It was business as usual at East Hawaii’s surf spots the morning after the near-miss of Tropical Storm Calvin.
The storm, which passed just south of the Big Island on Tuesday evening, brought some rain and wind, but the roiling surf at Honoli‘i Beach Park still attracted surfers and rubberneckers less concerned about foul weather than foul water.
“It’s okay. It’s not the best,” said surfer Joey Oda on Wednesday morning while stretching next to the swollen and brown Honoli‘i Stream. “The river’s gotten fast now, and that’s dangerous. You get any cuts on you, you could get infected.”
Oda was nonchalant about Calvin itself, though he said he had to take the day off work to make sure the storm didn’t damage his home. But by the morning, he said, he had decided the storm was nothing to worry about and had come to the beach.
“Other than the river, it looks good. We got big waves out there,” Oda said, gesturing to a handful of surfers bobbing amid the crashing waves.
All county parks were closed Wednesday in preparation for the storm, but because ocean access through public property cannot legally be restricted, surfers were allowed to pass through Honoli‘i by the dozens.
“I wouldn’t go out there myself,” said local resident Ellen, who declined to provide a last name. “I do surf, but I’m just here to watch today.”
Ellen said she had been only somewhat concerned about Calvin on Tuesday, but made some basic preparations in case the storm was more severe — like filling some tanks with water and removing loose items from her yard.
Although previous storms such as Iselle and Lane have caused significant damage to the Big Island in the past, Ellen said she worries less about storms here than she did living on the mainland.
“I think the mountains here end up shielding us from a lot of the wind,” Ellen said. “Here, we just have to worry about rain, but when I was living in New England, we would get these cyclones that were very dangerous.”
But for the most part, the storm itself was the last thing on beachgoers’ minds.
“We’re just here to surf, and it looks like we came to the right place,” said California resident Sahid Perez, visiting with resident Daniel Sheinfeld. “I wasn’t worried about the storm at all. I just came here with no expectations.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.