The Ultimate SUP Adventure: Jenny and Morgan Paddle the Hawaiian Islands
Jenny Kalmbach and Morgan Hoesterey, two of the world’s elite female standup paddlers, completed the fourth channel in their eight channel quest, Destination 3°, to link together the Hawaiian island chain via the legendary open ocean channels that separate them.
“Welcome to our world. Here at Destination 3° challenges do not go uncontested and dreams are never not mostly reality. At least in our heads. When we sent our channel crossing idea out into the world, we thought it was a little different from the start, but we believed in it.
Crossing each of the Hawaiian channels on stand-up paddleboards is no small feat: Morgan Hoesterey and Jenny Kalmbach, will log more than 200 nautical miles across three degrees of latitude and some of the world’s most notorious and challenging open ocean waters. Laird and Dave have done it. But they’re Laird and Dave, and that’s the beauty of challenges: they’re personal.
Part of our challenge is to see Hawaii in a way that not many people get to see the islands – from the water. Each channel has a name, a personality, and a story to tell. We’ve crossed four of the eight major channels already, and after each, our adventures and perspective change a little more. From both above and below the waterline, each of the stories of the islands and the people we meet along the way are unique.
We launched from the Big Island on April 7; the Alenuihaha channel flowed between us and Maui. Dangerous, treacherous, deadly (a personal “favorite”…gulp), and impossible are usually the words that gather to describe this crossing. Roughly translated, Alenuihaha means “of very large, trough-like waves.”
We made it. After nine hours and more than 40 miles of paddling, Maui was the reward. We used Maui as a base for about a week and were able to paddle to Molokini, Lanai’i, and finally Molokai.
By linking the islands by the waters that separate them, we also see the whales, turtles, fish, and sharks that live here. We see them in their world. We see the reefs. But more importantly, we see how we influence their world.
We are paddling for plastic, or better, to keep plastic out of oceans, away from marine life, and out of the human food chain. The Algalita Marine Research Foundation is a fantastic, grassroots organization based in Long Beach, California, working to change the way we understand our impact on the ocean environment. We’ve been working closely with them to connect their messages with people who can make a difference.
In many ways, making an impact is the easy part, because everyone can make a difference at the most basic level by rethinking how they will use disposable plastic products. Strong currents carry plastics from around the world to Hawaii’s beaches and inhabited or not, no beach we’ve seen yet has been left untouched by plastic.
We’ll be on Molokai until about the 21st when we paddle the Kaiwi channel from Molokai to Oahu. The Kauai channel lies ahead as well, all 80-some miles of it. We’ll paddle that one under the full moon on April 28 and probably all through the next day.
Jenny Kalmbach wears the yet to be released, Soft Kore G12 and Morgan Hoesterey wears Georgia Ivy G12.
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