The shoreline is fully developed here, including impressive beach houses, hotels, condos and restaurants. Much of the development has been kept a tasteful distance from the beach – keeping the majority of development distinctly separate; the beach refreshingly non-commercialized.
One translation of the name is “forbidden cove.” Hawaiian place names often reveal multiple threads of meaning – one reason this cove might have been kapu may have been to prevent Hawaiians from settling on this section of shoreline; large Kona storms can hit here particularly hard. In fact, this normally idyllic section of shoreline is increasingly exposed and becomes unprotected when a series of storms hit, with the majority of sand vanishing into the ocean and anything too close to the margins of the beach can be destroyed. (Fortunately , over the months that follow the ocean politely returns the borrowed sand as good as new.)