Kaimana Beach
Adjacent to the south of the Natatorium lies Kaimana Beach, a popular destination for the local resident Honolulu population of the Kaimuki, Manoa, Diamond Head and other surrounding communities. Kaimana is a sandy beach lined with palms with a lifeguard tower, showers and public parking.
Kaimana Beach was originally a rocky beach with a narrow strip of sand. It is also known as Sans Souci Beach, (French for "without worries") for the hotel ran by George Lycurgus in 1893, named in turn after the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam.
After the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium was built adjacent to Kaimana and just off the shoreline, the beach was able to accumulate a vastly wider sandy beach which makes it so popular today. The name Kaimana is not an ancient Hawaiian name for the area, but is rather the Hawaiian pronuciation of the English name for the nearby Diamond Head. The former Sans Souci site is now the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel.
Kaimana Beach was the end point of the first submarine communications cable between California and Hawaii. Duke Kahanamoku's uncle, David Piikoi Kahanamoku, was said to have been the person who dragged the underwater cable through Kapua Channel and onto Kaimana's shore in 1902. The first telegraphic message over this new cable was sent on January 1, 1903 from Henry Ernest Cooper to President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, DC.
Read more about this topic: Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial
Famous quotes containing the word beach:
“Your last words as you led the charge up the beach were, “Okay, men, let’s show ‘em whose beach this is!””
—Paddy Chayefsky (1923–1981)