When we left Maui a couple days ago we were aware of the low pressure coming from the NW to Hawaii. This Low was pushing so much water towards Hawaii that the forecasts say it will generate around 22 feet swell and strong NW winds. 

That’s why we decided to leave early in the morning (even when some of us had a little hungover from the night before) and sail straight towards Oahus Kaneohe Bay. Our path went north of Molokai along the steep cliffs. It’s a breathtaking view and we were stoked all day long seeing 1.000m high waterfalls on our port side and whales passing us on starboard. 

BUT.. The north shore is NOT the place you wanna be when the predicted swell hits the islands. So we couldn’t stay and spend more time there. 

We arrived in Kaneohe Bay early in the morning and waited for sunlight to sail into the narrow channel throught all the reefs in the bay. 

Even though we took a lot precautions we touched the ground once. This was a scary situation and to make it even worse a second after we hit the ground a wind came up with around 15 kn pushing us onto the reef. There wasn’t any wind before..?

Anyway. We dropped our dinghy and Norbert pulled with a long line the bow off the reef while we swung our heavy wooden booms to port and put the engine in reverse to come free. All his just took around 5 minutes and I couldn’t be more happy to have a functional crew on  ZERO at this time..

Thanks to Rebecca, Anja and Norbert!!

And.. BTW. The wind dropped as soon we were free again. 

Thankfully it must have been soft ground because I couldn’t hear any noise and we were stopped very gently.

The next day we went to the nortshore to see how big the swell is and all of us agreed that skipping an overnight stop on Molokai was the right decision!!! The reef in front of the bay was completely covered with huge waves and no one could even think about entering the channel.

   
   
ZERO and crew are safe and enjoy the dead calm water and the facilities of the Kaneohe Yacht Club.(KYC)