Walk to the end of Hanapepe Place most evenings and you will find the same crowd that has always gathered there: a couple of teenagers timing their jump off the lava shelf, someone's retriever sniffing along the edge of Koko Kai Mini Park, a family from three streets over setting up folding chairs to watch the light change over Maunalua Bay. Nobody calls it Koko Kai Mini Beach Park. Everyone calls it China Walls, and everyone who has lived in Portlock long enough knows exactly which yellow tube on which post to grab if the ocean decides to remind someone it is in charge.
That tube has been there longer than most people think. What is changing this year is not the cliff, the swell pattern, or the crowd. It is the amount of institutional weight now sitting behind a system that Portlock's own neighbors built from scratch nearly a decade ago.
The Site That Started It
Before China Walls had a state grant behind it, it had a Lions Club member with a foam tube and a hunch. According to Eric Kvick of the Hawaii Kai Lions Club, the club placed its first rescue tube at China Walls as early as 2017, well before the city had any formal program for it. Fellow Lions Club member Allen Umeda has called China Walls the most heavily used of all the rescue tube locations the club maintains, estimating it gets called into service roughly once a week, not because the cliff is uniquely cursed, but because it looks deceptively calm. Flat water, no lifeguard tower, and a shelf that drops straight into deep ocean is a combination that catches confident swimmers off guard, and surfers are often the ones who end up doing the fishing out.
There is no posted lifeguard at China Walls. There never has been. The safety record at that stretch of coastline has been carried, quite literally, by whoever happened to be standing on the rocks that day.
A short timeline shows how that informal habit became policy:
- 2017 — Hawaii Kai Lions Club installs its first rescue tube at China Walls, identifying it as a priority site.
- 2018 — Hawaii's Good Samaritan law is amended under Act 145 to give legal protection to bystanders who use rescue tubes in an emergency, along with the volunteers who maintain them.
- 2019 — The Hawaii Kai Lions Club meets with then-Honolulu City Council Chair Tommy Waters, who later works with Councilmember Calvin Say to pass a resolution supporting citywide installation.
- January 2024 — The city formally installs 20 rescue tubes along the coastline from Kawaikui Beach Park in Aina Haina to Kailua Beach Park, with China Walls and Spitting Caves named among the priority Portlock access points.
- June 2024 — An 18-year-old named Kahikina Kalima uses one of those tubes to help pull two visitors from Florida out of the water at China Walls after they misjudged the surf.
- July 2026 — The Rescue Tube Foundation receives a $200,000 state grant to install roughly 300 more tubes statewide, scaling up the same model that started on Portlock's own shoreline.
Why the Tube Needed a Law Behind It
A piece of yellow foam does not save anyone by itself. What made the China Walls model exportable was the legal cover that came with Act 145. Before that amendment, a bystander who grabbed a rescue tube and waded in was doing so without any statutory protection if something went sideways. After 2018, the people who actually maintain and stock these tubes, largely volunteers from the Hawaii Kai Lions and their partner chapters, had legal footing to keep doing it.
That distinction matters more at China Walls than almost anywhere else on Oahu, because the people intervening are rarely trained lifeguards. They are surfers waiting for the next set, dog walkers who happened to be nearby, or tourists who got there five minutes before the emergency started. In March 2022, two men in their 50s got into separate trouble at China Walls and nearby Spitting Caves, and bystanders were the ones who got them out. A year later, surfers were first on the scene when a 24-year-old visitor from New York hit his head jumping into the water. In each case, the tube was already there. The people using it were not employees of anyone. They were the neighborhood.
What Happens When the Wave Actually Comes
The pattern holds even into 2026. On January 1, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser covered a reunion at Koko Kai Mini Park, the same stretch of shoreline that includes China Walls, between a 17-year-old named Spencer Allen and Mark Miyashiro, a man Allen had pulled from the ocean on a jet ski the previous November after Miyashiro's small fishing boat sank off Portlock. Miyashiro had treaded water for roughly two hours before Allen reached him. Honolulu Ocean Safety Chief Kurt Lager presented Allen with a mayoral award at the ceremony, held within sight of the same rocks where the rescue tube program began.
None of these rescues happened because a lifeguard was stationed there watching. They happened because someone who lives in or near Portlock, or was simply visiting the cliff that day, decided to act. That is the part of the story that a tourist safety guide will never mention, because it is not really about the ocean. It is about who shows up.
The State Just Caught Up
The July 2026 grant to the Rescue Tube Foundation is worth pausing on, because of what it implies about where the state thinks the model works. Executive Director Branch Lotspeich has framed the foundation's mission plainly: get enough flotation devices into enough hands that ordinary people can stabilize a bad situation before professional help arrives. With this new funding, the foundation intends to add roughly 300 tubes across the state, a number that dwarfs the original 20 installed citywide back in 2024.
That expansion is being built on a track record that started at the end of Hanapepe Place. China Walls was not selected for the 2024 citywide rollout because it was the easiest site logistically. It was selected because the Lions Club had already been running the experiment there for years and could point to results.
What This Means for the Season Ahead
Portlock's calendar is about to turn toward the part of the year when China Walls gets its heaviest foot traffic. Humpback whales typically begin showing up in Hawaiian waters by October, with sightings building through the winter and peaking between January and March. That means the same lava shelf where teenagers jump and surfers wait for sets will soon be crowded with residents scanning the horizon for a spout or a breach, often standing closer to the edge than the conditions warrant.
The rescue tube expansion lands at almost exactly the right moment. More people on the rocks during whale season means more chances for the ocean to catch someone off guard, and more chances for a neighbor to be the one who grabs the tube first. That has always been the quiet mechanics of this stretch of coastline, long before anyone in state government put a number on it.
If you already live in Portlock, you have probably walked past that yellow post a hundred times without a second thought. It is worth one more look this year, not because the danger has changed, but because the system built around it just got a lot bigger, and it started right here.
For anyone thinking about property along this stretch of the Kaiwi coastline, from Portlock's oceanfront lots to the ridge homes above Maunalua Bay, Tracy Allen has spent decades working these exact addresses and understands what shoreline access, community history, and local infrastructure actually mean for a home here. Book an appointment to talk through what's on the market or what your own property might be worth today.