There’s a lot to see, in the water and on the shore, at Hanauma Bay. I have swum there an estimated zillions of times. I think I would call it my favorite beach, without pondering long about any of the many others I have enjoyed.
After you park your car above Hanauma Bay, you must make a long, steep descent on foot on a narrow asphalt road. Later, when you are heading home, your hike back to the top seems longer and steeper still. One sunny summer afternoon when my son David was four years old and I was thirty-six, he and I were taking our sweet time climbing the “mountain” after a good swim. Other beach goers, also returning to the top, were passing us by, some of them. When two ample-bodied women, probably in their twenties, walking side-by-side, overtook us and had gotten a few yards distant just ahead, my son remarked upon their brightly colored bikinis, specifically the brightly colored, thong-style, lower part of their beachwear. Might as well have been brightly colored belts and nothing more, for all that we could see. “Dad!” David whispered with reverence and discretion. “Don’t those ladies’ swimsuits hurt?”
“Ha!” I said. “I suppose they would! Do you think we should ask?”
David chuckled; he knew I didn’t mean it. But he did have a second question. He whispered that one, too. “Dad,” he said, “don’t their swimsuits stink?”
“Ha!” I replied again. “I bet that’s probably so. But I hope we never find out for sure!”
♦
