Kayak Across the Pacific Ocean

We did it! We rented two kayaks from MCBH and put in at the Kailua Boat Ramp to paddle out to the Mokulua Islands. Eloise and I paddled out here one super calm early fall day when she was two, and Chris and Isaac have been wanting to do it ever since. So this weekend we did. After doing it on a paddleboard it should be a piece of cake, right? ….Right??

Well, cake it was not! Once we paddled out of the protection of the reef, the waves and wind seemed to amp up to work against us. The waves pushed me back while the wind blew the bow sideways each chance it got. My shoulders were already sore from paddling out to surf in Waikiki the day before, and now they threatened to give up completely. But we did not give up! When Eloise got bored and started to whine, I told her I was working very hard and I needed her encouragement; could she sing me a song? Her lovely little voice lifted up over the wind and the splashing of waves on the plastic boat, and she sang me her Cubbies Club song.

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She stopped singing and started screaming. All out screaming. We were pretty to the island now, and the bigger waves were crashing mightily onto the shore. The way she was sitting in the kayak, Eloise was facing backwards, so she was fully confronted with their size. We watched a couple people scramble up onto the sand. The wind ripped my favorite pink running hat off my head and it floated away out of reach while a wave grabbed us and carried us forward. I told Eloise to stop screaming and listen for directions. Chris, already onshore, positioned himself to help. Then SWOOSH! With a whimpering wail from The Woo behind me, a very big wave caught us and we surfed it right up onto the sand, higher than I’d seen anyone else get pushed. Chris held the kayak. I lifted Eloise and carried her up onto dry sand.

“Give me a hug,” I said. She put her head on my shoulder and sobbed.

“That was scary, huh?” I said. “Yeah! That was really really scary!” she cried.

“That was scary because you were facing the wave and it looked really big, huh? I bet that was really scary.”

“It was really big and really scary!”

“Yeah, it was big and scary. I was scared too,” I said. “But Daddy was waiting to help us, and Mommy’s got you now, and we’re ok, right?”

She nodded, her tears tapering off, and then she ran off to play with Isaac and eat some lunch like it was no big deal. Dude, that was scary though—I’ve seen people get flipped and raked across the sand in smaller waves than these. Oh man. Also: Chris rescued my hat!

After lunch, we hiked a bit and saw some nesting shearwaters (the islands are a bird sanctuary), but after crossing a gulch with ocean waves roaring underneath, sucking and shaking the rocks under our feet, we noped out and headed back to the kayaks. A young Hawaiian monk seal scooted up onto the sand, looked around, took a short nap, then slid back into the waves.

Eloise was not so sure about getting back onto the kayak, but Chris gave us a big shove and we launched with no issues, and it was smooth sailing all the way back to shore. We saw three honu. We waved to the boys’ kayak. Eloise even paddled for a bit.