A paddleboarder has made it across the wide Kaua’i Channel for the first time in about 65 years. Chris Owens, 45, of Sunset Beach on O’ahu paddled out at sundown Wednesday to his escort boat off the beach at Camp
A paddleboarder has made it across the wide Kaua’i Channel for the first time in about 65 years.
Chris Owens, 45, of Sunset Beach on O’ahu paddled out at sundown Wednesday to his escort boat off the beach at Camp Erdman near Mokulei’a on O’ahu’s North Shore — next stop Kalapaki Beach.
About 22 hours later Owens took his last stroke of thousands, rolled off his 17-foot, 2-inch custom paddleboard and walked through the shorebreak at Kalapaki Beach, touching dry sand at a little past 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
His escort vessel was the Erika Marie, captained by Rick Stevens.
Owens came up about 20 miles short in early June in his first attempt to make the Kaua’i Channel crossing, starting from Sunset Beach near the northern tip of O’ahu.
In June, a combination of sea sickness, wind and other factors forced Owens to end the paddle for safety’s sake.
This time Owens said he again faced sea sickness, but found favorable winds billowing open-ocean waves in a good direction, an application of firsthand knowledge about the channel that allowed him to cut miles off the route and a meal of chicken noodle soup to nourish him and settle his stomach.
“It’s funny because I never get seasick during the daytime,” he said. “But, at night, I get sick; it’s kind of like trying to fight the evil darkness,” he said.
“It’s heartwarming when you get to shore,” Owens said of what it’s like to finally complete a Kaua’i Channel crossing.
He estimated his course at a distance of 67 nautical miles, or over 70 land miles.
Wearing a thin layer of lycra and neoprene, with wetsuit botties on his feet and a baseball cap on his head, Owens said the only sea creatures that bothered him were a few sea fleas. No sharks appeared, though he was startled by a game fish the size of a mahimahi during the fullmoon segment of his paddle.
Owens said he was inspired to paddle to Kaua’i from O’ahu after beginning training for the annual Moloka’i Channel paddleboard race back in 1999.
He said the idea of making a Kaua’i Channel crossing came to him once he began paddleboard racing competitively. He kept the idea secret for several years.
However, the tall, medium-built surfer became discouraged when he discovered that the crossing had been made back in October, 1940, by Gene “Tarzan” Smith. Smith, a tall, muscular beach boy from California, paddled from Moloka’i to O’ahu in November, 1938, prior to his Kaua’i crossing.
Long-time editor and publisher Charlie Fern of The Garden Island reported on Smith’s crossing.
A school of jellyfish had forced the paddler to detour to the Po’ipu Beach area instead of landing at Nawiliwili, adding hours and miles to his crossing. Fern bore witness to Smith’s having made the crossing and landing near Koloa.
Like Smith, Owens arrived on Kaua’i to little fanfare, cheered on to finish by a volley of cheers from his escort boat idling just past the surf line at Kalapaki Beach.
When asked what his next challenge might be, Owens said he’d like to find a sponsor to underwrite a journey to Europe to paddle in the annual Quiksilver-Edition Paddleboard Race from San Sebastian, Spain, to Saint Jean de Luz, France.
He may have an edge if he goes, as the race is only about 40 miles, a little more than half the distance of his epic Kaua’i paddle.
