Don’t Drink the Water

The wife and I had an interesting walk today at Honolulu’s Waterfront Park. A passel of surfers were taking advantage of the hot and sunny Hawaiian summer’s day, cooling their jets at the popular Point Panic surfing spot.

Who can blame them? The waves were rolling in nicely and the two dozen or so surfers we saw were having a great time.

Check them out:

We stood there watching them ride the waves for a while, and then continued our walk along the seawall.

A sign caught my attention – it was a warning that the water was polluted with sewage and advised people not to swim or fish there. Yikes!

I looked at the sign, then to the surfers in the ocean, back at the sign, and then turned to my wife who was shaking her head in disbelief. I guess surfers are like golfers. Golfers will golf in the rain, and surfers will surf anywhere there are waves to be ridden.

We continued onward. At the end of our roundtrip stroll, we spotted a guy posting more warning signs. As I took more pictures of the surfers, the wife meandered over to the man and started talking to him.

It turns out that he also works as a food service inspector for the State of Hawaii Department of Health, and used to inspect the wife’s local delicatessen as part of his route. Talk about a small world! He remembered my wife and got into a conversation with her about the deli and the rest of the family who own and run the establishment.

Had he been putting signs up all day? Actually, he just started, AFTER the surfers got into the water. Apparently there had just been a sewage spill at the Ala Moana Sewage Pumping Station about a mile up the coast near Honolulu Harbor.

I can only imagine the faces of the surfers who so far had a good day in good surf out there in the sun, when they came ashore and saw the signs.

Ewwwwww! I hope they went straight home to take a soapy hot shower.