Swell direction
NE to E (040°–100°)
East Side · Big Island
The Big Island's most consistent surf — a jungle river-mouth that just keeps working.
Get Honoli'i live dataFreeBuoy CDIP 188 · Hilo, Big Island
Honoli'i Beach Park sits a few miles north of Hilo on the Big Island's wet, jungle-covered windward side. A black-sand cove with a freshwater river-mouth peak, it's the most consistent surf spot on the Big Island and the home break for almost every Hilo surfer. CDIP buoy 188 sits offshore from Hilo Bay — basically the buoy IS the wave check.
What you want to see on the buoy before you paddle out.
Swell direction
NE to E (040°–100°)
Swell period
8–14 seconds
When it breaks
Rideable at 2 ft @ 10 s. Solid above 4 ft. Heavy at 6+ ft.
Wind
Light or southerly. Trades blow side-on and bumpy.
Honoli'i is a beach/river-mouth break — the sandbar shifts with rainfall and the river outflow. A 4 ft buoy reading produces head-high waves on a good sandbar. Same reading, bad sandbar, you get closeouts.
The Big Island is in the swell shadow of all the other Hawaiian islands for north and west swells. But for east and northeast swells (which dominate the trades), Honoli'i takes them straight on the chest. When the rest of the chain is flat, 188 might be reading 4 ft @ 12 s and Honoli'i is firing.
Hilo gets ~130 inches of rain a year. After heavy rain, the river dumps brown water and debris into the lineup — buoy looks great, water looks unfishable. Da Buoys can't tell you that, but it'll tell you the swell is on. Local knowledge fills in the rest.
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