PAT NEAL: A historic cruise to Hawaii

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 6, 2026

HOW ABOUT A cruise to Hawaii? They say cruising isn’t just a vacation, it’s an experience of floating luxury.

Picture yourself basking in the tropical sunset on the promenade deck, plopped down on a comfy deck chair with a flagon of pina coladas.

It’s enough to make anyone sign up and cast off!

That’s unless you booked the Hawaiian cruise that left from La Push last Saturday. Maybe you didn’t know La Push was a cruise ship destination. It’s not, but this was not a cruise ship.

It’s a rowboat being manned by the Row West team. Four hardy adventurers who, according to data on their website, are currently making about 1.1 knots, rowing to Hawaii.

The Row West boat would not be the first to cross the Pacific without a motor. Since time immemorial, Oriental seamen have been unwillingly swept across the Pacific.

These tragic voyages invoked stories of starvation, disease and cannibalism.

Some of the crews must have survived to be rescued by Native Americans hence the Clatsop name for foreigner, “ones who wash ashore.”

In January 1834, three Japanese sailors stumbled into the Ozette village at Cape Alava after being rescued by Makah seal hunters.

They were the survivors of a crew of 14 on the Japanese cargo ship Hojumaru. It had set sail from Onoura to Edo, modern-day Tokyo, carrying a cargo of rice and porcelain.

Their ship was caught in a storm off the coast of Japan, where it lost its mast and rudder.

The ship was blown out to sea where the crew collected rainwater and survived on the rice in the ship’s hold.

The Hojumaru spent an estimated 14 months, drifting in the Korima, the Japanese current, across 5,000 miles of ocean before running aground in the breakers just south of Cape Flattery.

More recently, in the summer of 1971, a young man declared he was going to kayak from La Push to Hawaii.

We gave him a big send-off party with a salmon barbecue. He launched in the Quileute River and paddled out into the swells of the Pacific Ocean. We all waved goodbye.

We did not hear a word about him for weeks. Then there was sadness, but no surprise, when we heard his body had washed up on the western shore of Vancouver Island.

Lately, crossing the Pacific Ocean in a human-powered boat is no longer a death wish.

In 2022, an all-female team set a new world record for rowing the 2,100 miles from California to Hawaii in 34 days, 14 hours and 11 minutes.

The Row West team setting out from La Push last Saturday plans to take from 50 to 70 days to complete the crossing to Maui.

All of which begs the question, why are they doing this?

At the dockside send-off at the La Push Marina, the somber families of the rowers,whose motto is “the direction is clear, the path unknown,” gathered to send them on their journey.

The rowers believe in their journey, saying, “something important is disappearing and that is commitment, brotherhood and the willingness to suffer for something that matters.”

Another said, “It’s about proving that ordinary men can do extraordinary things.”

Indeed, just getting over the Quileute bar and into the open ocean can be an extraordinary thing on any given day. When the U.S. Coast Guard warning light at La Push is flashing ”rough bar conditions,” they are not talking about the night life.

But the Row West lads did it last Saturday. We watched them row over the bar and disappear in the swells and fog.

We wished them Godspeed.

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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.

He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.