Very Quiet Beach but make sure you take water shoes its rough to get in to the water. I enjoyed... read more
Very Quiet Beach but make sure you take water shoes its rough to get in to the water. I enjoyed... read more
All I remember is the restrooms and that there were no doors to the toilets and they were not very... read more
Malaekahana is a great beginner surf spot for the north shore of oahu. When i went to Hawaii i told myself i had to go surfing and after seeing the enormous waves one the north shore i thought it wasn't going to happen. I started asking around for a beginner surf spot and was told to head to Malaekahana bay also known as castles. The only problem is there was no place to rent surfboards so we found a company who delivered surfboards among other things all over the island. We gave them a call and with in an hour and a half we were out in the water surfing. I strongly reccomend this place its a great place for learning to surf and great for kids as well. I also reccomend using hawaii beach times services they were great we ended up using them again later at waimea bay. Here is their web contact info hawaiibeachtime.com
We ended up at Malaekahana Bay for a surfing lesson (see my other review) and I now wish I'd known about this fantastic beach long ago. We've been to Oahu several times and this one had never shown up on my radar. It's a beautiful small bay with an almost deserted beach (we were there on a Tuesday around noon). Just north of Laia, it includes a campground, flush toilets (some of the only clean beachfront public toilets I've found on Oahu), and an outdoor shower. The protected bay had enough surf for surfing lessons, nice long rollers for boogie boarding, and was just plain beautiful. There were turtles in the water and horses out in a pasture at the north end of the bay.
The guys running the surfing lessons had two bits of advice for us: Don't leave any valuables in your car (one of them had been broken into the year before) and get the poke from the Superette about a half mile up the road to the north. They all claimed it was the best poke in Hawaii. We went back for it, but the line was very long because the local high school had just let out, so we didn't stay.
On our way back to Hawaii Kai we stopped for ice cream in a strip mall in Laia and also go Portuguese donuts from a Leonard's truck in the parking lot. Had we known how good the donuts were going to be, we would have passed on the ice cream!
We camped at the Malaekahana State Recreation Area on the Malaekahana Bay (Kalanai section). This camping area of the bay does not have 24-hour security like the Kahuku section.
It's not safe. There's graffiti everywhere and our car was broken into during the day. We didn't even have anything valueable in there. There was also broken window glass in the parking lot from another car that was probably broken into also.
Come for the day- and take the bus (the 55) so your car is safe. The beach is beautiful. During low tide or calmer waves you can walk out to goat island bird refuge right off the beach. Cute little crabs are all over the place, and they are fun to catch. We loved the beach, but hated the camping.