Hanauma Bay
[5] Visitors are required by law to refrain from mistreating marine animals or from touching, walking, or otherwise having contact with coral heads, which appear much like large rocks on the ocean floor (here, mostly seaward of the shallow fringing reef off the beach).
It is always recommended to avoid contacting coral or marine rocks as cuts to the skin can result and neglecting such wounds may bring medical problems.
[8] The Hawaiian Islands are a group of volcanoes that have risen up over a hot spot, which is a section of the Earth's surface that has exhibited volcanism for an extended period of time.
Volcanic chains such as the Hawaiian Islands form as a result of the movement of a tectonic plate across fixed hot spot beneath the surface.
Unlike the gentle lava flows currently building the island of Hawaiʻi, the late-stage eruptions on Oʻahu were most often short-lived violent explosions.
[2] Due to the lack of fresh water in the vicinity, the area was not inhabited, although archeologists have found fishing tools and other indications of human presence there.
[4] The bay was used as a recreational area by aliʻi (Hawaiian nobility), including King Kamehameha and Queen Ka‘ahumanu, who fished, entertained visitors, and sponsored games there.
[3] Hanauma Bay was purchased from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop estate by the City and County of Honolulu, and subsequently opened for public use.
In the 1930s the road along Hanauma Bay's corner of Oahu was paved and a few other amenities provided that made it easier to visit the beach and reef.
[4] The Bay area reopened after the war and became even more visitor friendly after blasting in the reef for a transoceanic cable provided room for swimming.
More changes in the 1970s by the City cleared more area in the reef for swimming, made an additional parking lot, and shipped in white sand from the North Shore, leaving Hanauma Bay increasingly more attractive to visitors.
Most were uneducated about the fragile marine ecosystem and, unwittingly, "these crowds stirred up sediment, disturbed and trampled the coral and algae, dropped trash, fed the fish and left a slick of suntan lotion on the bay's surface.
[16] The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) has found from oceanographic models that it takes approximately 50 hours for sunscreen deposited in a single day to be cycled out of Hanauma Bay.
The reservation system has implemented limits it to 1,000 visitors per day, and the park is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays as well as holidays to give the fish a break from all the people disturbing their feeding, breeding, and other natural cycles that allow the reef to process the damage done by sunscreen pollution.
