Sandy Beach

Lifeguards at this stretch of Oahu's southeast coast have an unofficial name for it that never made a sign, earned by a shorebreak that looks lazy right up until it slams shut in three feet of water. The guide follows how a legendary waterman credits this beach as the birthplace of progressive bodyboarding, what Hawaii's hospital data has tracked here for decades, and the local push in 2014 to name the park after a beach-loving president, quietly dropped. Watch how the wave behaves in the shallows before you paddle out.