Moloaʻa Bay is on the northeast shore on the island of Kauai

Kauai

Kauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...

 in Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. The bay is 0.44 miles (708.1 m) long.

The name comes from molo aa in the Hawaiian language

Hawaiian language

The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...

 which means "matted roots". Paper Mulberry

Paper Mulberry

The Paper Mulberry is a tree in the family Moraceae, native to eastern Asia. Other names include Dak, Halibun, Kalivon, Kozo, and Tapacloth tree.It is a deciduous tree growing to tall...

 trees (Broussonetia papyrifera, or wauke in Hawaiian) once grew so thickly that the roots were interwoven. The Moloaʻa Stream empties into the north end of a beach which is backed by high cliffs.
Uphill from the bay is the Moloaʻa State Forest Reserve.

Moloaʻa Bay had one of the highest runups in Kauai during the April 1, 1946 tsunami

Tsunami

A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...

 from the 1946 Aleutian Islands earthquake. It experienced one of the highest wave

Wave

In physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time, accompanied by the transfer of energy.Waves travel and the wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium—that is, with little or no associated mass...

 amplitude

Amplitude

Amplitude is the magnitude of change in the oscillating variable with each oscillation within an oscillating system. For example, sound waves in air are oscillations in atmospheric pressure and their amplitudes are proportional to the change in pressure during one oscillation...

s: 11.5 metres (37.7 ft).

Some scenes in the Gilligan's Island

Gilligan's Island

Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...

 pilot

Television pilot

A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

were filmed in Moloaʻa Bay.