28.5 miles. In the ocean. In the dark. In a storm.
Brothers cross Ka’iwi Channel in Hawaii, joining elite fraternity
Mark Royer has competed in an Ironman Triathlon, has run four marathons and regularly takes CrossFit classes. So it was no surprise when Royer and his older brother John, both of whom grew up in Severna Park, began contemplating crossing the Ka’iwi Channel between the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Oahu.
“We were doing this mostly for the adventure aspect of it,” said Mark Royer, 26, a marine biologist whois working toward his doctorate in shark research at HawaiiManoa. “For me, after living in Hawaii for four years and learning a lot about the local history, the Ka’iwi Channel has been notorious for stories and tradition that have carried on to the 21st century. It was a challenge that both my brother and I were willing to go for. It was an adventure we were seeking.”
Said John Royer, 33, who works at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg: “As soon as my brother moved out to Hawaii to start his graduate work at the University of Hawaii, we’ve always been talking about doing some sort of open-water swim together out there because it’s beautiful and there’s plenty of ocean everywhere. So at some point, we knew we’d do something together.”
On Monday, the Royers became the latest swimmers to successfully cross the 28.5-mile route. While more than 2,000 people have swum the English Channel, only about 40 have crossed the Ka’iwi Channel, according to Jeff Kozlovich, who along with Steve Haumschild owns the Ka’iwi Channel Association, which helps escort and support swimmers attempting to cross the channel.
Kozlovich said the islands’ location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean produces unpredictable weather patterns that can alter the currents and swells in the channel.
“This is a much more remote, longer, rougher, wilder channel than some of the ones you would more often hear about,” Kozlovich said. “It’s just a big, wide-open ocean that can throw anything at you, including huge waves and strong winds and strong currents. And there’s also the factor of the marine life. I think a lot of people are concerned about the sharks. They’re out there, but so far, they haven’t bothered any swimmers. But they are out there.”
The brothers, who have been swimming since elementary school and moved to open-water events after leaving Severna Park for college, said they hatched their idea to cross the channel about a year ago. Mark Royer found Kozlovich, and the plan moved forward.
The Royers swam the channel as a relay team, with the brothers alternating legs every 30 minutes. But it wasn’t easy.
They began the crossing at 7 p.m. last Sunday from a beach on the southeastern tip of Molokai. The brothers said they pushed up their previously planned start because channel conditions were tranquil and because a tropical depression was forming south of the Hawaiian islands.
Accompanied by Kozlovich and Haumschild in kayaks and a support boat, the Royers completed almost 14 miles in about six hours. A bright moon rose in the sky, and bioluminescence from plankton-like organisms helped light the waters.
But a storm struck at 1 a.m. Strong currents, aided by winds of 25 knots, made it more difficult for the brothers, and clouds blocked out the moonlight.
“It was a pretty wild three or four hours,” said Kozlovich, who alternated two-hour shifts in kayaks with Haumschild. “It was dark, winds were shifting constantly, which made the waves difficult to swim through. They weren’t big, but they certainly were choppy and made it difficult for swimming.”
The current pushed the Royers about a half-mile off course, but Mark Royer said he and his brother never considered quitting.
“Basically, what we did was, we just powered on and knew that the conditions are what they are,” he said. “So we just had to power through, and even though we had been swimming the whole night, we knew that if we got complacent and just slacked off for even a little bit, we were just going to get pushed around. So we just decided to go where our kayakers were pointing us to go and just give it all we got so that we could muscle through and get through those conditions.”
Bob and Karen Royer were monitoring their sons’ progress from their hotel in Waikiki in Honolulu, via GPS and texts from support staff on the boat. The storm disrupted texting for about 90 minutes, but Bob Royer said he and his wife continued to track their location via GPS.
“For Karen and I, the thought of going off into an inky, black ocean was scary,” said Bob Royer, who has another son, Jim, 29. “Every 10 minutes, you were sitting there waiting for the next ping, and it sort of gave you a really good feeling of what was going on. If we picked up any calories in the earlier part of our vacation, we certainly burned them all off [worrying] that day.”
John Royer said he was concerned that his parents would be worried. But he said the alternating 30-minute windows on the boat helped him avoid thoughts of giving up.
“That rapid-fire turnover actually helped,” he said. “It really forced you to stay focused on swimming. You didn’t have time to think about the weather, the conditions, where you were, how much further you had to go. It was just: Keep swimming, put your head down and just keep going.”
The storm finally passed at 6 a.m., and sunlight began peeking through the clouds. After three more hours of swimming, John Royer said, he spotted features of Oahu.
“It was really when I could start to pick out people on the shoreline and could actually pick out my family and girlfriend on the beach — that was when it was real,” he said. “That’s when I thought: ‘ OK, now you’re coming in, and you can finish this.’ ”
The brothers reached the finish line at 11:28 a.m., completing the normally 13-hour crossing in 16 hours, 28 minutes. After a celebratory lunch with family and friends, the Royers slept for 12 hours.
Mark Royer said his dreams were filled with images of the swim.
“I still had some residual feelings of being in the darkness and seeing glowing lights around me,” he recalled.
John Royer said it’s too early to talk about the next swim, which might be an attempt at crossing the 21-mile English Channel. But he predicted the itch to embark on their next adventure will return soon.
“I’m certain that in a couple months or year, we’ll get bitten by the bug again and start thinking of something else to do,” he said. “I don’t want to commit to anything yet, but there are a lot of different, interesting and exciting channels and places to swim. We’ll probably toss it back and forth for a while. It was a lot of fun. So I don’t think this will be our last.”