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Ocean safety
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Drownings
in Hawaii are all too common. Waves can sweep in from two thousand miles of open ocean onto beaches magnificent to look at but unprotected by any reef. Not all beaches have lifeguards and warning flags; unattended beaches are not necessarily safe. Watch the sea carefully before going in, and never take your eyes off it thereafter. Fierce
rogue waves
can appear from the blue to drag waders - or even those walking along the shore - far out to sea in seconds, and powerful
undertows
may not be detectable until too late. If you do get swept out, don't fight the big waves; wait for the current to die down before trying to swim back to shore.
Sea creatures to avoid include black spiky
sea urchins
, Portuguese man-of-war
jellyfish
, and
coral
in general, which can give painful infected cuts.
Shark attacks
are much rarer than popular imagination suggests; those that do occur are usually due to "misunderstandings," such as surfers idling on their boards looking a bit too much like turtles from below. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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United States,
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