Penny completed her epic swim yesterday across the Alenuihaha Channel from the big island of Hawaii to Maui. Having met with our pilot and deciding that Penny should swim first (I, Chris, hope to do another crossing in a few days) due to favourable conditions, we hastily packed our things and caught a shuttle flight to Kona. From there, it was a taxi up to Kawaihae, where we met our boat which had motored across from Maui. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the swim Penny was to undertake, it took the boat with Jim Dickson (skipper) and Cody Vares (kayaker) aboard, 10 hours to motor across from South Maui.

After a few hours trying to sleep, we upped anchor at 1.30am and motored up to Upolo Point (the northernmost tip of the big island) for the start. Whilst on our way, the breeze and seas steadily increased, a sign of things to come. there was wind and whitecaps aplenty when we started at 3.07am. I think everyone was a bit apprenhensive but we just got about our respective jobs. There was a 15 knot breeze at the start, but Jim was hoping it might ease off around sunrise.

Everything was challenging for those first 3 1/2 hours of darkness. Feeding every half hour was difficult, and a couple of times, Cody was hurled down big waves, anything up to 75 metres away from Penny, and then had to struggle to get back on station. We could see them both very clearly from the boat due to their light sticks, so safety wasn’t overly compromised. Cody got out after sunrise as it was too hard trying to stay alongside Penny.

The wind didn’t die off as anticipated. A “Small Craft Advisory” was issued on the 9.00am marine forecast for the waters we were swimming in, with winds of 25-34 knots throughout the day. and by that time, the wind was blowing true to forecast. But by this time, we were half way across, and Penny, although sore in the shoulders, was in good shape and holding close to her trademark 80 strokes per minute, so there was no thought of Pulling her out.

We were heading in a north westerly direction towards the eastern end of Maui, originally hoping to make landfall in the Kaupo area, which would make the swim 31 (statute) miles (52 klm). Two hours after leaving the big island, we picked up a good current which allowed Penny to average over 3 miles per hour, but the north easterly cross wind was pushing us sideways and progressively adding to the swim distance. The waves, going across the channel were huge. The average wave was around 12 feet (4 metres) and the were plenty around 20 feet (6 metres) high. There were many times when we lost sight of Penny for 10 seconds or so when we were in a different trough to her. And Penny was getting hurled around by the crests of the bigger waves, but to her great credit she kept powering along.

At the 11 hour mark, Jim made the decision that we would attempt to land at the Lighthouse at La Perouse Bay, some 17-18 miles east along the coast from our planned landing point. At that feeding, Penny (clearly suffering now in the conditions) said she was hoping to swim to Maui, and not around it. I was worried because we were being pushed so far and fast sideways, that we might miss land altogether. Penny was really sore now and cold. Water temperature was not bad, at 73 F (22.5 C), but the wind chill would have made it a lot colder for her.

Finally, as were got closer to our destination, the wind and waves started to subside. Penny finished her crossing at 5.58 pm, 100 metres east of the La Perouse light. total time for the crossing was 14 hours 51 minutes. The distance covered was a fraction under 43 statute miles (70-75 klms). The only other person to successfully complete this crossing was Harry Huffaker, back in April, 1970. We believe Harry took something like 21 hours to complete his amazing crossing.

We’ll put the full story on this site soon. Thanks for the good wishes from our friends and fellow swimmers. Many thanks to Jim and Cody (you guys did a great job on the boat), Forrest from LA for giving us lots of info about the Hawaii channel swims, Dan and Brooke from NYC (who although not directly involved in this swim, support us in so many ways), our sponsors Gu and Shark Shield (we used your respective products yesterday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.