Kealoha Beach Park is an oceanfront green space a few miles east of downtown Hilo made up of tide pools and rocky inlets ideal for snorkelers and swimmers, with a formidable reef just offshore that creates rolling waves popular with local surfers and boogie boarders.
The park fronts the seashore with a long diagonal strip of land renown for its pull-in parking spots that face the open ocean and offer fantastic views of the lumbering white-capped waves coming in from the straight horizon and crashing against the reef in a spray of white sea foam. Making it past this underwater barrier, this once-powerful surf makes it to shore at last as little more than gentle splashes.
And on exceptionally calm days with just a gentle breeze blowing across the ocean and a modest tide, the great turquoise pools of water separated by outcroppings of black lava rock at Kealoha look very serene and inviting indeed. All of of these outcrops scattered about the park’s nearshore waters create an ideal snorkeling ground, with tons of nooks and crannies used as hiding spaces by various Hawaiian ocean life such as eels, sea urchins, octopus, and schools of colorful tropical fish. They also provide plenty stretches of shallow, warm sunny water for Hawaii’s various types of seaweed to grow, which attracts the browsing of the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle – a beautiful, majestic and long-lived animal that hauls itself up on the rocks just offshore of the park to catch some afternoon sun. The ocean floor of these inlets is lined with smooth black lava rocks and scatterings of white coral rubble, with patches of white sand – the pulverized remains of coral – found throughout.
The eastern end of the park is significantly more sheltered than its other sections, making it ideal for visitors with small children or for those feeling less than confident about their swimming ability. This area is directly behind the grove of towering ironwood trees and other broad-leafed tropical shrubs that provides welcome shade to beach walkers, picnickers and sunbathers, and is the ideal spot to take a lunch break after an intensive morning of plying the placid waters with mask and fins. The space around the grove is filled with a distinct “whooshing” sound on windy days – the music made by millions of ironwood needles rubbing against each other as branches on the 80-foot-tall trees sway with the interminable onshore breeze. This signature rustling has been described as a type of “whisper”, and explains the more informal name of the tree: “whispering pine”.
There’s a large grassy area surrounding the ironwood grove that’s shaped like a wedge, and is bordered by Kalanianaole Avenue – the main east-west road connecting downtown Hilo to the string of world-famous beach parks inhabiting its eastern shores, which includes spots like Richardson Ocean Park and Carlsmith Beach Park. There’s a huge amount of open space at Kealoha, meaning that it is seldom crowded here even during high tourism season when some of these other Hilo area beach parks are swarmed with visitors and can get to feel congested.
Its long parking lot fronting the ocean is a popular place to set up beach chairs and barbecue grills, with the majority of the people found at the park on any given day typically sticking to this area. The lawn of soft dark green grass is usually deserted, and it’s a great place for laying out a picnic blanket and beach towels. An open air stand of public showers can be found in the middle of the lawn, with a modern restroom facility tucked against one corner. A few concrete barbecue pits are positioned around the park’s perimeter, with some picnic benches positioned in the shade of the several different stands of trees and shrubs making up the grove.
The Swimming Holes Next Door, Mahikea Island, and How Kealoha Park Got Its Name
Kealoha Beach Park is right next to Carlsmith Beach Park, and shares part of a common lagoon that makes up the border between the two and meanders out to meet the brackish ocean waters. Carlsmith is arguably the best swimming spot in all of Hilo town, with expansive pools of calm electric blue and even steel railings in several places to help swimmers get in and out. Its only drawback is that it’s exceptionally small, with a lot of manicured shrubbery but not much grassy lawn or parking spaces. So, locals will commonly set up their picnics and barbecue grills at Kealoha park next door, and simply walk the short distance along the main road to access Carlsmith and go for a dip.
A tiny islet can be seen just offshore of the park, known as “Mahikea Island” in Hawaiian and Scout Island in English. In the days of old-time Hawaii, this island was a popular summer camping spot for residents of the east Hilo neighborhood of Keaukaha. It was destination well-utilized by the Boy Scouts of Big Island, hence its nickname. It was partially destroyed by the massive 1946 Aleutian Island Tsunami, which shortened its landmass significantly and reaped immense destruction on Hilo’s bayfront in countless other places as well. Today it’s still partially intact, and the island has become a favorite snorkeling spot and a piece of Hilo history.
The full name of the park is the James Kealoha Beach Park. James Kealoha was the first lieutenant governor of Hawaii (elected in 1963) and is remembered as a well-respected local politician. He was born in 1908 in the small Big Island sugarcane town of Pahoa to Cantonese immigrants who had come to Hawaii looking for work on its vast plantations. Kealoha attended Hilo High School in 1926 and began his working life as a clerk at a grocery store in Hilo. In 1929 he married his wife Muilan and had two daughters, Leihulu Emma and Leiohu Lillie. Soon after he opened his own store, which he operated throughout the start of his political career.
Kealoha ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966 but was defeated by Spark Matsunaga. He was an early opponent of the Vietnam War, which shocked many of his fellow members of the Republican party at the time. In 1968, he ran for mayor of Hawaii County but lost the race. The park that today bears his name was dedicated in 1963, and its namesake lived for two more decades until passing away in August, 1983.
How To Get There
Kealoha Beach Park’s shady grove of ironwood trees and ideal snorkeling grounds can be reached from Hilo town by heading east at the intersection of Highway 11, otherwise known as Hawaii Belt Road, and Kamehameha Avenue along Hilo’s main bayfront thoroughfare. From this intersection, turn onto Kalanianaole Street and continue for roughly four miles, passing the Port of Hilo, Kuhio Kalanianaole Park, Big Island Motors, Keaukaha General Store and Keaukaha Beach Park.
A large lagoon will come into view on the right – turn left here into a long narrow parking lot that runs along the shoreline, either parking in the shade of the grove or on the other side of the road facing the bay. Keep in mind that this road is one-way, so beach-goers should exit the park by continuing along the coast until the road curves back around and links up with the highway once again. Visitors typically visit both Kealoha Beach Park and Carlsmith Beach Park on the same outing as they are right next to each other, and one usually offers what the other doesn’t. So together, Kealoha and Carlsmith in a sense make one complete one-stop-shop for boarders, swimmers and those opting to stick to dry land, too.
Kealoha is located roughly five miles from Hilo International Airport, making it a popular first-stop for visitors to Hawaii fresh off the plane who can’t wait to jump in a warm, crystal-clear ocean. So if you’re getting into Hilo with at least a little daylight left on a warm, sunny day, consider heading straight to the park and taking in its full spectacle as a perfect introduction to the islands: the whispering pines, the turquoise pools of serene water, the white-capped waves farther offshore and the breeze that smells like tropical blossoms and salt. Sunsets here are known to be exceptional, with an occasional clear view of the slopes and summit of Mauna Kea – Big Island’s tallest and most important mountain – far in the distance as the sky begins to turn orange and red.
Kealoha Beach Park is open daily from 7:00am to 7:00pm.
