Lopa Beach

A sheltered reef break on Lanai's remote east coast, Lopa Beach rewards the surfer who can time conditions right and handle the access. Summer S to SSE swells provide the most consistent windows, while winter occasionally delivers NNE to NE swell sneaking through the gap between Maui and Molokai, ten miles across the Auau Channel. The easterly trades blow onshore most of the time, so ideal sessions depend on frontal passages that clock winds offshore from the SW to NW. Multiple reef peaks spread across the offshore shelf give surfers of all abilities something to work with at chest-high to overhead, though the wave quality lives and dies with the wind. Bottom: reef. Season: summer most consistent, winter episodic. Consistency: moderate, wind-dependent. You need a 4x4 to reach the beach via the dirt roads branching off Keomuku Road. No standard vehicle will make it, so plan accordingly before leaving town.