2014 Molokai Training Paddle: big, Bigger and HUGE! by Dorian Wolter

I am in Hawaii right now for the Molokai race on Sunday and wanted to give you a quick update on a very memorable paddle I had yesterday in Oahu.I got an email from Greg in the morning to tell me to be ready because he and Oscar were doing a downwind trip from Makapuu Pier to Kaimana beach. The wind had been blowing since yesterday afternoon, and was pretty strong. Earlier today, I had opened the door once at 3am in the morning and was blown right back in.

Dorian Wolter: This Pic is from a quick trip in calm conditions I took the day before heading out of Hawaii Kai to Koko

Dorian, Oscar, and Greg’s route

I had been watching the waves all day and had kind of just made up my mind to not go out very far on that day, but paddle just out of Hawaii Kai, because the conditions were just too huge. I could see the whitecaps moving two or three miles out and they looked big. But of course, I wouldn’t say no to a downwind run with Oscar and Greg. So I put on my paddling pants (the wrong way, twice, because I was nervous – I hoped my coordination would miraculously improve when on the water).

I had been practicing my remounts religiously after a close call in a storm in Santa Barbara a month ago, when Brynan ended helping me back on the boat after a few futile remount attempts. In addition, Oscar had given me a few tips on how to remount the ski better after seeing me practice it after our warm up race last Saturday. The conditions would have to be unimaginably crazy for me to be unable to get back on my ski, I thought.

We planned to go out from Makapuu point to Kaimana beach, exactly a 15 mile trip if you take a reasonably direct route. But Oscar does not take routes that can be described with “reasonable” as any part of the description.The plan was to head out for a mile or two from Makapuu point and then turn down to approximate the last few miles of the line from Molokai to Hawaii Kai. We had to go upwind against the waves until Oscar would determine the right place to turn around. The day before, when the wind had picked up in the afternoon, I had asked Zsolt for advice on whether to do a Makapuu run or if it would be too big. Zsolt is too polite of a person to just tell me outright that I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but he described colorfully how the place was “spooky” and it took him a year after moving to Hawaii to be able to paddle there in strong winds.

I had done the same run twice already since coming here three days ago, once for the warm up race and then again yesterday. Both days were pretty much windless, but the waves off of Makapuu point were still bigger than a big day in Santa Barbara.Makapuu is Hawaiian for “Bulging Eye”. I thought Zsolt’s calling the area off Makapuu “spooky” was a weird choice of words, for a place that is about as bright and open as anything, far from a claustrophobic, dark haunted house. But on a windy day, this is exactly what the conditions in this place feel like, because the waves come from all sides at once in a way that I have not experienced anywhere else before.

After we had paddled about a mile out, the waves were as big as two houses and I was in full survival mode, trying to hang on to Oscar and Greg, because I knew if I fell off the ski while not in hearing range, it could be fairly unpleasant. I consoled myself with the fact that we would soon turn downwind. But we paddled for another mile, and the waves only got bigger and bigger. The waves were so big now that each one of the big waves lifted the boat halfway out of the water and then the wind would sometimes blow it in a random direction, unless the wave broke of course. That would cause a whole set of other problems and should be avoided as much as possible. Of course it was only the upper tenth of the wave that curled over a bit, but that was still three or four feet of white water. The way it worked was that whenever you saw a wave break in front or next to you there would be another one or two that would break exactly in the same spot. So it was a bit like avoiding mortar fire, but if you saw one hit, you kind of had an idea where the next one would hit, which is slightly helpful in about 50% of the cases.

Oscar kept going for another mile against the wind, with Greg following close behind with one perfect stroke after another, while I struggled at about twice their stroke rate to stay within rescue range. Even though I had no idea how such a rescue might work, two miles from shore in winds that would fly my V14 Ultra like a kite on my ankle leash. Finally Oscar stopped. I thanked God and Pele that we would now finally turn downwind. But Oscar stopped just long enough to tell us: Just another kilometer out. A kilometer takes quite a while to paddle in these conditions and feels even longer. My GPS was – as always – mounted perfectly on my foot strap and easily readable with a quick rotation of my pupils downward. The water was so confused, I hadn’t been able to look at it a single time in the last twenty or so minutes, even though I desperately wanted to know how much of the kilometer (and the remaining 15 miles of paddling) was left. It turned out that I would not look at my GPS for another 7 miles.

With about halfway to go in the last upwind kilometer, my world came crashing down: Oscar was hit by a curling wave and catapulted off his ski. The 50 feet imaginary safety radius projected by Greg and Oscar, that I had used all my focus and energy to stay within, suddenly seemed a lot less safe. But Oscar just climbed back on his ski sideways as calmly as if he was on a pond in Ohio. Within 30 seconds he had overtaken me again and the next time he waited for me, at the point we would all finally turn downwind, he said – probably cheerfully, but I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off the waves I was balancing on to check – that we needed to go another kilometer out.I would have argued, but at over 3 miles distance from shore (not that I could turn back to see where the shore was, or that the distance mattered since the shore was a 647 feet high, sheer, vertical wall), I chose not to waste my breath.After another kilometer, Oscar waited again for Greg and me to tell us we needed to go another kilometer out to get the right angle for the rest of the trip. I thought I heard Greg say something over the wind. I just cursed the metric system and ground on, knowing we would finally turn downwind in just another K.

The waves were even bigger by now. There was still a prevailing wave direction, but with the plateau below us lifting the water depth up from about 1000m to 100m, plus the reflection of the vertical walls off Makapuu, the waves just kept getting bigger the farther we got out, and I was definitely not getting more relaxed.

So, a kilometer later, when we would finally all turn downwind, the waves were so big that I don’t even think I could surf them, and the majority of them ended up curling over at the top. Oscar told us to head perpendicular to the waves for a kilometer. Now, we all know that there is only one thing that’s worse than going upwind, and that’s going perpendicular to the waves. I thought Oscar was joking, but he wasn’t. Every time a wave curled over it hit me from the side, and when on top of a wave, looking down either side was like looking down one of the smaller pyramids in Giza. But the bigger problem was that now Oscar and Greg were catching runs, while I was mostly not, and they kept pulling away, out of my the imaginary safety radius. Fortunately, just a kilometer later, Oscar stopped to wait for me and to finally turn downwind. But he said we needed to keep going perpendicular to the waves for another kilometer. I still hadn’t looked at my GPS or back to shore, but I was pretty sure we were halfway on our way to Molokai, and I had pretty much given up hope of ever returning.But the next time we finally did turn downwind. Oscar gave Greg a head start, who in turn gave me a head start. I thought things would be better downwind, but I was a bit tense by now and also hadn’t been able to drink from my camelback, because I had no concentration to spare for activities that were not directly related to staying upright.

Downwind turned out to not be the panacea I had hoped for. The waves were too big and too steep for me to surf by now. Fifteen minutes of downwind paddling – without catching a single run – later (or whatever time, there was no way to check the GPS still), I still saw no sign of Greg and Oscar and I was sure they were already a mile ahead of me, never to be seen again and I was stuck out there, five miles from shore surrounded by towering whitecaps. If I had to swim back to shore should I keep the life vest on, or try to speed up my swim by taking it off? Finally Greg and Oscar appeared next to me out of nowhere to tell me to head farther back out, because my course was taking us a bit closer to shore. So I turned left and tried to surf the waves farther out. And after a short while (a kilometer I guess), the waves finally started to line up in pretty much just a single direction and I started to catch a few runs.

Another half mile down, I was able to catch a glance at the GPS. We were at about 10 miles and would have another 10 to go. Then Oscar pulled up next to me and told me to get on a wave and we both caught the wave together, surfing next to each other and connecting three of them for about 30 seconds. The wave was big and long and looked like a double black diamond slope with moguls, but with Oscar shouting encouragement, I was able to weave my way through them, on to the next wave and the next one after that. Best run I’ve had ever. And if that’s all the runs I catch on this 10 day trip to HI, that was still worth the trip …

Below is a video I took in calm conditions the day before heading out of Hawaii Kai to Koko.