Friday 27 June 2014
Hanauma is a marine embayment formed within a tuffering and located along the southeast coast of the Island of Oʻahu (just east of Honolulu) in the Hawaiian Islands. Hanauma is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the Island and has suffered somewhat from overuse (at one time accommodating over three million visitors per year). In 1956, dynamite was used to clear portions of the reef to make room for telephone cables linking Hawaii to the west coast of the US. The word hana means bay in the Hawaiian language (the usual addition of bay in its name is thus redundant). There are two etymological interpretations of the second part of its name. One interpretation derives it from the Hawaiian word for curve, referring to either the shape of the feature or to the shape of the indigenous canoes that were launched there. Another stems from the indigenous hand-wrestling game known as "Uma". Source
