Ocean recreation Ocean recreation ADVERTISING Confusion, craziness I would first of all wish to pay my respects to the family of the 15-year-old boy, Tyler Madoff, who was lost in the ocean at Kealakekua Bay on July 4. I cannot
Ocean recreation
Confusion, craziness
I would first of all wish to pay my respects to the family of the 15-year-old boy, Tyler Madoff, who was lost in the ocean at Kealakekua Bay on July 4. I cannot even imagine the heartbreak and pain they must feel for their son, passing on at such a young age with so much life ahead of him. My heart sincerely goes out to them.
I was on the water at the same time this incident happened.
I live in Hilo and was visiting a good friend, who lives in Kona, for the Fourth of July holiday. I love to kayak fish, so I brought my boats to Kona and took my friend out fishing on the fourth. We launched our kayaks around noon at Keauhou Bay, anticipating the high tide later around 4 p.m.
I thought this would be the best time to get in the water to fish. My friend and I both knew that there was a high-surf advisory for south-facing shores of the Big Island, but this didn’t bother us because we are both avid surfers and knew we were safe launching from Keauhou Bay.
I was amazed at the amount of activity going on at Keauhou Bay. There were swimmers, stand-up paddlers, kayak tours, one-man canoes, fishing boats going in and out, educational traditional Polynesian sailboat classes going on, massive tour catamarans motoring around — and then us. It was a “crazy world.”
We managed to load our gear and paddle out past a lot of the commotion and were awed by the waves breaking on the reefs north of the bay. They were big and we knew they would get bigger with the high tide. It is pretty inspiring for Hawaiian surfers to see.
We paddled out another 100 yards from shore then set our fishing lines out in the water. Less than two minutes later a commercial inflatable boat goes screaming by and runs over my friend’s fishing line and wraps all the line from the reel around its prop and “spools” him. Idiots! What if the line wrapped around the prop disabled the outboard motor from running and this tour group drifted into the impact zone of the high surf? More people lost?
My friend and I tried to continue to fish, dodging the Body Glove and Hula Kai but finally discontinued our pursuit.
“It’s just the Fourth of July holiday,” my friend said. Sad thing is that the next day when we woke up to go surfing, there were these same boats jetting around crazily — just like the day before.
Hawaii is the most beautiful place ,and I wish everybody could experience what we are so blessed to have.
Tourism can be a wonderful business and support the local people for many years — but this craziness is not aloha.
My point is, my heart goes out to the parents of Tyler Madoff, I apologize and am so sad and sorry for your loss.
Howard Grant
Hilo
