here are a couple fun shots I took at the Molokai Crossing where I placed 8th overall and 2nd in the team division with my team mate “Mike Fields”, from the big island.
I may have missed the biggest swell of the year back home; but this was a once in a life time adventure that I always dreamed about and well worth the sacrifice….
We suffered some steering/rudder issues for the first hour and decided to switch to a 16′ board, which made all the difference.
I couldn’t have had a better partner; Mike and I blended perfectly making our crossing at 5 hours and 23 minutes. Not bad for my first time.
I look forward to going solo next year for sure.
Many thanks to Dave Kalama for loaning us the great Naish race boards.
The Molokai channel delivered again this year for the paddleboard crossing, with 15-20 mph east trade winds and a solid south swell coming across our right shoulder from the middle of the channel to the opening of Manalua Bay.
With all of the Kaiwi channels water moving in all different directions and a falling tide through out the whole race, reaching low at 1:30pm, the conditions were to be testing for every paddler and craft.
The unlimited solo paddleboard battle for the top 10 spots was on this year more than ever, with top paddlers from Hawaii, California, France and our small group from Australia. Just to make it across the channel and be competitive is an achievement on its own but to make the top 10 finishers in the superbowl of paddleboarding is what every serious paddler wants to achieve.
The race has many personal stories and we hear them all as the days after roll by. But its all about whos the best padsdler on the day and that honour stays with Jamie Mitchell again this year and the rest of the field followed him across and filed into the finish line for hours later into the day.
The channel looked friendly for the first two hours with good wind swell and some form of organisation until we hit the mid channel and the current put its spin on things. From there on most of the top 10 paddlers had a similar story of south swells knocking them off wind swells and the current turning their boards to the north but this is why its the toughest paddleboard race in the world.
Some things dont change and Jamie finished under 5 hours again for his third fastest time and the rest of us in the top 10 filed in for the next 45 mins. Jamie again maintained a 20 minute buffer between himself and second place but for second to tenth the paddlers came in one after the other to take their places in the top 10 finishers.
I for one was proud to finish again and to hold a place in the 10 but stoked to see the level of paddlers raised again with 5 of our trainig squad finding spots in the 10. Some of our guys moving up from last year and now setting their sights on placings in the years to come.
Congratulations to everyone that paddled and thanks to waterman sunscreen for keeping the sunburn off me this year
