City suspends overnight camping at Bellows Beach this summer due to turtle nesting

[prospectheightsresident]

Originally Posted by Tulemutt

There are two guard shacks. First one is right after you turn off hiway onto Tinker Road … that one is manned on weekends by county civilian monitors who collect use fees from civilians … weekdays there’s just a ‘Closed’ sign with no guard or monitor unless the Marines are training on the beaches.

The second guard shack is waaay in, just past the public use beach and right before Tinker crosses the Waimanalo stream into the MWR reservation. That second shack is manned by Air Force Security personnel 24/7/365, always open, and requires your military / DoD ID.

Sounds like you maybe never went past the public use area. When you get back to the islands, go all the way in for a picnic lunch at least. Check out the beach rental cabins and camping grounds (3 areas for tenting), picnic pavilions, huge grounds with lawns and frisbee golf, etc.. Subway sandwich shop, shopette, gas pumps, weekend ‘Happy Hour Bar’ (if you drink), miniature golf course for kids, recreation equip rental shop, indoor and outdoor lounges with big tv … you know: MWR-ville stuff. . https://www.bellowsafs.com/

Now, about those turtles … I guess I’ll call to find out if AFS MWR beach is closed. There’s no mention on the MWR website so I’m guessing not. And how closing the public beach weekends helps the turtles while the Marines continue beach landings … is a headscratcher.

This sounds like the part of Bellows that I've been to. I've only ever been to the side with the DOD guards; the one with the beachfront cabins. And a little exchange and gas station. That one is the drive!

I've just never noticed a guard at the earlier checkpoints; probably because I've only ever gone during the weekends/holidays I just assumed that those checkpoints were no longer in use, similar to how the checkpoints between Pearl and Hickam (closer to the shipyards) are no longer really in use. I also didn't realize that the two sides of Bellows had official different names.

I was just curious as to whether the city order tried to apply to this part of Bellows; I'd imagine that the turtles aren't limiting their activities to the non-military reservation side Agreed with the point about the Marines still being allowed to use the non-reservation side beach for exercises while preventing the public seems interesting.

As an aside, this side of Bellows is the only beach on Oahu that I've been to where I've felt safe leaving my belongings unattended when taking a dip

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by prospectheightsresident

This sounds like the part of Bellows that I've been to. I've only ever been to the side with the DOD guards; the one with the beachfront cabins. And a little exchange and gas station. That one is the drive!

I've just never noticed a guard at the earlier checkpoints; probably because I've only ever gone during the weekends/holidays I just assumed that those checkpoints were no longer in use, similar to how the checkpoints between Pearl and Hickam (closer to the shipyards) are no longer really in use. I also didn't realize that the two sides of Bellows had official different names.

I was just curious as to whether the city order tried to apply to this part of Bellows; I'd imagine that the turtles aren't limiting their activities to the non-military reservation side Agreed with the point about the Marines still being allowed to use the non-reservation side beach for exercises while preventing the public seems interesting.

As an aside, this side of Bellows is the only beach on Oahu that I've been to where I've felt safe leaving my belongings unattended when taking a dip

Lol … yup. As I age, though still very active, I enjoy warmer more than colder. And I actually like the humidity. Made the move from San Francisco Bay area south to San Diego for home base about five years back. Much as I love SD - and split time in Central coast CA - I’m very seriously drawn back to reconsider Hawaii as more home base rather than just a random drop-in.

If it weren’t for Bellows AFS as a major point of refuge for me … I’d likely not even consider Hawaii at all.

[Kawamura]

Bellows AFS has really turned into a nice mini resort on par w Ft DeRussy on a smaller scale. I remember when it was a LOT simpler many years ago. Still a very nice place to stay. The old runway area was still open access so you could go and cut Kiawe for your Q's along w banana leaves for the Imu. You could reserve a spot to dig one. Not sure you can do that anymore. My son and I will be there in a couple weeks. If the question hasn't been answered yet I'll post an update.


V/R

[Kawamura]

Update: Did NOT get to Bellows due to the rainy weather during my time there so I can't report on a Mil beach closure or not.


Cheers!

[ScottStielow]

Might drive over to Bellows this weekend and see what is open.