LOCAL'S BEACH, Winner
Makena Big Beach
Address: South of Wailea at the end of Wailea Alanui Rd
Phone: 984-8109
Website: http://hawaiistateparks.org
One of our isle's rarefied jewels, the one and only Oneloa (colloquially, "Big Beach") is part of the 164.4 acre Makena State Park, located on Maui's sunny South side. Its sandy stretch skirts an ahupuaa where archaeological evidence shows (as described by Project Kaeo, a research effort supported by a grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs with matching funds from the Maui Tomorrow organization) that aboriginal Hawaiians lived in and cultivated the area's natural abundance for more than a millennium. Today, the beach is still a kamaaina playground--as it well should be for a millennium more--(though it's now surrounded by development of a different sort, like the infamous Wailea 670 project) and wave-revelers rejoice in everything from skim or sponge boarding, to the spectator sport of watching tourists get tumbled in the shore break.