of. I’m sure there’s an actual name to it. I don’t know it, but I do not wish to jump off of this.
When I was young, I jumped off of a 20-foot tree into one of the springs down in Florida, and I did almost the opposite of a belly flop. I landed like you would if you were sitting on a stool, and it knocked the wind right out of me, and since then, I have had no urge to jump off of anything, let alone an even taller platform into the ocean.
Another thing about me, as some of my readers may know, I am a marine biology major. I do wish to be a diver, a research diver, to be specific. But my eyes are very sensitive to the salt water, so if I jumped off of this rock into the salt water, I would be a disaster.
I would knock the wind out of myself. I wouldn’t be able to see… it would be a whole tragedy. Quite a show to watch, but not something I want to live through.
But the beach is really nice, especially this time of the year. The waves are pretty calm. There is a strong undertow. It took me out yesterday. I’m recovering from an injury, and my feet are not the most stable right now, and when I was getting out of the water, it swept one of my feet out from under me, but I didn’t get pulled in. I just got knocked down by the wave. Which, the waves here, bring a lot of sand, so that was a fun thing to deal with.
But, despite that, the beach is really nice. There isn’t a lot of shade if you are closer to the water, but if you are further back on the beach, against the rocks, because this beach is kind of built into a cove.
It’s a very, very wide Cove, but nonetheless, it is one.
There is shade up against those rocks. But many people bring blankets, beach towels, beach blankets, and then other people bring like tents and umbrellas. We did not bring anything of sun protection, except sunscreen I did not apply generously.
I actually was reading for quite a bit and burnt my entire back down from the top of my shoulders all the way to my heels, which I think is pretty impressive. I was doing a great job flipping. And then I read eight chapters and basically caught fire, not important though.
The beach is really nice. There is a little bit of rock reefs, which is probably not a “correct term,” but it’s a simpler term to understand. Basically, little reefs built into smaller rock clusters. There are also rock patches that have a few just grazing fish.
There is a lot of open water. On the downside though, there isn’t much space from the beach to where you cannot touch but the waves aren’t very chaotic.
They’re pretty calm. It’s easy to get into the water, and it’s not too much of a struggle to get out. And, if you time it correctly, it’s not a struggle at all. If you don’t time it correctly, you might fall down a little bit.
There are some cool shells to collect there. The beach is nice. It’s a soft, sandy beach, and it’s really close to some food trucks there up the road, which will be my next discussion.
North Shore Food Trucks
Now, when I first came here for spring break, four years ago, my roommate and I actually stopped here.
We had no idea what it was, if it was a good idea to eat at food trucks or not, nobody had told us about it. We just saw and thought, Oh, that’s interesting.
And it was actually the first place I ever had shaved ice here on island, and it remains to be my favorite place.
I typically get a mixture of strawberry and mango with ice cream. But we did try the rainbow Hawaiian, which would have been better if I realized that the Blue Hawaiian has coconut in it.
Now, people ask me all the time, why am I on island? Even though I hate coconut, there are a lot of other things here that don’t involve coconut. That’s why, thank you. I like pineapple at least.
But they give you huge proportions. As you can tell, I would consider this very shareable, but you could also be like me and not share at all. That’s also a good choice.
There are lots of other trucks in this little area, but I am going to focus on this North Shore truck, just because this is what I had the most experience with, I’ve been coming here for many years now.
I don’t like seafood, but my roommates do, and they get their shrimp here. Every time we come up here, they typically get the garlic shrimp. The truck has a couple other options, but the garlic shrimp never disappoints them.
It usually fills them up pretty well, and they’re always super happy to get it. And the chefs in the truck make it fresh. You order, you wait a little bit, but they’re cooking it right then and there as soon as you order. That’s really nice, too.
The Food trucks are right across the street from Sharks Cove, which I do not have pictures, but I have been there a couple of times. It’s a nice place to snorkel. If you’re going to, I do recommend getting there pretty early, just because it is a very popular place.
Sharks Cove
If you’re wanting to enjoy nature and not people, best get there before the crowd arrives. Which people tend to show up in clusters after 10 am. Or if you wanted to go later in the evening, I suggest about 3pm to 4pm. A lot of people aren’t there at that time either. I think they just get tired of the sun. But once it starts to get dark, people do come back. It’s a nice place to watch the sunset, too.
There are also a lot of surrounding towns with a lot of good food, some music, a lot of different options of what to do there.
In the general area of Sharks Cove, there is a closed reef, which is Sharks Cove, and then there are open reefs around it.
The difference between these reefs isn’t necessarily the animals and species that you will see, as much as the abundance and the amount and intensity of the waves that can affect you.
Sharks Cove is enclosed, which means that unless it’s a very aggressive day, very windy, there’s not really any water movement unless you are near the entrance where the water flows into the Cove.
But typically, throughout the year, in the surrounding areas, the waves are pretty intense on the open coves around Sharks Cove, but it’s still beautiful.
There are lots and lots of animals and species and corals and all kinds of things to see there. But if you were not an experienced swimmer, or if you do not do well with getting pulled with the tide, I don’t recommend going there, for safety reasons.
But Waimea, unless it is surf season, is a good place to do a little snorkeling, do a little swimming. You can even bring out some floats and chill. It’s a good place just to, like, grill out on the beach and just lay down, get a couple tans, read a good book, maybe flip every once in a while…
But falling along this road about a mile, maybe two miles down the road from these food trucks and Sharks Cove, and about probably three miles from Waimea, is a nice beach called Sunset Beach. I’m sure lots of you have heard about this beach, or possibly been there or even seen TikTok’s or Instagram reels about it, but it is a really nice place to be.
There are lots and lots of people, typically throughout the day, but it’s a wide span beach. There are many different entrances to it is a nice place to swim. I guess there aren’t really many things to see in the water, but the reason it has its name is that it has excellent sunsets.
There isn’t really shade here, but water is cool, the sand is soft, and it’s just a Nice open view for you to end your day,
if you get burnt throughout the day, or if you will have Island fever and you are not doing well with the temperature drop, even though it’s still in the 70s at night, I do recommend bringing maybe a blanket or something to cover up with, because if you want to stay throughout the sunset, the heat of the day does start to dissipate.
I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s cold, especially at this time of year, but especially if you go later in the year, or even early in the year, such as January and February, it’s quite cold.
Maybe in the summer, it doesn’t drop at all. I do not stay here throughout the summer, so I do not know.
But this is a great place to end your day.
It’s a great place to start your day, too. If you are more involved in enjoying the ocean and stuff. I do recommend going over to Waimea or Sharks Cove.
This is what I typically choose to do when I go to North Shore. Like I said, there are many other options. There are small towns surrounding these beaches. There’s even the Dole Plantation on the way up to North Shore.
The small towns are very cute. Typically, we stop there to get breakfast. We did not yesterday. But I do recommend if you are having a little bit of anxiety, especially with midterms coming up, or if you are just getting too involved with human interactions and being in the city is too much. Go up to North Shore.
Go up, swim, tan, eat, take a few breaths with the fresh salt air.
Enjoy the smell of freshness and not exhaust. Enjoy the sun and not the heat. Enjoy the water without the pressure. Enjoy the sound of the ocean and not the screams of people.
Just go up and have a nice, relaxing day. Just go enjoy life. Go up to North Shore.
