It’s not on everyone’s "bucket list."

And it’s not for everyone, not even the elite outrigger canoe paddlers.

Crossing the Kauai Channel is not about racing. It is about voyaging, making a cultural and spiritual journey some 80 miles across Kaieie Waho — from Haleiwa, Oahu, to Nawiliwili, Kauai.

It might take 8 hours. It might take 18.

As members of the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Voyaging Society know, the only given when taking on the channel is that it will be hard.

This year’s annual voyage will be particularly difficult. The three crews, each with 12 to 14 paddlers, are setting out at midnight on April 1, escorted by support boats, bright moonlight and vivid memories of Kendall Struxness.

Struxness, a founding member of the HOCVS and longtime Kauai resident, died last April 2 of cancer.

"Usually we’ll go across the (Kauai) channel more into summer," HOCVS co-founder Matt Muirhead said. "But we wanted to honor his passing on the one-year anniversary.

"It’s a bit of a risk at this time of year. You never know what’s out there. It can be flat, it can be huge. It’s a big piece of water and it’s always scary."

Struxness and Muirhead were part of the previous voyages traversing the entire island chain, from Hawaii Island to Kauai, and Kauai to French Frigate Shoals.

"He loved being on the water," said Jane McKee, an HOCVS director who’ll be paddling next month. "We’ll be thinking of him the entire way."

The crews represent HOCVS, Kaiola Canoe Club of Kauai and an all-women’s crew from Waikiki Beach Boys that is coached by one of the society’s founders, Kimokeo Kapahulehua. Muirhead estimates that half of each crew will never have experienced this journey.

"The mission of the HOCVS is to perpetuate the Hawaiian culture, the art, of traditional long-distance outrigger canoe voyaging," said Muirhead, a Kauai native now working and coaching paddlers in Santa Cruz, Calif. "It’s not the Molokai (race), which everyone wants to do. This isn’t for everyone.

"Crossing this channel is a rare thing, just like Kendall was a rare individual. He was one of those rare, sweet, very generous guys you are lucky to call a friend."

Struxness, the first to complete a solo crossing of the Kauai Channel in a one-man canoe, sponsored events through his construction business. The Kendall Pacific Cup remains the finale of the Hawaiian Sailing Canoe Association, a Kauai coastal race from Nawiliwili to Waimea.

"We’ve done (the Kauai Channel) in sailing canoes, but this is totally different," said HSCA president Terry Galpin, who’ll be on one of the escort boats. "Our Kendall Cup now is not about his death, but about perpetuating the way he lived his life.

"He stayed with us during his chemo treatments and he was such an incredible warrior. He never complained; he said he didn’t want to be remembered for how he died but remembered for how he lived."

» kimokeo.org