Courtesy of Mike Lewis, Ola Vista Photography, California.

After the Waikiki Roughwater Swim was called due to unsafe conditions, Dr. Harry Huffaker took the cancellation in stride.

With large swells relentlessly crashing upon the outer coral reef in Waikiki Bay due to a perfect storm of hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean, the 75-year-old Hall of Fame marathon swimmer from Idaho has seen these conditions before. He nonchalantly stretched, rested and went about his normal preparations for another 26-mile ocean swim. In most of his previous channel crossings in Hawaii, all accomplished in the previous century, the conditions were almost never good and his waiting periods (“windows“) would often stretch from days to weeks to months.

“If there is anything that channel swimming teaches you, it is patience,” said the retired dentist whose window of opportunity for crossing the Molokai Channel is soon to begin.

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