The guys at Point Panic call it the guillotine, but it’s not the only threat at the popular bodysurfing break off Kakaako Waterfront Park.
At 7:30 a.m. Sept. 20, when my son Rory, daughter-in-law Kaitlin and I arrived at Panics, the lineup was crawling with board surfers despite the prominent sign warning that the point is off-limits to them as well as bodyboarders.
It was a beautiful, clear morning, and the grass and oceanside promenade were free of the encampments and vandalism that had caused the state to close the park for repairs last year.
The uncles, veteran bodysurfers, were sitting at their picnic table by a tree, surveying the scene. Kaitlin found a place on the sea wall with her book while Rory and I walked on past the shower and around the Diamond Head corner of the park to the steps leading down to the ocean.
Here we were approached by two unkempt men. One was tall, wearing basketball garb.
“Don’t go in the water, Jason!” he chanted in a falsetto voice directed at Rory. The other, bare-chested in baggy shorts, held a rope attached to a bicycle inner tube. The odor of pakalolo hung in the air. Rory walked back to stay with Kaitlin, but she insisted she’d be fine and he should go out: They live on the mainland now, and he hadn’t bodysurfed in more than a year.
By now, other bodysurfers were joining the lineup, including the uncles. I worried about Kaitlin, alone onshore, but then a gardener on a lawnmower and a maintenance worker appeared and started working in the park behind her.
As we swam out for a set, a grizzled man on a bodyboard grabbed the peak of a wave and then came sliding boardless, down the glassy face. Had I imagined the board?
No. There it was, floating in the impact zone where he’d ditched it. Another bodysurfer grabbed it.
“Eh, I hold onto this so no cut somebody,” he called to the bearded guy.
“It’s not a boogie board?” I asked. (These aren’t allowed either.)
He shook his head.
“No. Stay wood. Sharp, the buggah!”
“The guillotine,” another bodysurfer said.
“Mom,” Rory called, his brow furrowed above his fierce black eyes. “I’m going in. That guy is bothering Kaitlin.”
The shorter man was talking to Kaitlin. Slowly, he presented his fist. She gave him a fist bump. He walked away. She picked up her book. He came back for another fist bump. She turned back to her book but he stood there, swinging the inner tube.
“He’s got a lasso,” a bodysurfer said.
As Rory raced to shore and ran down the promenade dripping, fins in hand, I remembered the recent stabbings in Chinatown and Waikiki and swam in to warn the kids.
When I got there the man was gone and Rory was hugging Kaitlin.
“He asked if I wanted to go around the corner and smoke weed,” she said. “I said no, I just wanted to read my book, and my husband was right there in the water. Then he admired the ‘rocks’ in my wedding ring. I wondered if he was going to try and cut my finger off!”
Rory groaned.
Still, determined that the man not spoil our morning, Kaitlin took the car to get some coffee while we swam back out to catch some waves.
Now that we were numerous, the bodysurfers were able to get the surfers to leave; they are supposed to stay Ewa of a boundary buoy.
WONDERING WHAT people should do if they feel endangered at Panics, I called Garett Kamemoto, spokesman for the Honolulu Community Development Association, which has jurisdiction over the park.
He advised calling 911.
“They’re the ones best equipped to deal with people like that,” Kamemoto said. “An officer told me they will respond if someone feels threatened. Also, that way, these guys know that somebody’s watching them.”
He added that HCDA also has a security patrol in a big truck that roams Kakaako Waterfront, Kewalo and Kolowalu parks.
I asked if they could check Panics in the quiet, emptier, early mornings.
“I’ll mention it to them so they can make sure that they have a presence,” Kamemoto said.
Hopefully security will also discourage the surfers and bodyboarders, who can be cited for invading the bodysurfers’ space.
“In the Lineup” features Hawaii’s oceangoers and their regular hangouts, from the beach to the deep blue sea. Reach Mindy Pennybacker at mpennybacker@staradvertiser.com or call 529-4772.
