Hawaii Magazine
The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Paddle the Kaiwi Channel
The determined all-female paddling crews who were first to dare the Molokai to Oahu crossing, a race once restricted to men.
Sep 12, 2017
Considered the pinnacle of long-distance Hawaiian outrigger canoe racing, the Kaiwi Channel is a grueling 41-mile stretch of open ocean separating the Hawaiian Islands of Molokai and Oahu. In Hawaiian,
ka iwi suitably means “the bone” it takes every muscle and fiber of the human body to complete, a reminder that, when one’s physicality is stripped away and tested, our ka iwi is truly all we are.