Turtle Beach North Shore Oahu

                                          Photo by Brain Kusko

38. LANIAKEA BEACH or TURTLE BEACH

Laniakea Beach is where the turtles hang out—200 pound, friendly turtles who seem to actually like swimming and hanging out with humans. Of course the seaweed here must be tasty too, but that still doesn’t quite explain why the rock star turtles keep coming up to bask on the beach surrounded by their many fans.  Luckily for us, they do.

You are almost sure to see a green Hawaiian turtle in the pretty little cove at the right hand corner of the beach. Turtles make their way to shore through the channel and the boulders and coral reef act as a deterrent to the turtles’ natural predator, the tiger shark. Little turtle heads pop up and down out of the ocean and swimmers swim alongside turtles. Although you are supposed to keep six feet away, one turtle was so enthusiastic to get close that he nuzzled my friend’s tummy and pushed him right over.

Green Hawaiian turtles are an endangered species and the turtles are protected. Volunteers at the beach know many individual turtles by name. As some turtles are fitted with satellite transmitters, they can even tell you what a turtle does all day. For instance, Ipo, whose name means Sweetheart, during a monitored year spent a third of her days basking in the sun at Laniakea. During the nesting season in March, she swam 500 miles in 35 days to the French Frigate Shoals in the remote North Western Hawaiian Islands. During this long swim Ipo made sixteen deep ocean dives. She returned safely to Laniakea in September. Read about other turtles on www.malamanahonu.org/meethonu.asp.  In Ancient Hawaii, turtles symbolized the navigator able to find his way home again and again over hundreds of miles of open ocean. Some legends say turtles guided the Polynesians to the Hawaiian Islands as did the golden plover. Turtles were also revered as aumakua or guardian spirits.

One of those mighty voyaging chiefs arrived at this beach from Tahiti in around the 11^th or 12^th century and called the cove Laniakea, meaning Wide Sky. In his voyaging canoe he brought large lava rocks from the terrible, human sacrifice temple of Taputapuatea. Further up the coast, he built a temple or heiau and included the sacred rocks in the foundation. He called the heiau Kapukapuakea, a name showing how kapu or forbidden and sacred it was. It is said to have been a navigational heiau.

Laniakea also is known for its world-class waves. There is no restroom or lifeguard here—just a perfect cove, shade trees, and turtles.

DIRECTIONS: When you leave Haleiwa Town on the North Shore of Oahu, drive towards Waimea Bay. Roughly two miles along the Kamehameha Highway you will see a farm with lots of cows behind a white fence. You’ll also note lots of cars parked in the dirt on the mountainside of the road and people crossing the road. That’s where the turtles are.