UPDATED 3/07/11 1:00 p.m.

Editor’s Note: The Facebook “Like” functionality is not working the way it should be and we are looking into the problem. You may continue to view and vote for the photos as you normally would and we will post updates as we get more information. Sorry for the technical difficulties everyone.

Towels, umbrellas and fruity drinks? Nope – we weren’t interested.

Instead, Civil Beat readers submitted more than 100 photos that included a wide variety of beach shots that were anything but typical. Strange creatures on the beach, wacky stunts being caught on camera and even a photo of an “alien ninja.” Narrowing the photos down was no easy task.

Nevertheless here they are. And now we are going to put the pressure back on you – the readers – to choose the best of the best. All you have to do is look through the photos below, and “Like” your favorites. You can vote for as many or as few as you’d like, but you can only vote for each photo once. Any photos you vote for will be shared in your Facebook news feed.

Our winner will be the photo with the most “Likes” by midnight Hawaii time on Monday, March 14, 2011. We’ll showcase the winning photo and its author in our Community Voices section of our homepage – so make sure you vote for the photo and photographer that you want to hear more about.

If you would like to enter future photo contests or view some of the other entries to the contest, please join our . Be sure to connect with us on and to hear about any new contests as they launch.

Happy viewing, and mahalo for your help in choosing a winner!

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