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Spot: Sunset Beach, HI
Places to stay
Youth hostels, private homes, hotels, jungle caves: The North Shore has a decent supply of high and low end temporary accommodation for visitors. But in the past the winter months were overloaded and the rest of the year was peaceful, these days the North Shore is popular and packed year around.
Vacation Rentals By Owner is good source for North Shore rentals at www.vrbo.com. Plug “Haleiwa” into the Search box and you will find a long inventory of places to stay.
Condos at the Turtle Bay are also an option and their availability can be checked here: http://www.turtlebay-rentals.com
The Turtle Bay Resort has 443 rooms (and hopefully no more) but this is the higher-priced spread: www.turtlebayresort.com
At the other end of the cost scale, the Backpacker’s Plantation Village has hostel accommodation for $27 - $30 a night, private rooms for $62 - $85 a nice, private studios for $120 - $145 and private cabins at Plantation Village for $160 - $290 a night. Thousands of travelers stay here every year, in a location convenient to Foodland and Waimea Bay. Bring a semi-gun, surf Pinballs every day and go home stoked!
The Keiki Beach Bungalows offer private bungalows for $135 to $230 a night, and they are right on the beach, where the rising swell will pound you to sleep.
And if none of that works, check out the bulletin board in front of Foodland.
Food
Auwe, Kammies Market is pau, which means no more SPAM musubi and Slushees after your sesh, but the North Shore of Oahu is a Garden of Earthly Delights when it comes to grinds. Of the tens of thousands of people who flow through the North Shore from all over the world, some stick around and start businesses and that creates a nice little smorgasbord providing everything from local snacks to luxury meals.
In Haleiwa, the place to go for breakfast is Café Haleiwa. Owned and operate by Duncan Campbell – the creator of the Thruster – Café Haleiwa serves the kind of nutritious, energy-filled grinds you need before paddling out to Outside Alligators. If you want to see surf stars during the Triple Crown, this is the place, and this is how Frommer’s summed it up: “Haleiwa's legendary breakfast joint is a big hit with surfers, urban gentry with weekend country homes, reclusive artists, and anyone who loves mahi-mahi plate lunches and giant sandwiches with unusual ingredients. It's a wake-up-and-hit-the-beach kind of place, serving generous omelets with names like Off the Wall, Off the Lip, and Breakfast in a Barrel. Surf pictures line the walls, and the ambience is Formica-style casual. And what could be better than an espresso bar for a java jumpstart to the day?”
And if you go to the Café and Duncan is there, ask him where the Thruster belongs in surfboard history. Go on: We triple dog dare you.
At the other end of the North Shore, if you want to spend some clams and have a high-powered mai tai and maybe rub elbows with Parko or Mick or some of the other seven-figure pros, Lei Lei’s up at Turtle Bay is the closest thing the North Shore has to gourmet food. Lei Lei’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but dinner is the time to reward yourself for making that massive drop on the west peak at Sunset and almost coming out of the barrel. Fish is the go in Hawaii, because it’s fresh, and it’s ono – even if it’s ahi or mahi mahi. Treat yourself at least once.
Turtle Bay has other food options, including “finest contemporary Island cuisine” at 21 North, the Hang Ten Bar and Grill, Hawaiian fare at Ola, Sunday Brunch at the Pacific Rim and bar food at the Bay Club.
Café Haleiwa and Lei Lei’s are at opposite ends of the North Shore in more ways than one, but there is a lot in between – from shave ice to hamburgers. Cholo’s is “Hawaii’s best little Mexican restaurant,” and by eating there you are helping to pay for the care and maintenance of a sweet, private skateboard pool.
Haleiwa Joes has great island-style food and friendly aloha service. At least that’s what the Internet says. Kua Aina doesn’t have a website but they do have great sandwiches, from ahi to hamburgers. Jameson's By the Sea, overlooking Haleiwa Harbor, is the place to take a date or a client or your parents. Or your sponsor or someone else you want to treat special.
Foodland is the grocery store in the middle of the North Shore, offering all the grocery store kine stuff you’ll find on the mainland. But if you are a sushi eater, try the packaged poke over to the right: ahi, octopus, salmon Buy it by the pound, and pound it.
And yes, they have a Starbucks there, but for the local coffee experience, check out The Coffee Gallery in Haleiwa. They sell beans picked fresh from the side of the highway you drove in on (that’s what those plants are) and they also have free internet.
So no, you won’t starve or go thirsty on the North Shore, and in fact, the grinds are da kine (sorry).
Parking, access and directions
Parking is becoming an issue along the North Shore, as residents bugged by the constant flow of surf-crazed surfers have succeeded in having the City and County of Honolulu put “No Parking” signs along Kam highway, cutting off many of the spots that surfers have used for years. On a normal day there is ample parking along the beach and in the small parking lot across the street. When the surf is firing or it’s contest day, have someone drop you off. Although finding a parking spot is a good metaphor for catching a wave out there: timing and luck and skill and treachery.
Surf Shops
Sunset Beach Surf Shop went to the same tropical strip-mall in the sky as Kammies, but more than a dozen surf shops have flocked in where angels fear to tread. These places have all been in business for a while, so people must be shopping there so they must have stuff to sell, so use these links and/or numbers and say aloha:
Surf N Sea is in Haleiwa.
Hawaii Surf & Sail is at 66-160 Kamehameha Hwy: (808) 637-2663
Strong Current Surf Design.
Tropical Rush Surf Company
Quiksilver/Roxy on the North Shore
Barnfield’s Raging Isle Surf & Cycle
Xcel Wetsuits Hawaii
Dennis Pang Hawaiian Surf Design
Hawaiian Island Creations
Aikane Kai Surf Company is at 566-215 Kam Highway at (808) 637-4966
BK Ocean Sports: (808-637-4966)
Brewer Surfboards: (808-826-9033)
Country Surfboards: (808-293-4883)
Groundswell Hawaii: (808-247-9184);
Hawaiian Surf: (808-637-8316);
JC Hawaiian Surfboards: (808-637-3238);
North Shore Ohana Surf: (808-638-5934);
SURF SCHOOLS
North Shore Surf Camps and private lessons by Karen Gallagher.
Hans Hedemann Surf (Adam Sandler’s favorite!)
Sunset Suzy camps and private lessons.
John “Turtle” Philbin spends six months on the North Shore giving surf lessons.
Attractions
The Turtle Bay resort recommends golf, horseback riding, snorkeling, nature hikes and surf lessons as North Shore attractions, and that sounds good to us.
If you’re getting Country Fever, drive in to town, find a parking space and get a mai tai at the Royal Hawaiian for a taste of the old Hawaii that the haole paved over.
If you want a taste of Hawaii that hasn’t been paved over, drive along the East Side of Oahu, which is still rural, mostly beautiful and very windy.
And a drive out to Kaena Point is a nice diversion. It’s windy out there, too, but quiet and the beaches are good for diving and fishing. And the view back towards Waimea and the North Shore will stay with you.
If the surf is flat, there is great snorkeling just about everywhere. Check out the reef at Pipeline if you want a good scare or swim around the enclosed lagoon at Shark’s Cove.
Waimea Valley is a nice hike and you might also want to check out the heiau that overlooks Waimea Bay. Take Pupukea Road up past Foodland, be careful on the u turn and then look for the sign to the right.
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