A local surf instructor is chatting up a stunning 20-something guest at the freshly minted The Point Sunset & Pool Bar when a media member decides this, for some reason, is an excellent time to interrupt the young man.

With drinks on the house in celebration of the unveiling of a $45 million reinvention of Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s fabled North Shore, and the nearby surf continuing to crush its way into a brilliant sunset, the fetching, deeply tanned siren’s long blonde locks teasingly flow over the staff member’s forearm, which, like the rest of his body, features maybe two percent body fat. The awkward interruption seems to ruin the moment and the young lady departs suddenly to join her girlfriend, other men leering as her high heels and short white sundress sashay their way through the crowd to the bar.

Realizing his egregious social faux pas, the media type immediately apologizes.

“It’s OK, I do alright,” surfer dude smiles back without a modicum of regret, as though he has merely dropped a grape from his cocktail plate.

It makes you want to take up surfing. And there is no better place to do it, quite frankly. When it comes to waves, this little slice of the world, this so-called Seven Mile Miracle, has long been the epicenter of world-class surfing. Featuring the Banzai Pipeline, Waimea Bay, Sunset Beach and Haleiwa, while hosting the most prestigious series in professional surfing (the Vans Triple Crown), the swells here begin to build from tender six- to 10-footers pre-American Thanksgiving to towering 30-foot monsters in the dead of winter.

And with all due respect to The Point’s grade-A prime location at Kuilima Point—pool to one side and a long swath of Turtle Bay with its steady stream of surfers to the other—the coolest hangout at this resort is actually the aptly named “Surfer, The Bar.” A true original, Surfer is a partnership between Turtle Bay and Surfer magazine, the global bible of surfing culture and a publication renowned for its eye-popping photography, free-flowing writing style and eye-candy advertisements.

But right now, the views from The Point occupy the attention of the vast majority of guests.

As for the accompanying tropical inebriants, Mai Tais are a specialty of the resort, but the new Turtle Bay highlight is the “Shaken Sunset,” a concoction of Ocean Organic Vodka, crushed pineapple, mint, lime sour and Vita Coco coconut water. But having spotted my favourite gin on the shelf, I order a Hendrick’s and tonic. A rum and coke follows shorty.

Through it all, the steady rush of gentle ocean waves flowing into the cove is joined by a smattering of twilight’s last boarders.

A burst of orange light reaches into the heavens and burns the edges of distant clouds on the ocean’s horizon.

My first surfing lesson is tomorrow afternoon, and I have no idea how much my trapezius and tricep muscles will ache from paddling stomach-down to catch the next wave.

But right now, as the hard bodies crisscross in front of my sunset view at The Point bar, it’s really, really hard to imagine a better pastime.