Only a select few swimmers have dared to cross the Kaiwi Channel between Oʻahu and Molokaʻi — a treacherous 26-mile swim through open ocean.
According to the Kaiwi Channel Association, only around 100 swimmers can boast the accomplishment.
Fifty-two years ago, a Hawaiʻi teen took the challenge and became the youngest swimmer to take on the perilous swim. Jonathan Ezer was only 18 at the time, and his record held for 39 years.
Ezer recently joined HPR to recount his journey across the Kaiwi Channel and talk about his new memoir, “The Edge of Land: A Swimming of Age Story.”
Taking on the Kaiwi Channel at such a young age was “actually the easy part,” Ezer recalled. “You’re in the best shape of your life when you’re 16, 17, or 18.”
For him, the biggest challenge was not the distance, the sharks, or even Portuguese man o' war.
“It is the mental toughness. There is nothing that you have done previously that prepares you for it,” Ezer said.
Even with all its hazardous obstacles, though, the swim isn’t as tough as it seems, Ezer joked.
“The good thing about swimming the Molokaʻi Channel is that it's one lap,”
Ezer's tale of traversing the open waters is not one of conquering nature, but of communing with it, he said.
“It's really not man versus nature. I've always had the attitude that man goes into nature, and nature lets man survive," Ezer said. "And when I swam the channel, I had a deep and abiding love for the ocean, and a respect for the ocean.”
Ezer’s new memoir capturing his adventure across the Kaiwi Channel, “The Edge of Land,” is now available online. More information can be found here.
This story aired on The Conversation on June 8, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
