Kelly Slater's Surfer Guide to Hawaii, From Pipeline to Shark Diving

Hi, I'm Kelly Slater,

and I'll be your informal tour guide for O'ahu.

All right, let's go.

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Hawaii is really the mecca for surfing.

It's where surfing was created.

As a kid, it was a place I always wanted to go.

I'd look at pictures of it in magazines,

and videos, and movies.

It was my dream to go to Hawaii and surf Pipeline.

This place is just magical.

As a surfer, you need to check Hawaii off the list.

It's a must do.

It's a place you have to go to and experience

and spend some time at.

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So O'ahu is really divided into Town and Country, as we say.

East and west are a little bit different than that,

but south is Town,

that's Waikiki, Honolulu, that area,

Kahala, Hawaii Kai.

Country is the North Shore,

that's everywhere from Mokule'ia, Ka'ena Point,

all the way to Kahuku.

In Waikiki, Honolulu, that's really

kind of where the action's at.

If you're on a short vacation,

you wanna have a lot of fun,

you go surf in Waikiki.

There's tons of things to do out there.

Really good restaurants, amazing food.

You know, you can jump on a boat, you can go scuba dive,

you can do a lot of different things.

Great golf on this island.

North Shore is a lot more laid back.

It's more of like bring your family,

spend more than a week,

and feel what life is like around here.

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As far as surfing goes from beginning to top level,

if you've never surfed before,

the best place probably in the world to learn is in Waikiki.

A good friend of mine named Tony Moniz and his family

have a surf school there,

as do a whole bunch of the old school Hawaiian guys.

So you can just basically walk down to the beach

and find somebody who will take you surfing.

Tony Moniz was a tour surfer.

Hans Hedemann has a surf school.

He was a tour surfer as well.

Out here on the North Shore,

there's a place called Pua'ena Point.

There's Uncle Bryan's surf school, Uncle Bryan Suratt.

There's a number of different people who do surf schools

out of this area.

And Pua'ena Point is almost like,

I would say it's the Waikiki of the North Shore.

You can still surf small waves there in the winter.

If the waves are big, you can still get a small, little wave

on the inside that's relatively safe,

or go to Chun's Reef which is a really fun place,

and they teach a lot of people to surf there.

If you're here just to watch,

I would say the ultimate place to go watch surfing

in the world is at Pipeline.

I mean, you can sit there on the beach all day long

and watch surfing.

I recently became friends with Joe Montana

and he comes here every year and sits on the beach

for about a month and watches Pipeline,

and absolutely loves it and his kids surf.

So it's a kind of a family thing for them.

If the waves are really big,

you might head to Waimea Bay

and watch from anywhere around the bay.

It's like I compare it to our ultimate surf stadium

when the Eddie Aikau event runs,

which is very rare,

it happens on average about every four years.

The waves and conditions have to be just right

and just big enough.

At that time, about 50,000 people show up on that day,

it's a gridlock,

people camp out for a day ahead of time

to get their spot.

But if you're ever lucky enough to be here for that,

it's really sort of the ultimate viewing

in surfing other than the Pipeline event.

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When the surf's flat, there's tons to do here.

I would say rent a boat,

jump on a boat in Hale'iwa Harbor,

go out and do a shark dive.

There's a number of boats to do shark dives

with or without cage.

And on a rare occasion a great white show up,

but pretty often they see tigers and Galapagos sharks,

sandbar sharks, that sort of thing.

It's actually really interesting to do.

I mean, most people who talk to me about the ocean say,

I don't know what's down there.

I'm scared of sharks, blah, blah, blah.

But if you go swim and watch sharks

in their natural element,

they're not just frenetic trying to eat you,

they're just cruising around like any other fish,

and it gets a lot of people more comfortable in the ocean.

Seeing a big tiger shark

or possibly a great white

is a really kind of rare sight for most humans.

I've actually never seen a tiger shark underwater.

Also in the wintertime,

there's tons of whales in Hawaii.

The humpbacks are all here calving,

and bringing their calves,

and they're generally around all of the islands

at that time.

Really beautiful to watch 'em,

but going out on a boat

and seeing 'em from close up is amazing.

You can go swim with dolphins off the boat,

that's pretty common.

In the mornings, a lot of the boats

will tend to find the pods of dolphins

and you can jump in the water with them and listen to 'em.

It's really beautiful.

Another great thing to do is go to Waimea

and jump off the jump rock.

That's kind of a must-do in Hawaii.

You can't really do it a whole lot in the winter

'cause the waves are big.

But in the summertime, it's flat,

and you can do it all day long,

and kids love it, and it's really fun for everybody.

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So on the North Shore,

typical thing to eat would be acai bowls.

There's quite a few acai bowls.

There's a bunch of different coffee trucks.

There's the Sunrise Shack

that a few surfer friends of mine started.

That's a great place to go first thing in the morning.

There's also the Coffee Gallery in Hale'iwa, that's great.

There's a number of different coffee spots

and breakfast places that you can get to.

There's Banzai Bowls, there's Hale'iwa Bowls.

I tend to actually make most of my food at home,

so I don't go to all these places a whole lot.

But as for restaurants, the one place you gotta visit

if you come to Hale'iwa is Haleiwa Joe's.

It used to be the Chart House back in the day,

and that's where all the surfers

from the beginning of time here on the North Shore

have gone to eat dinner.

I think the great thing about Haleiwa Joe's

they give all the lifeguards like 50% off.

So it's a cool kind of local mixed with tourist attraction.

It's almost like what Duke's would be in town.

It's really a tourist heavy spot.

But also all around the bar is all locals having a drink

and getting some food.

The great thing about dinners on the North Shore

is there's a ton of food trucks all along the coast here.

So there's a bunch of food trucks

by Foodland near Waimea Bay.

There's a whole bunch of food trucks,

whether you want Thai food,

Mexican, Chinese, sushi, anything you want,

there's all kinds of food trucks

up in Hale'iwa and Wailua area.

You'll find something really good.

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It's funny because in the tourist guide

they'll tell you to go to Turtle Beach, which is Laniakea.

But basically every single beach

on this whole North Shore has turtles,

and it's created a crazy traffic issue for us

over the past 10 to 15 years here on the North Shore,

where it's sort of impossible to come in and out

on certain days because of that traffic.

Look, any beach, if you're looking for turtles,

you can pull up to pretty much any beach

and just look along the shore and you'll find 'em.

They like to look for rocks with seaweed on 'em,

'cause they eat the seaweed.

There's no shortage of turtles these days.

They've been protected for about 30, 40 years now,

so they're everywhere.

I mean, I literally can't go surfing without seeing 'em.

My version of paradise is kind of being somewhere

by yourself in a beautiful, tropical place.

You rarely get to find any place

for yourself here on the North Shore anymore.

So it is getting pretty abundantly crowded.

So I do think that as far as getting space for yourself,

it's a little bit overrated coming to the North Shore.

But if you venture more around the east side,

even, you know, take a trip over on the west side,

those places are less populated and fewer people.

They're a little more protective of the area,

so just be more respectful of other people

when you're driving and when you're,

you know, packing your stuff up,

and playing your music, and those sort of things.

So Hawaii is all about respect.

It's all about aloha, but it's also all about respect.

So respecting the locals, respecting the land,

respecting the environment.

Don't be loud.

Don't try to stick out like a sore thumb

or think it's your place to be.

You know, like, going to someone's house,

it's the same exact thing.

Just be respectful of their customs,

and their ways there, and the people who live there.

But Hawaii's such a special place

and the people who live here wanna share it,

at the same time, it's sacred to them,

and they don't want it to be wasted.

Pick up your trash, don't drive crazy,

some sort of simple things that you should be aware of.

Don't be a dick.

Well, that's my rundown of experiencing Hawaii

and experiencing O'ahu,

specifically North and South Shore, Town and Country.

Hope you guys enjoy it.

Find something for yourselves and we'll see you next time.