Kaiwi Channel | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 21, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Penguin Bank

“As for the depths themselves, the greatest yet discovered … was the Penguin Deep, discovered by the British vessel Penguin (in 1896) north of New Zealand where a depth of 5,155 fathoms was found.” (New York Tribune, January 25, 1920) (Four years later, the USS Nero instruments registered a depth of 5,269 fathoms – almost six miles.)

HMS Penguin was an Osprey-class sloop (United Kingdom, later Australia.) Launched on 1876, Penguin was operated by the Royal Navy from 1877 to 1881, then from 1886 to 1889.

She was 170 feet long, had a beam of 36 feet, a draft of 15 feet 9 inches and had a displacement of 1,130 tons. The propulsion machinery consisted of a single engine that gave her a top speed of 9.9 knots and a maximum range of 1,480 nautical miles (1,700 mi.) (She was also Barque rigged.) The standard ship’s company was 140-strong.

After being converted to a survey vessel, Penguin was recommissioned in 1890, and conducted survey work around the Western Pacific islands, New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef until 1908, when she was demasted and transferred to the Australian Commonwealth Naval Forces for use as a depot and training ship in Sydney Harbor.

After this force became the Royal Australian Navy, the sloop was commissioned as HMAS Penguin in 1913. Penguin remained in naval service until 1924, when she was sold off and converted into a floating crane. (The vessel survived until 1960, when she was broken up and burnt.)

In addition to finding the deepest bottom of the ocean (at the time, as noted above,) Penguin was involved in finding other ocean bottoms – one happened in Hawaiʻi.

Let’s step back a bit.

Hawaiʻi is the world’s most-isolated populated-place. In round numbers, we are 5,000-miles from Washington DC, New York, Florida, Australia, Philippines, Hong Kong & the North Pole; 4,000-miles from Chicago, Tokyo, New Zealand & Guam and 2,500-miles from Los Angeles, all other West Coast cities, Samoa, Alaska & Mexico.

While, today, technology keeps us constantly and instantly in touch and aware of world events, the same was not true in the past. Prior to the beginning of the 20th century, you had at least a one-week time lag in receiving “news” (that arrived via ships.)

At the time, Great Britain and its possessions were spread across the globe. Communicating between these holdings created challenges.

Step in Sir Sandford Fleming, a Scottish-born Canadian engineer and inventor. Among other feats, he proposed worldwide standard time zones, designed Canada’s first postage stamp, and, in 1862, Fleming had submitted a plan to the Government for a trans-Canada railway.

In the same year, he was appointed Chief Engineer of the British-Australian Telegraph Company. Fleming was one of the staunch advocates for a Pacific telegraph cable.

A Colonial Conference held in Sydney in 1877 passed resolutions concerning a Pacific cable, one of which sought subsidies from the US Government for a cable running from the United States to New Zealand.

In 1879, Fleming wrote to the Telegraph and Signal Service in Ottawa about the railway and cable: “If these connections are made we shall have a complete overland telegraph from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.”

“It appears to me to follow that, as a question of imperial importance, the British possessions to the west of the Pacific Ocean should be connected by submarine cable with the Canadian line. Great Britain will thus be brought into direct communication with all the greater colonies and dependencies without passing through foreign countries.”

The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885, and with it a telegraph line across Canada, strengthened Fleming’s position. The decision to extend the railway to Vancouver in 1886 helped even more. (atlantic-cable)

At the 1893 Australasian Conference held in Sydney the Postmaster General of New South Wales suggested laying a cable from New Caledonia (already linked to Australia by cable) to Fiji, Honolulu and San Francisco.

That brings us back to the Penguin. She was commissioned to make soundings and survey areas for suitable cable routes and station locations.

That brought her to Hawaiʻi.

“The Penguin left Sydney on April 10, proceeding by way of Suva Fiji to Palmyra Island, where a party was landed to observe the tides. The steamer then proceeded to the north and made an accurate survey of Kingman reef, which was found to be sixty miles due north of Palmyra Island. (The Sun (NY,) July 30, 1897)

“The British survey steamer Penguin, which arrived (in Honolulu) yesterday, has just completed the preliminary survey for the Australian-British Columbian cable. She ran a line of soundings from Palmyra Island to a point 300-miles to the southward of Honolulu, finding and average depth of 2,700 fathoms.”

“After spending three weeks here in receiving general repairs the Penguin will return to Palmyra Island and run a line of soundings southwest to Sydney.” (The Sun (NY,) July 30, 1897)

The Penguin made another discovery here.

“The Penguin … must await stores and advices before resuming her survey work, but in the interim will make an accurate survey of the shoal discovered to the southward, sailing from here on the 12th for that purpose, and returning again later.” (The Hawaiian Star, August 7, 1897)

“HBMS Penguin will leave at daylight tomorrow to survey a shoal near this group, expecting to be back Sunday morning.” (Evening Bulletin, August 11, 1897)

“Although the officers aboard the Penguin were loathe to give any information it was learned that at about 10 o’clock on Tuesday night (July 20, 1897) and while about 30-miles of the Island of Oʻahu, the ‘tell-tale’ of the ship showed that a shoal 26-fathoms below the surface of the water, had been struck.” (Pacific Commercial, July 22, 1897; Clark)

The name of the shoal appears to have varied early names.

“The steamer JA Cummins went off fishing with a party of excursionists this morning. The steamer will cruise about Kamehameha shoal (the new reef discovered by HBMS Penguin) and return tonight or early tomorrow.” (Evening Bulletin, September 11, 1897)

“The Albatross started from Honolulu on July 9. She first went dredging at the Penguin shoal and went from there to Puako, on Hawaii.” (Evening Bulletin, July 29, 1902)

Today, it’s more commonly referred to as Penguin Bank.

Penguin Bank (about 20 miles long and 10 miles wide within the Kaiwi Channel) is the eroded summit of a sunken volcano, now a broad submarine shelf off Molokai Island with depths of less than 200 feet deep. It is capped with sand and fossil corals. The Bank is generally too deep for most live corals and is a relatively barren habitat compared to shallower waters nearby. The base rock is lava of the same kind that forms Molokai Island. (Grays Harbor)

It was one of the seven principal volcanoes (along with West Molokai, East Molokai, Lānai, West Maui, East Maui and Kahoʻolawe) that formerly constituted of Maui Nui.

The top of Penguin Bank and other banks and shelves throughout the Pacific basin are found at similar depths, because these banks were formed by an interplay between reef growth and past low stands of global sea level. (Agegian)

Penguin Bank is noted for highest concentrations of humpback whales during their winter sojourns in Hawaiʻi. While in Hawaiʻi, Humpback Whales are found in shallow coastal waters, usually less than 300-feet. The average water depth in Penguin Banks is around 200-feet, but water depths can range from about 150-feet to 600-feet. (NOAA)

It’s also one of Hawaiʻi’s premier fishing sites. “Yachts May Cruise – The yachtsmen are thinking of making a cruise starting Saturday and returning Monday night, Monday being Labor Day.”

“Two plans are at present being discussed. One is to go to Waianae and remain off that place fishing. The other plan is a more extensive on. It is to go to Penguin Shoal on the west coast of Molokai to fish, returning Monday via Rabbit Island, where the yachtsmen may stop for a day’s rabbit and bird shooting.” (Evening Bulletin, September 1, 1904)

In 1902, the first submarine cable across the Pacific was completed (landing in Waikīkī at Sans Souci Beach) linking the US mainland to Hawaiʻi, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and Guam to the Philippines in 1903. (The first Atlantic submarine cable, connecting Europe with the USA, was completed in 1866.)

March 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ka Iwi

The winds will turn before you and find you,
You’ll be overwhelmed, O deaf aliʻi,
The winds will gather,
The naʻenaʻe leaves will bend,
You’ll be swept ashore at Awāwamalu.
Caught in the fishing net of the head fisherman,
Your thigh bone and upper-arm bone
Will be made into fishhooks,
To catch the paoʻo and the ʻopakapaka,
Your flesh will be without bones,
The black crab, the shearwater will eat your remains,
The life from the parents will be broken off.
Here I am, the ʻaumakua kanaka,
Listen to my life-giving words,
Keawenuiaʻumi, come ashore, a storm is coming,
When you sailed yesterday, it was calm.
(Excerpt from The Wind Gourd of Laʻamaomao – (hawaii-edu))

Wāwāmalu or Awāwamalu (“Shady Gulch or Valley” – referenced above,) was on the Waimānalo side of the Ka Iwi Coastline, (known today as “Sandy Beach.”) Corpses of fisherman and sailors who drowned in the Kaiwi channel were swept ashore by the currents there and at other spots along the southeast coast of Oʻahu, like Hanauma Bay. (Ka Poʻe Kahiko 76; hawaii-edu)

The meanings of the two core words are: ka (the) and iwi (bone.) This is the literal meaning of the word iwi, but we can be sure that there is also a deeper meaning, for bones of ancestors were very sacred; it was in the bones that mana (supernatural power) was believed to have been stored and that it remained in the bones even after death. (Marion Kelly)

This coastline is called Ka Iwi; it fronts Ka Iwi Channel. It may have been named for the bones of lost travelers who failed to make the crossing between Molokai and Oʻahu.

Others suggest it may be because the raw, wild, volcanic landscape of the area, rising from the sea, reminded the ancients of the exposed bones of the earth.

The ancient Hawaiians paddled the channel waters in their canoes for food, recreation, trade, communication and military purposes. The rich history of the islands is full of accounts of mythical demigods and real-life heroes testing their skills on the oceans. Control of Hawaiʻi’s channel waterways was an important part of Hawaiian society. This importance is reflected today in modern Hawaiʻi’s claim to state ownership of interisland waters (Hawaiʻi State Constitution, Article XV). (NOAA)

Control of the interisland waterways was an extension of domination of the land by the aliʻi. The “nature of the dominion exercised over a channel lying between two portions of a multi-island unit was based on Polynesian rather than Western concepts.” The Polynesians view the surrounding waters as part of the land. Control of the ocean by Hawaiians was implicit in the control of the islands themselves. (NOAA)

Kaiwi is known for the Kualau or Kuakualau – the strong wind and the rain out in the ocean. It is customary for it to blow in the evening and in the morning but sometimes blow at all times. “Where are you, O Kualau, Your rain goes about at sea.” (McGregor)

Wind speeds decrease in the lee of each island; whereas winds in the channel increase in strength. The area out in the channel is subject to heavy, gusty trade winds.

These winds had an effect on the waters in the channel; “… the ship turned toward Lae-o-ka-laau. As we went on the Kualau breeze of Kaiwi blew wildly, and many people were bent over with seasickness”. (Ku Okoa, 1922; Maly)

In Hawaiian tradition, Lāʻau Point on Molokai represents a point of no return. For those traveling by canoe from Oʻahu to Molokai across the Kaiwi Channel, once Lāʻau Point is sighted, there is no turning back to Oʻahu.

More commonly known today as the Molokai Channel, the Kaiwi Channel separates the islands of Molokai and Oʻahu; it has the reputation as one of the world’s most treacherous bodies of water.

The channel is about the length of a marathon (26.2-miles) but it’s a body of water; annually, swimmers, paddlers and others seek to cross its span as an individual achievement, or the glory of participating/winning a race.

In 1939, William K Pai is reportedly the first person to swim the Kaiwi Channel, from ʻIlio Point on Molokai to the Blowhole near Oʻahu’s Sandy Beach (because he first paddled a little offshore before swimming, it was ‘uncertified.’) Since then, several others have tried and succeeded.

On October 12, 1952, three Koa outrigger canoes launched from Molokai’s west side; nearly nine hours later, Kukui O Lanikaula landed on the beach at Waikīkī in front of the Moana Hotel. Thus began the world’s most prestigious outrigger canoe race, the Molokaʻi Hoe. Two years later, the women’s Na Wahine O Ke Kai, Molokai to Oʻahu Canoe Race, was inaugurated.

We are reminded of the hazards and risks crossing Kaiwi Channel, when on March 16, 1978, Hokuleʻa left Ala Wai Harbor in Honolulu on a voyage to Tahiti. According to the Coast Guard report, the canoe left O‘ahu in 30-knot trade winds, with clear skies, 6-8 foot seas from the NNE, and 8-10 foot swells from the NE. (PVS)

“Swells were high, but the canoe had ridden out such seas before. However, this time it was heavily laden with food and supplies for a month’s journey. The added weight put unusual stress on the canoe, making it difficult to handle.”

“Turning off-wind eased the strain but it also caused the sea to wash in over the gunwales, filling the starboard compartments and depressing the lee hull. Winds pushing on the sails rotated the lighter windward hull around the submerged lee hull, now dead in the water.”

“Five hours after leaving Ala Wai Harbor, Hokule‘a was upside-down in the sea between O‘ahu and Molokai.” (Will Kyselka, An Ocean in Mind; PVS)

“All that night (sixteen crew members) clung to the hulls of the stricken vessel, huddling to protect themselves as best they could from wind and wave. Daylight came. Airplanes flew overhead but no one saw Hokuleʻa. …. Most alarming, though, was the fact that the canoe was drifting away from airline routes, decreasing its chance of being spotted.” (Will Kyselka, An Ocean in Mind; PVS)

“Eddie Aikau wanted to go for help.”

“An expert waterman, he had saved the lives of many swimmers in trouble in the powerful surf of Waimea Bay on the north shore of O‘ahu. … Eddie would go alone.”

“The crew, clinging to the overturned hulls, watch(ed) in silence as he rode the waves into a fate not unknown to many of the people of old who sailed toward distant lands.” (Will Kyselka, An Ocean in Mind; PVS)

In the early morning of March 18, 1978, the Coast Guard arrived to assist the Hokuleʻa; later that day, they sighted Aikau’s surfboard. Eddie was never seen again.

October 9, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Illinois Brigade

American Fur Company, founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808, would become one of the largest businesses in the country at the start of the 19th century.

Astor planned the post to grow into a permanent settlement, with plans to develop a large trade ring that included New York, the Pacific Coast, Russian Alaska, Hawaiʻi and China. The furs collected in the northwest and Alaska, would be shipped to China and exchanged for porcelain, silk and other cloth, and spices that would be brought back, via Hawaii to New York.

Initially, Astor’s operation in the Columbia River Valley of Oregon was under a subsidiary called the Pacific Fur Company and his Great Lakes efforts were under another subsidiary – the South West Company.

Astor began this ambitious venture to compete with the two great fur-trading companies in Canada – the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company.

As early as 1811, Hudson’s Bay Company had already hired twelve Hawaiians on three year contracts to work for them in the Pacific Northwest. That year John Jacob Astor built Fort Astoria, it was later sold to the North West Company.

However, the War of 1812 destroyed both companies. Five years later, in 1817, Congress passed an act which excluded foreign traders from US territory, making the American Fur Company the biggest in the Great Lakes region.

The Illinois Brigade was one of several trading expeditions sent out annually, between about 1816 and 1827, by the American Fur Company from its headquarters at Mackinac, at the confluence of Lakes Michigan and Huron, in Michigan Territory.

The brigade, usually numbering ten or twelve native canoes, as well as shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boats (bateau,) loaded with trade goods, made its way down Lake Michigan and through the Chicago portage and Des Plaines River to the Illinois River.

There it divided into small parties that spent the winter bartering with the Indians for furs. In the spring the brigade reassembled and returned by water to Mackinac. In 1828 the American Fur Company sold its Illinois interests to Gurdon S Hubbard, the brigade’s commander. (Gale Group)

Wait … this is about another Illinois Brigade – they’re from this area (around Chicago,) but rather than canoes familiar to that region, this Illinois Brigade paddles Hawaiian outrigger canoes.

Among the more than 260 canoe clubs that have participated in the Molokai Hoe are crews from the Hawaiian islands of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, Maui, Molokai, Lānaʻi and Kauai; and, from several parts of California, from the states of Oregon, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, and from several areas across Canada.

In the Pacific, clubs from several coasts of Australia have participated; and from New Zealand, New Caledonia, Japan, Hong Kong, the Kingdom of Tonga, Johnston Island; many from Tahiti and other islands of French Polynesia; and from Europe, crews from England, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary have raced across the Molokai Channel. (Molokai Canoe Race)

Folks from the Chicago area got their start when Don Alberta, then a 51-year old pilot for American Airlines, and avid canoeist, was vacationing in Hawaii when he met Herman Clark (whose father Herman was a guard for the Bears in the 1950s.)

Clark invited him to paddle with him and afterwards challenged Alberta to get up a team and race. That he did, finishing 14th in 1981 and 10th in 1984, all the while using an old practice boat. (Chicago Tribune)

Then, in 1985 at Bankoh Molokai Hoe 34, on Sunday, October 13, 1985, 48 canoes, 13-koa, 35 fiberglass started the race, all finished.

The Illinois Brigade was the first team from a landlocked part of the world to win the Molokai Hoe, which began in 1952 and covers just over 40 miles from Molokai to Oʻahu. (Chicago Tribune)

First, in the fiberglass division was the Illinois Brigade-1 (Chicago) (Serge Corbin, Joe Johnson, Jay Mittman, Bruce Barton, Al Rudquist, Kurt Doberstein, Ed Crozier, Tim Triebold, Mike Fries) in the time of 5:33:04. (Molokai Canoe Race)

“That blew their minds,” says Alberta, explaining that teams far more accustomed to the water conditions couldn‘t keep pace. “They mystified the Hawaiians,” said restaurateur Nick Nickolas. (Chicago Tribune)

The Molokai Hoe has become one of the longest-running annual team sporting events in Hawai‘i (second only to football.) The first-ever contest, held on October 12, 1952, happened with just three competing koa wood outrigger canoes of six men each.

Canoes launch from the Hale o Lono Harbor off the west side of Molokai and travel approximately 41 miles across the Kaiwi Channel to finish at Dukes Beach at Fort DeRussy and Hilton Hawaiian Village. (This year’s race is today, October 9, 2016.)

The channel is said to be among one of the most treacherous spans of ocean in the world, with the current record time for the passage being under 5 hours. The Oahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association organizes the annual event.

The Molokai Hoe perpetuates one of Hawai‘i’s and Polynesia’s most important and historic cultural traditions, while honoring outrigger canoe paddlers around the world. (Molokai Hoe)

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