On Maui this weekend a 38-year-old California man drowned in one of the popular Seven Sacred Pools, a 25-year-old unidentified tourist nearly drowned after jumping off the back side of Black Rock in Lahaina, and an unresponsive man was pulled out of the water near Kekaa Landing Pier off Kaanapali.
Meanwhile on Oahu, emergency responders transported two men to the hospital in critical condition Saturday after apparent near-drownings at Hanauma Bay and Kalama Beach Park in Kailua.
In mid-August three elderly Japanese tourists died in drowning incidents at different locations on Oahu in less than a week.
And earlier this year Kauai experienced an alarming rash of visitor drownings. So far 10 Garden Island visitors have drowned, along with four residents — bringing the total to more than triple that of 2012 and double the 2011 number, according to state Health Department statistics.
Seven people had drowned in Kauai waters before the end of February and by mid-March the island had already had its 10th drowning.
The situation prompted officials from organizations such as the Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau, the Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association and the Water Awareness Visitor Education program to meet last spring and discuss ways to address the alarming rise in ocean fatalities.
Patrick Durkin of the Water Awareness Visitor Education program, a nonprofit organization founded in 2006, said officials reacted with "shock and awe at the beginning, no question about that."
As part of the island’s response, Durkin has been holding training sessions at hotels and resorts around the island to educate staff regarding how they can inform guests about recreational hazards.
Also, a water safety video funded by the Rotary Club of Kapaa started running on screens in the baggage claim area at Lihue Airport in mid-April to better inform visitors and residents of potential ocean dangers. The 61⁄2-minute video features Kalani Vierra, the operations supervisor of Kauai County’s Ocean Safety Bureau, and Dr. Monty Downs, president of the Kaua‘i Lifeguard Association, urging the public to swim only at beaches with lifeguards.
Durkin said the real issue for tourists is education.
"They just don’t know what a rip current looks like and they don’t know what a 3-foot wave can do to them," he said. "They’re just unfamiliar with the ocean. It’s understandable. So the causes haven’t changed, but the frequency was a little scary there for a while."
Sue Kanoho, executive director of the Kaua‘i Visitors Bureau, said ocean safety officials feel cautiously optimistic that there hasn’t been a tourist fatality there since June, when a 48-year-old Brentwood, Tenn., man was found unresponsive while snorkeling along the Na Pali Coast as part of a charter group.
"Any time anybody drowns is a concern for us and we try to look at what more can be done to educate people," Kanoho said. "It really comes down to, you know, knowing what the conditions are and understanding what your limitations may be."
Recently the Visitor Aloha Society of Hawaii and Hawai‘i Tourism Authority teamed up to launch an online brochure and revamp www.travelsmarthawaii.com, where the brochure is posted. The website and brochure feature tips for planning a Hawaii vacation and traveling safely around the islands, including while driving.
Water safety tips include: Never turn your back on the ocean; always swim at a guarded beach; observe dangerous condition signs; and do not dive off waterfalls and cliffs or climb on wet rocks.
Mike McCartney, president and chief executive officer of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, said he hopes the brochure will soon be available in multiple languages and distributed to marketing partners, hotels and other visitor industry stakeholders — especially private vacation rentals that don’t have staff attending to guests.
"There’s been a number of sad, unfortunate incidents and so we want to step up our game," McCartney said. He added that visitors need as much education as they can get because they aren’t familiar with Hawaii’s hazards.
"Those of us who are born and raised here had the fortunate opportunity to be educated by, you know, our kupuna, or our aunties, our uncles, our parents, about the ocean — about how to respect it," he said.
The Visitor Aloha Society, which deals with and gets reports of some drownings but not all, has noticed an increase in Oahu ocean drownings from 2012 to 2013, said president and executive director Jessica Lani Rich. From January to July 2012 the organization dealt with 44 ocean drownings, compared with 52 in the same period this year. Water incidents that were referred to the agency in June were almost double that of June 2012, she said.
Jim Howe, operations chief of Honolulu’s Ocean Safety Department, said one of Oahu’s biggest concerns throughout the summer is visitors running into trouble while snorkeling.
Howe said that this year there have been no offshore paddling deaths, no jumping or diving deaths and no deaths related to wave surges, but there have been snorkeling deaths.
"That continues to be the act with the highest rate of fatalities for visitors and that’s where we’re seeing most of the problem," he said, adding that nonswimmers older than 55 who are in less than 3 feet of water tend to be the most at risk.
"What is it about snorkeling that is leading people to get in so much trouble in water where they can just stand up?" he said.
The short answer: inexperience.
"The whole idea of wearing a mask and snorkel in the ocean is a skill," Howe said. "You have to know how to clear that snorkel whenever any water gets in it; if you don’t and you breathe in water, you may die. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of water" to drown.
Howe compared snorkeling to riding a bicycle while breathing through a straw and having a bucket of water thrown at you, and said that snorkelers in trouble often don’t show any distress signs other than a lack of movement.
"We think we’ve identified where this issue is fairly clearly. Now the question becomes, How do we best work with our community and our visitor industry to make sure that our visitors are well-informed and have adequate skills to go participate in this activity enjoyably?" he said.
