ABOVE: Driven outdoors by the pandemic, Honolulu's water polo clubs left the pools for the ocean, and they haven't stopped. Honolulu Masters Water Polo scrimmages off Magic Island.
All over the park you'll see hardcore interval trainers, hula dancers, kung fu practitioners, pregnant women doing aerobics. As the sun sets and parents deflate their kids' floaties before heading home, dozens of bigger kids are inflating bigger floaties (two four-by-six-foot goals) and yellow balls. They're here to play water polo, but with a twist: Usually played in pools, the ocean adds danger and mystery.
Why the ocean? "During the pandemic, everything was locked down and the ocean was the only thing that was open. Afterwards, it just kinda stuck. Many of our kids are beach kids, too, and they have a strong connection to the ocean," says Ray Nunez of the Lokahi Water Polo Club. He would know: He's here six days a week, mentoring kids up to 12 years old and playing pickup matches afterward. (Lokahi made it to the Junior Olympics as the Hawaii All-Star Team just after the pandemic.) "And, it's unique," he continues. "Salt water makes you more buoyant, which becomes a disadvantage when we compete in a pool. We have to counteract this with more vigorous training." Plus, the freedom of the ocean (well, of Magic Island's idyllic lagoon) allows players to flow into the sport-get the ball past the goalie with players splashing and crashing into one another.
Gabor Kurucz sets up for a shot.
Still, whether in the ocean or a pool, water polo is vigorous and nonstop, with blistering back-and-forth exchanges. A player catches the ball one-handed, twists, then rips a spinning shot into the goal. But that's just what you see on the surface: Much of the sport's rough-and-tumble and its dozens of unseen micromovements happen under the water. Adults can join Honolulu Masters Water Polo club ocean pickup games Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., and Nunez also organizes less intense Splashball games—the gateway drug to water polo—for keiki as young as 5, partly as a way to give them something to do while their older siblings duke it out in deeper waters.
While Lokahi is open for beginner keiki, if you want to scrimmage with the big kids, know before you show that theirs is not an entry-level game; some water polo experience is a prerequisite. "Be in as strong swimming shape as you can," says Nunez. "Get really good at treading water with your hands up." Because that guy with the scruffy haircut and tattered boardshorts? He might just be a varsity athlete in vacation disguise.
