Jenny Kalmbach has a nice butt…

Jenny and Jerry heading out for the Keokea run

…And I know this because I spent 2 hours today staring at it during a downwind run on the north coast of the Big Island this afternoon. Jenny drove us up to Keokea today in the wind and rain, where we met up with Jerry Bess. Jerry is one of the Naish team riders and probably the nicest man you will ever meet. After a short prayer on the beach, the three of us headed out to do the run.

Jenny paddling out

I will admit that during the prayer, I was like “is this really necessary?” but after about 20 paddle strokes, I was glad that we had. It is one thing when there are 8 foot wind waves at your back while you are paddling, and it is quite another when you are staring them in the face. We had to paddle upwind for a bit in order to get into position to clear a cliff that was a mile or so from the start, and as Jenny and Jerry went breezing past me out into the water I was like “what have I gotten myself into?” It is no wonder Jenny did so well in the Molokai race, if she deals with these conditions on a regular basis, Molokai must seem easy.

Morgan heading out through the surf

We finally got to turn downwind, which suddenly made the paddle seem a lot less brutal and a lot more fun. The ocean was still rougher than I have seen before (besides Molokai) and there were several points where Jenny would disappear behind a wall of water. The Keokea run made even the roughest Hawaii Kai run (the one that I am used to on Oahu) seem like a flat water paddle. There were wind swells coming from behind us, but every so often, a big breaking wave would come at us directly from the side.

The waves were taller than we were, at any given time, one or both of us would be behind a wall of water

Despite the rough conditions, I had a really good time, and am glad that we had the chance to go. It was my first glimpse of the ‘Alenuihaha Channel, and it definitely confirmed what everyone has been saying about that channel even though we only saw a relatively calm part of it. We are getting ready to paddle to Maui on either Tuesday or Wednesday, and I am starting to get really nervous. It is an excited kind of nervous, but there are butterflies here for sure.

It's a big ocean...