When Moloka’i paddler Kaʻala English is in the waʻa, she feels her kūpuna with her.
“When you pulling, it takes more than just you, you know what I mean, you're [calling] for everybody to just bring down their strength upon you and just pull with you,” she said. “So every pull it’s like they're pulling with me.”
English and nine teammates from Molokaʻi's Waʻakapaemua Canoe Club spent the past five months in rigorous training. They juggled full times jobs, motherhood and other commitments to prepare for paddling seven hours across the Kaiwi Channel in Nā Wāhine O Ke Kai.
“I don’t know how to explain the feeling of being connected to our ancestors in that way,” English said.
Before the opening ceremonies, the team tied a ti leaf to the back of their waʻa for protection and hugged their families.
Then, hundreds of paddlers carried their canoes to the water and pushed off toward the start. As the coast of Molokaʻi disappeared behind them, teams vied for top positions before spreading out across the open ocean.
Throughout the race, paddlers plunged from their escort boat into the open ocean during “water changes.” They hoisted themselves into the moving canoe and kept on paddling, while their teammates rested and ate aboard the escort.
“Gotta hustle, gotta hustle!” shouted Waʻakapaemua coach Keola Kino. “Jump, jump, jump!” paddlers said, as they splashed into the water.
Speed is key in water changes in order to not lose time during the race but also to ensure safety during potentially dangerous maneuvers in rough waters.
“Paddle, paddle, c’mon girls!” Kino yelled, as paddlers pulled themselves into the canoe and picked up the pace again.
The men’s Moloka’i Hoe started in 1952, but it was more than two decades before women first paddled the Kaiwi.
Penny Martin is a legendary Moloka’i paddler and Hokule’a crewmember who’s completed 15 Kaiwi crossings, though she didn’t race this year. She recalled her coach’s words in her early 20s.
“He said, 'No, the women will never do the channel.'”
Many coaches and officials didn’t believe women could handle the crossing.
In 1975, when Martin was helping at the Moloka’i Hoe, a group of women showed up.
“Some of them, I recognized, they were from Oʻahu, and [I said], 'What are you guys doing?' They go, ‘We're going to do the channel,'" she said.
And they did, marking women’s first crossing.
“I thought, 'Wow, that's so cool. And how brave,'” Martin said.
She described the community spirit around the races on Molokaʻi in the early days.
“It was like this huge holiday, this huge event that got people excited, not just for the paddling, but the whole spirit of the thing — people coming together and celebrating canoes and paddling,” she said.
The tradition of the two races was interrupted by the pandemic, and then the Maui fires. But this year, they’re both back.
“These two races, Nā Wāhine O Ke Kai and Moloka’i Hoe — they're not only the Olympics of canoe paddling, but it's Hawaiʻi's heritage,” said race director Luana Froiseth. “These races started on Moloka’i, and Moloka’i won the first Moloka’i to Oʻahu race. This is our culture.”
Martin hopes to keep the lessons of the waʻa alive.
“I think one of the most beautiful things about padding in a six-man or four-man or two-man is that you can't move that canoe by yourself,” she said. “And you really learn the value of working together and being there for each other.”
During this year’s Nā Wāhine, as canoes converged from the open ocean towards the finish, paddlers fought fatigue and cheered each other on.
“Sit up and breathe, breathe!” they yelled from the escort board. “C’mon, right here! Go!”
Wa’akapaemua finished in the top 20, with Oʻahu’s Team Bradley taking first place for the fifth consecutive year.
At the finish line, Molokai’i’s Ishay Kaholoaa, who completed her first Kaiwi crossing, shared the special motivation that got her through the race.
“I just got a granddaughter two weeks ago, and she's down here in the NICU. So all I could think was getting down here to my grandbaby, so that's what I was thinking through the whole way,” she said, her voice full of emotion.
For many on the team, family ties to paddling run deep. For Moloka’i’s Pualei Lima, her grandfather raced in one of the first Moloka’i Hoe crossings and both sides of her ‘ohana carry on the tradition.
“I feel good every time I pau practice or take my kids to my papa’s house," she said. "He asks me, ‘You going paddle?’ ‘Yeah, practice,’ and he gets all excited, and I know he's proud of me, and my cousins too — they’re doing the Hoe.”
English said she paddles the channel for her island.
“When I go, they all come with me, like all of Moloka’i come with us,” she said. “So that's kind of like the magic of it — they're all pulling with us, for us, even though it's not they're not with us in the water. So that's like the drive that pushes me.”
A Waʻakapaemua crew will also be paddling in the Moloka’i Hoe on Sunday.
