Surfers haven't given up on Sand Island Park. Here, Mark Pimental showers after some ocean time. Photo by Craig Kojima, Star-Bulletin

At the end of the road, beyond the industrial-strength business district and the sewage treatment plant, behind the breakwater and white sand beach, the state park has gone to seed.

Faded two-story pavilions, shabby bathrooms and about 80 acres of spotty grass lend a look of benign neglect.

Directional signs - remnants of a more hopeful and prosperous time - reinforce the effect. "Towers." "Shoreline Sports." "Shoreline Fishing."

Sand Island Park has seen better days.

"They don't cut the grass (enough)," said park user Jine Heen. "There's not enough irrigation. I cannot begin to tell you. It could sure use some upkeep."

Fisherman Roy Agor agrees.

"Graffiti, rubbish cans, bottles all over the place, it's a shame," Agor said.

Waist-high light standards line the path near where Agor sits tending his fishing rods, their bulbs long busted. Some water faucets produce a trickle, if that.

"The hoodlums come in here and break it all up," he said.

And a hard-pressed state Parks Division, understaffed and overtaxed, can do little to improve the place, said Administrator Ralston Nagata.

"We'd like to do more in terms of repair . . . but it takes money," he said.

And Nagata's agency has been asked to make do with less.

Over the past few years, park staffing has been cut by about 40 percent; the agency's operating budget was slashed by $1 million this year.

State officials have closed off a large section of the park to vehicular traffic on weekdays and close the outside gates every night at dusk. Camping is allowed with a permit, Nagata said.

Despite the problems, many people return again and again to Sand Island Park.

"It's better than it was before there was a park," Heen conceded.

"It's better now," Agor agreed. "Before it was all bushes."

That was the early 1980s.

Through the years, the park has been a gathering spot for the homeless and a haven for surfers. Most of the homeless campers left a few years back. The surfers hung around.

"It's a shame if they let this park go," said Andre Delos Santos, eyeing the 2- to 3-foot waves rolling in beyond the sea wall. "We come right after work. A lot of people come with their families."

Peter Taoy and Chong Scheorner look over a moray eel caught by Taoy at Sand Island Park.

Delos Santos points out the different surf breaks fronting the park: Towers, Middles, Critics, Shallows and Paradise off to the north. He says it's a mellow place, lacking much of the friction associated with other spots. Delos Santos and his friends would undoubtedly come to this spot, park or no park. Still, they'd appreciate a spiffier place.

"It's like another Ala Moana Beach Park but not as nice," said Dante, who surfs off Sand Island Park occasionally. "But it's still a good place overall. xxx It's a big park for the number of staff they have. Who do you blame?"

Agor believes it's at least partially the responsibility of parkgoers.

"People complain, 'Why doesn't the state do something about it?'" he said. "(But) it's the people."

In today's Honolulu Star-Bulletin there is a related story on the nearby Sand Island marine education training center, which has also been vandalized.