This is an interesting read about Waimea Bay in Oahu, Hawaii. Special thanks for Lopaka for sharing his personal perceptions and memories on his Facebook:.

Lopaka Brown is with DA V IE Ma’ilo and 2 others.

I was born raised in Waimea Valley, my Ohana’s ancestry goes way back for centuries.

My dad Francis Kipapa Brown took this picture of his brother Ben Kahulamu Brown in 1935.

If you’re wondering what happened to all the sand! Well!!! Not long after the United States illegal occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1898 the Territory of Hawaii and the big five corporations started ripping off the sand from Waimea and that’s what created the Bay.

Sand was more valuable then gold back then because the sand from Waimea and the Hawaiian Islands were very corse and not real fine and was better for making cement & concrete for highways and development.

The sand was also used to create the military beach for Fort Derussy and to fill in the Kalo Loi’s that created Waikiki Beach.

The removal of the sand exposed the reefs and generated the huge waves we now have during the winter surf months.

They stopped taking the sand in the late 1960’s into the early 1970’s when they realized that with the sand all gone, the exposure of the reefs was causing the huge waves, and erosion started to take it’s toll from Kuilima, Sunset Beach and the coast line to Haleiwa.

Anyway’s just wanted to share and compare the before and now…

BTW: When my grandmother was a little girl she said the sand was so far out she could walk out pass those little rock islands out on the left side of the bay… Aloha