| Location: Pelekunu, Koolau Moloka'i, Hawai'i |
| Just past the Pelekunu rocks, things get extreme. We knew before we started on the Hurricane John trip we would go outside the rocks and even this spot would be nasty – I just hoped for long frequency swells, not to choppy. Fortunately, the seas behaved as predicted.
Navigating by hand is a bit tricky even with a rudder. It isn’t easy to maintain a course, it is easy to lose your track in an instant, and you certainly don’t want to fall out of the kayak or lose your paddle. In short, taking a picture over the stern is a bit risky. Still, I knew the lens flattens out the seas so if I wanted anybody to believe the story I had to have a shot of following seas. This is it. I got it, but I’m also lucky to be alive.
Unfortunately, I cut out the bottom half of the swell when I turned around backwards in my kayak just long enough to get off a quick shot. Sterns on all boats tend to turn in following seas, especially little boats in big seas. These are not the seas to get caught sideways (broach) in the bottom of a trough.
Pelekunu's east point sticks up above the trough. The Moloka'i Express (and on this day the Hurricane) comes down the coast, hits that point and bounces back into the main current. A whitecap field results, seas compress and this shot is the result.
Our two inflatables were the only boats in the sea. The next day the Hawai’i-based Coast Guard C-130 buzzed the Kainoa Homestead and radioed to say they were looking for the only boat that went out besides “those crazy kayakers”.
They never found the other boat – four lives were lost.
Photo Copyright to Lloyd Lewis, Ph.D |
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