Awesome Molokai Race 2007

Team Pacific Northwest


4-8 foot Molokai Sea, Great fun

57, Pacific Northwest, 5:56:33, but 48th in Open!
Almost 10 minutes faster than 2006.

Photo Galleries
2 pics
Results
Article, Article

Nappy Story (we came in the canoe after his)


Off Diamond Head




Lance, Awesome Steering Job (Ricky Too)

Canoe Surf Warmup

Sam.

We had a warmup surf paddle courtesy of Outrigger, and our friend Sam and Don. Lance, Joe and I used the oc4 and caught some awesome waves. One totally engulfed us as we took off late but we pulled it off. We also had to steer away from the sailboat wreckage and debris from the night before (after making it all the way from California). We caught a bunch of waves and are now ready for Molokai. We head over Thursday. The forecast is for the windy weather to continue. That would be great.
Tongg's surf spot is near the point by the hotels.

Catching a small wave before putting the camera away

Loading Canoes for the trip to Molokai

We met with Pali at 5:30 this morning to load the canoes for the short trip to Molokai. They load 3 or 4 canoes on each pallet after race numbers are added and everything recorded.



This is Pali, Boy and Joe with our canoe "Ele'u O Ke Kai" - Dancing over the water. We used it last year a well. There are a lot of different top canoes now which is great for the sport.



They say there are 100 canoes just from Oahu this year. So include Maui, Kauai, and the Big Island - and it is going to be crowded.

Oh, the following is Lanikai which is what our paddles are names after. I went out today for a long oc1 paddle and some great surfing in the channel to the right of this island. Then past the reef into Molokai waters. What a great experience.

Getting ready for Molokai

We are off to Oahu and then Molokai. The race is next week, Oct 7. I'll try to post some Hawaii prep pictures before we head to Molokai. You can keep track of the race both at ocpaddler and y2kanu.

Thanks to everyone that supported our training.
The team from Kikaha consists of Doug, Jacob, Gordon, Ricky, Scott - with Boy in support. Lance, Stu, Joe and Danny round out the team.

Should be fun.

Lanikai training ground for Molokai

Jamie Grimm, back in her home waters.

I'm visiting my old stomping grounds in Lanikai/Kailua and have had some great training runs in the wind and waves of the beautiful waters. It's great to get out past the Mokes (the twin islands) and into full Molokai waters. Very big swells just past the reef and into that open ocean. Then awesome surf and swells outside the reef for the mile surf down to Flat Island. Doing wind-sprints to catch waves is great training too. So much fun. No wonder the Lanikai OCC has produced such great results with such great waters to train in every day.


Amber surfing ama.

Maui to Molokai 2003 oc1 relay

Maui to Molokai with Dale Karr. First distance oc1 relay. Great surfing.
More pics from the trip are on my web-site.

OC1 Solo Molokai Video to get you excited

To get everyone excited about paddling, check out the awsome video that was made about the last molokai oc1 solo race. Lots of surfing.

www.ocpaddler.com

Also a great writeup on oc1 paddling at: http://www.ocpaddler.com/oc1intro

Great Molokai Crossing 2006

We had a great crossing in flat (4 foot) seas, no wind, hot, but beautiful waters and views. Time of 6:05 was 66th out of 102 canoes. This was the 55th men's crossing and was won by Tahiti in world record 4:46 time. More links are at: Results and y2kanu and ocpaddler
Pictures are available at ActionImages and All of Gus's pics.

Kikaha Molokai Race 2005

We successfully completed the first Kikaha men's Molokai race.
The race was very rough and very challenging!
We had some difficulties that pulled everything together to finish the race safely. We
stayed upright the entire way even with lots of bailing, ama watching, and big water. It was amazing looking
right and seeing what looked like 15 foot swells, cresting at times. John was totally competent
in steering us with lots of on-the-job training of seat 5 helping hold the canoe straight. It
was frustrating that we couldn't catch the swells but we heard later the tide was against us
making it hard for the entire field. The last 6 miles afforded us some bumps, and rounding
Diamond Head and making it over a couple big waves made it "hawaiian" for sure.

Jumping into the big ocean for the changes was defiitely exciting! Then watching a 44" canoe
come out of the sun glistning swell to pick you up was worth the trip.

It took us 7 1/2 hours which is long but all the times were much slower this year. We also had
some serious energy deficiencies - a strange snafo stopped all our food and energy bars from
making it onto the escort boat (instead they were flown back to honololulu). All we had was
water and gatorade! Good thing we had 3 nights of big food feasts on Molokai.

All in all, it was a great trip, and hopefully the first of many for Kikaha.
More pictures at action-images web site.

-scotty