Queen’s Bath in Kauai – DO NOT BRING CHILDREN!!
The only reason we are including the Queen’s Bath on our list of beaches on Kauai is to dissuade you from going there at all. At the time of this writing, I am not exactly certain how many people have lost their lives here, but a year has passed by since the official tally had reached 29 persons. As far as we are concerned at Tom Barefoot’s Tours, this place is way “off the charts” dangerous.
When I was a kid, there was a traffic fatality at a newly constructed highway intersection, and the town went ballistic because of misleading signage and did everything it could to get the word out so no further deaths would occur. This mindset was based upon one death only. By any reasonable standard, the statistics of deaths and near drownings at Queen’s Bath Kauai qualify this place as a “slaughterhouse.”
The risk/reward ratio of, on the one side, you cheating death to have a good time in the ocean and, on the other side, being hauled out of this place lifeless by paramedics is not a worthwhile gamble.
Is It Really Worth the Risk?
Queen’s Bath can be dangerous at any time of year. It does not have to be wintertime to create a problem. The actual natural bath they talk about can be quite deceptive on extremely calm days. When it is calm, you can jump into a clear water pond, which is separated from the ocean by a rock shelf.
When the ocean is rough you cannot even make out that the bath is even there. If you think that making your way down there to see that the bath is covered over is all the caution you need to take to protect yourself from the dangers here you are mistaken. The majority of deaths occur when people are simply swept from any one of the numerous ledges found in this area by large waves only to be dropped into the ocean and hammered against the rocks by pounding surf.
The waves found off the coast of Kauai are numerous and endless. The currents found off the shores of Kauai are powerful and continuous as well. On calm days, as any patient surfer will attest, you could be waiting for hours to be able to surf a ride-able wave only to have the largest wave of the day appear out of nowhere which leads to the all too common surfers gloat that “you should have been here man!”.
On the calmer summer days that same wave will show up at Queen’s Bath as well. The physics of the occasional large wave are not totally understood by science but it is pretty clear that it has to do with two or more random waves aligning themselves with regard to wave height, wave length, wave periods and wave speeds in addition to the effect of current and wave “fetch” which is determined by surface wind.
The lining up of these factors by any number of random waves of which they are found by the hundreds off the coast of Kauai will create the one wave that is capable of tearing you from the rock promontories found at Queen’s Bath even at the times of low wave activity. You only need to go as far as to ask the local Hawaiian Opihi picker about this phenomenon to understand that these waves happen many times a day regardless of the season.
There are plenty of great spots on Kauai for you to go to and enjoy the ocean. Queen’s Bath isn’t even a beach, it is a rock promontory. You could do better, don’t even go down there. In our opinion its too dangerous and not worth the risk.
Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia
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