Summer officially ends on Friday, and the passing of the season brings a classic opportunity to reflect on the passing of life.

As The Doors sang in 1968, “Where will we be when the summer’s gone?”

I for one will be here, enjoying the brief off-season between the massive visitor congestion of summer and winter holidays.

It’s a challenge to live and work in a place that nonresidents think of only as a vacation destination.

During tourist seasons, there seems to be no escape from the crowds that swarm every public recreation area. On land, Segway and electric trike tours buzz down sidewalks. Offshore, stand-up paddlers, kayaks, outrigger canoes, bodyboarders and surfers vie for the same waves.

Tempers began to fray early on in what has proved to be a mostly waveless summer, referred to by South Shore surfers as “the Endless Bummer.”

When the summer was still young, a swell was predicted for Memorial Day weekend. I went down to the shore with a Star-Advertiser photographer, aiming to shoot some action at Ricebowls, a hollow, deep-water wave that breaks on the Waikiki side of Diamond Head.

But Ricebowls was overcrowded, inconsistent and too small to barrel.

A tetchy-looking young surfer came paddling in and yelled at us.

“You’d better not publish the name of this place. That’s what spoils it,” he groused.

“Really? I thought it was guys like you,” another surfer called down from the sea wall.

“Say it’s in England!” interjected a pot-bellied elderly man in a straw hat. “Say it’s in Yugoslavia!”

We watched the surfer slink off.

“Why’s he so grumpy?” somebody asked.

It’s not as if Ricebowls is a secret spot. Clearly visible from the public right-of-way, it was mythic when I first surfed there more than 40 years ago. It sits just outside and across the channel from Tonggs, a popular break for longboarders and beginners.

In the past 30 years, Tonggs has also become a major location for surf schools. Vans and trucks pull up, filled with dozens of soft-top longboards, which are deployed among neophytes who swarm over the reef.

Many of us have fond memories of learning to surf under the unpaid tutelage of uncles, aunties or friends, as opposed to surf schools, which are commercial enterprises. They’re also a major cause of overcrowding, not only when classes are in session but when former students return on their own in chaotic droves, like salmon or lemmings.

For other ocean users, surf schools pose a nuisance and a hazard when students aren’t taught the basics of safety and etiquette.

CONCERNED THE overcrowding of Hawaii’s nearshore ocean resources was inhibiting the enjoyment of local residents, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources established rules in 2014 requiring that all ocean recreation commercial operations, including surf schools, have permits.

“For surf schools, it sets a ratio of one instructor to four clients. This is really key,” said Meghan Statts, Oahu district manager for DLNR’s Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation.

In addition, all surf instructors operating in designated Waikiki ocean waters, an area stretching from Kewalo Basin to the Diamond Head buoy, must have an operator blue card.

“The area’s pretty heavily used, so back in the day, in the 1960s, the Hawaiian beachboys created a group, and rules dating back probably even further, to teach in Waikiki ocean waters,” Statts said.

Today, 175 people have instructor blue cards for Waikiki, with a wait list of “maybe 80 people who want to work for an existing school or create their own,” she said.

While the rules encourage responsible teaching, they don’t limit numbers.

“If somebody wants to come and you’ve got five or 10 surf schools out at Pops, the rule doesn’t limit activity,” Statts said. “There’s 45 to 50 commercial use permits just for Oahu, and they don’t have to stay at one particular site.”

If you have a concern that a surf teacher is not operating safely, you can call the DOBOR office at 832-3520 to lodge a complaint, she said. Just be sure to get the name of the company.

The rules cover teachers/coaches who are out on the water with any number of students, including just one or two. Some, Statts added, are exploiting a loophole and instructing from land. In response to community complaints, she’s working on that.

THE OTHER day, I watched a surf school out at Natatorium’s, a nondescript, uncrowded inside break. The students — determined, clumsy and good-humored — evoked baby albatrosses learning to fly. They reminded me that much of the joy of surfing is in sharing it.

“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.