The Beaches of Waikiki

Waikiki Beach includes four distinct areas: Outrigger Canoe Club, Sans Souci, Kapi‘olani Park, and Queen’s Surf. Princess Lili‘uokalani spent time there with Robert Louis Stevenson in earnest conversation on February 3, 1889. The Outrigger Canoe Club beach fronts a club founded in 1908 to revive surfing and canoe paddling and to promote other sports and activities. Sans Souci, named for a small hotel once on the grounds now occupied by the Kaimana Beach Hotel, was where Robert Louis Stevenson spent five weeks convalescing in 1893 and praised its scenery, air, sea water, food, and sunsets. Beside it stands the War Memorial Natatorium, honoring 179 island men who lost their lives in World War I; its 100 meter salt-water pool, still the largest in the U.S., opened in 1927, and its arch has been restored though the pool is no longer used. Kapi‘olani Park Beach forms part of the 100 acre Kapi‘olani Regional Park, dedicated in 1877 by King Kalakaua in honor of Queen Kapi‘olani; its main early feature was a horse track, and after Hawaii’s annexation in 1898 the U.S. Army used its open ground as an encampment. Queen’s Surf, named for the famous surf break offshore, was a leading Honolulu restaurant-nightclub in the 1950s and 1960s before being demolished in 1971 for park improvements. In ancient times at least two heiau stood near this shoreline: Kupalaha at Queen’s Surf Beach, possibly connected with Pap‘ena‘ena heiau where the last human sacrifice in Waikiki is believed to have been made by Kamehameha I, and Makahuna near the foot of Diamond Head, dedicated to Kanaloa and attended by fishermen and seamen.

Urban Honolulu, Hawaii · United States