Team “Mauna Lani-3 Fast, 3 Furious” made our way to the Kona airport to take the Mokulele flight to the Kapalua airport on Maui early Saturday morning before 7:00 am of Labor Day Weekend. Months before we had all decided to participate in the 47th annual Maui Channel Crossing Race from Club Lanai to the Ka’anapali Beach Resort where we would also stay and enjoy the pre and post race festivities. We were all anxious for the experience as our group likes open water racing but this was going to be a far different experience swimming involving an escort boat and swimming as much as 5 miles offshore from either island.

The swim race is one of the most well known masters swimming events in the nation even though most open water swimmers are never able to participate due to Hawaii’s unique and isolated location in the middle of the Pacific. The fortunate participants came from all over the mainland US, as well as Australia, and beyond to compete. The race is composed of teams of six swimmers in various configurations and a few solo swimmers. The male/female configurations as well as total age of each team determine the multiple divisions. We were in the Mixed Mokulele division comprised of an even amount of men and women where everyone’s ages totaled more than 240. At the start of the race, each swimmer swims a half-hour leg until all team members have raced.  Then each swimmer swims a 10-minute leg in the same rotation until the last team member crosses the finish line.

Our dedicated escort boat was a 30’ Bertram, fishing boat, the Pualele. On a pre-race trip to Maui, Rachel met our captain and viewed the “Pualele”. Rachel pronounced our boat “capable” and our captain very “knowledgable” which was reassuring. The Pualele is a 30’ Bertram with a typical tower and cabin with plenty of engine power for any type of sea condition. Rachel mentioned our captain was an experienced fisherman and knew the currents, wind and swell conditions thoroughly as he had also escorted and guided many swimmers attempting to cross the various island channels including those teams in this vary race over the past years.

The Au’au channel divides the north end of Maui from the south end of Lana’i and depending from where you measure the distance, it’s somewhere between 8.8 miles and 10.2 miles. The official distance of the race is 9.9 miles as “the bird flies”. That being said, no one swims straight and currents and swell action are never easy to navigate in open water even if swimming near a boat which supposedly is going as direct a path as possible.

Arrival in Maui-the day before the race

Immediately after arrival we all headed to a local dive shop where Rachel, Dave and I rented equipment for a shore dive nearby at the Mala Warf or Mala Pier. The rest of the gang decided to body surf and take in the clear skies as they waited for us to reappear from our dive. The dive promised a tangle of coral encrusted pier remnants from the World War ll era concrete structure that was knocked down to form a reef. We waded into the water and immediately noticed the water quality was “muddy” at best with an obvious south swell pushing shoulder high sets crashing over us as we pushed onward toward deeper water. The dive site was full of sharp, coral encrusted, concrete remnants protruding upward from the bottom at random angles everywhere while getting whipped around by the swell and surge. We saw 20-30 turtles swimming around us and also sitting on the pier remains at 30’ or so. Some had wedged a flipper under piles of concrete to hold themselves in position while cleaner fish attached themselves for a meal. If you are ever tempted to dive the Mala Pier-make sure the water is clear-not worth it otherwise but lots of turtles.

From the dive we proceeded to Honulua Bay as most of us are surfers and we wanted to check out the site of the Maui Women’s Pro surf event held yearly here. It was as beautiful as you see on TV but calm and a much better dive site than the Mala Pier for sure. Oh well-we will head here the next time for a dive or surf!

Next we headed to the Ka’anapali Beach Hotel to check in and attend the pre-race meeting. The hotel was perfectly situated as the finish line as we stared across the channel at what we knew would be the starting point the next morning on Lana’i. You couldn’t discern many features on Lana’i, 10 miles away, much less the starting point, but its presence was looming close by on this clear, windy and beautiful day. We observed the banners and flags set up on Ka’anapali beach marking the finish line and the chairs and tables organized on the grassy lawn behind the hotel which is where we soon gathered for a pre race meeting.

Pre-Race safety meeting

The meeting was short with the race directer and organizer informing us he and his wife had organized every race since it’s inception in 1972. Their daughter and one of their grandchildren participated this year on various teams even though the race organizers no longer swim the event. The in-water safety patrolman mentioned he would be using a jet-ski and gave us instruction on various safety elements emphasizing the need to stay clear of the boat propellers and other escort boats that could be nearby. This aspect of boat safety caught my attention as being the most dangerous part of the race potentially as he must of mentioned it 10 times!

We had all read the 11 page safety plan and 17 pages of rules and regulations that we downloaded and printed months before from the official race website, so we understood the race parameters. What we did not know were the various logistics that may be required to communicate to our swimmer in the water and also what to be prepared for relative to sea conditions and creatures that may appear. For that knowledge we turned to Youtube and WWW searches about past races and asked other swimmers for their race experiences in the Au’au channel that we knew. That research returned many accounts of past event highlights including videos and photos. All included wide ranging reports including detailed sightings of sea life and varied weather and ocean conditions. All we could do was hope for the best and plan as best as we could for the unforeseen.

Race Day

Race morning came early at 5:00 AM after a night of broken sleep. I was excited for the day’s events and not concerned about what I could not control. I had already decided the worst case scenario would be a withdrawal due to ocean conditions or not making the time cutoff. Those issues were quickly allayed as we awoke to what was absolutely perfect weather and ocean conditions. Clear blue skies and the water was as smooth as it could possibly be between the two islands. There was no swell in the water like the previous day and the wind had completely quit unlike sunset the previous evening. I knew none of this made any difference as it could soon change but at least the start of the race was going to be a perfect swim by our fastest swimmer, Noelani. She finished first in her age group in all of the four previous open water swims on the Big Island this year and I knew she would do everything she could to keep up with some of the fast starting swimmers including past Olympians and current, top ranked, collegiate swimmers we knew were participating.

Noe’s start was as I predicted. We saw but did not here the start which was from the dock facing Maui from Lana’i at the Club Lana’i. We could barely see with binoculars all of the starting swimmers standing on the dock, ready for the starting signal from our position 1/4 mile offshore from our escort boat. At 8:00 am promptly we could see a bubble of thrashing swimmers heading toward us out of the channel and we knew the race day had started. The “bubble” of swimmers would soon move past our boat and Dave and I picked out 2 yellow swim caps that could be Noe and another swimmer. Whomever was leading these 2 was being drafted closely by another swimmer fast on their feet. We soon spotted Noe’s distinctive hand entry into the water and we knew it was her riding the feet of a very fast swimmer about mid pack. I thought to myself if Noe is midway back in the pack, the other swimmers in front must be the reported Olympian’s as I had never seen a race start where she was not absolute first!

The day progressed with Susan taking her turn after Noe in a predictable strong and steady style followed by myself, Rachel, Andrew then Dave taking our 30 minute legs. We then changed to 10 minute intervals where each of us took our turn in the same order. After this effort we were 3/4 of a mile from the finish line and we decided to let Noe and Susan take the final 10 minute stints to the finish line on Ka’anapali Beach. Susan jumped in for the final leg after Noe’s strong swim and the rest of us grabbed cameras etc., stuffed them into our swim suits and jumped off the boat at the same time as Susan to swim in a greet her but carefully staying out of the official race area within the finishing buoys. We joined Susan on the beach for a big group hug and photo under the finish banner knowing the days events were over so-let’s surf-which we did amazingly also until time for the awards banquet!

We finished in 4:24 which was good enough for a 4th place finish in our division. I had predicted a 5;15 time but we must have swam even more fast and furious than I imagined. We had zero expectations as we had no idea of how our planning and actual race logistics would pay off. Thankfully, the pristine weather conditions, experienced boat captain and swim conditioning by our coach Dave Prutow allowed for a successful experience. At the awards banquet each team was announced that placed in their division including ourselves-Mauna Lani-3 Fast and 3 Furious. Susan took the microphone once we gathered on the podium and received our “trophy” event towels. She said “we are a small team from the Big Island, we are all friends that love each other and we are happy to participate in this beautiful place”-short, simple and true.

Her few, true words were a stark contrast to the many teams that had been “stacked” together for this specific event, comprised of swimmers who sometimes had only met the day before at the pre-race meeting. These swimmers came from all parts of the world with impressive collegiate and Olympic experience and when they accepted their awards It sometimes took a full 10 minutes for all 6 of them to pass the microphone and reel off their incredible swim accomplishments.

Lastly, there were 2 racers who swam the entire event solo including a participant from the Big Island. He is a County of Hawaii fireman stationed in Keauhou. Sue mentioned she also saw him “solo” the 6 mile, Alii Challenge in June which is a race from Keauhou to the Kona pier. He had told Sue he planned to do the this event solo as well and sure enough he did great. We saw him after the race somewhat distraught stating he was worn out and tired of swimming!!

Thanks Dave for believing we could pull this off and most of all thank you God for an incredible experience for a bunch of life long swimmers. Thank you also to my wife Lissette who thought of everything nobody else remembered like plenty of water for the long day on the boat. We all had of our pre race doubts and insecurities about crossing an open water channel but thankfully all of our swim stints were memorable, none of us were hurt and there was great surf, diving, shopping, dining and a great time spent with friends as a bonus.

Written by Rick Oliver on October 1, 2018
Posted in: Hawaii Life | Tags: Channel Crossing Race, swim race