Attention All Water Sports Enthusiasts!
Whatever you’re discipline of choice is be it surfing,
windsurfing, SUP, or kite surfing.
If you practice it on the north shore of Maui regularly or
occasionally visit or dream of visiting Maui to play in the ocean, this is very
important to you!
This issue was brought to my attention weeks ago and I
signed the petition and thought very little about it.
Lately the gravity of the impact on the future of board
sports on Maui due to this situation has been sinking in.
Let’s face it; Maui has extremely limited user friendly
access spots in the first place.
If this wealth of ocean access that Kanaha Beach Park
provides is taken away, all our other spots will be greatly affected and the
quality of our experience will be compromised.
Please take a moment to review this information and please
sign this petition no matter what part of the world you live in it matters and
it will make a difference!
Mahalo, Olaf Mitchell
Please follow this link to show your support on this very important matter.
update - urgent action needed
Mr Ed Underwood from DLNR-DOBOR just confirmed that they are moving
forward and preparing to install three sets of buoys at Kanaha Beach.
These buoys will designate the expanded zones that will exclude all
vessels and watercraft. This includes; kites, canoes, windsurfers,
surfers, SUP etc. The expanded zone includes about three thousand five
hundred (3500) feet of shoreline that will become an exclusive swim
zone. This represents an huge increase over the currently used areas.
Now any vessel or craft that attempts to enter or cross these expanded
zones will be subject to increased enforcement which includes; fines and
possible confiscation of equipment.
Mr Underwood also confirmed that this enforcement action is in direct
response to the confrontations between the kiteboarder and the swimmers
at Ka'a point.
He also stated that there are currently no plans to update or amend the old rules, that are about to be enforced.
The DLNR-DOBOR confirmed that they have already built the marker buoys and anchor systems, and plan to install them very soon.
We anticipate that once these buoys are installed and the old zones are
enforced, that it will become an extremely difficult task trying to
reverse this process at a later time.
Please don't let this
catastrophic loss of access occur, everyone will be affected because all
of the current users will be forced to crowd into a reduced area that
is far smaller than the currently accesible area. This will create a
domino effect of overlapping user groups that will be forced to move
into each others areas.
Every concerned person should take immediate
action to contact the authorities and try to persuede them to defer the
installment of these buoys until a reasonable and updated management
plan can be reached.
