Honolulu — THE editorial cartoon pictures two tourists being ejected from Hanauma Bay State Beach Park, one of Hawaii's most beautiful strips of sea and sand. One tourist dejectedly tells the other, "I didn't know about the test."
The illustration plays off a year-old get-tough policy that requires all visitors to watch a nine-minute educational film before they're allowed on the beach. There isn't actually a test, but woe to the tourist who ignores the film and feeds the fish, drops cigarette butts on the beach or walks on the delicate reef.
"This is a nature preserve," park manager Alan Hong said when I visited in August. "People who are looking for a beach where they can play Frisbee are going to find this isn't it."
There's change afoot on Oahu, from the stunning reefs of Hanauma Bay to the strip of tourist hotels lining Waikiki Beach, where, it's hoped, an infusion of $1 billion will revitalize an area that was showing its age.
At Hanauma Bay, about 10 miles southeast of Waikiki, change has meant a cleaner beach and clearer water. Empty plastic bread bags no longer litter the area -- jetsam once left by tourists who were handed loaves of bread to feed the fish as they exited tour buses.
The mandatory film is one several measures to protect Hanauma Bay -- often listed as one of America's top 10 beaches -- from visitors who were loving it to death. Tour buses no longer can enter; they're allowed to stop on a bluff overlooking the park so passengers can take a quick look from afar. And only 300 cars are allowed into the parking lot each morning, so if you don't arrive before 8 or 8:30 a.m. on busy summer days, you may be out of luck. If you do find a place to park, you'll be charged $5 to visit the beach. (Kids and local residents are admitted free.)
I hadn't been to Hanauma for a dozen years or more. On my last visit, people were parked helter-skelter, but this time, Times photographer Gail Fisher and I arrived at 8:10 a.m. and parked in an orderly fashion in one of the last spaces in the lot. The gate closed shortly thereafter.
"We used to get 3 million visitors a year on the beach," Hong told us. "We've reduced that to 1 million. People look at it as very poor customer service, but we do what we have to do to protect this resource."
