Puke & Rally: Sailing from Maui to Oahu

2:13:00 PM


Interestingly enough, this entire puke and rally story involves zero alcohol.

My best friend Tori was coming to island and only had one request – she wanted to do all things that I had never done with any other guest that I’ve had. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. What is more different than island hopping, sailing, having the time of our lives, and puking your guts out across the Pacific Ocean? NOTHING. Here's the story.

A few weeks ago, my adventure friend Kirsten invited me on the sailing trip of a lifetime- Oahu to Molokai, Molokai to Maui, and Maui back to Oahu! Because the trip fell exactly when Tori was flying out to Hawaii, I wasn’t going to be able to do the first two days of sailing, but we decided to fly to Maui on Sunday and then sail back the entire day on the Fourth of July. Thank god Tori has always been my girl that is down for anything because when I told her this plan she was 100% down. Who cares that neither of us had ever been on a sailboat, what’s 11 hours on the open ocean anyways?

We flew to Maui on the first flight on Sunday morning and got there around 6am, we caught a shuttle to Kaanapali and ate breakfast at Java Jazz which was quite possibly the weirdest establishment I’ve ever been to. After an encounter with chorizo and an interesting breakfast, it was pouring. We had one day in Maui and it rained about 75% of the day. The good news is that Tori and I both love food so we ate about 16 meals that day to cure our rainy boredom.

At about 10am we saw a woman with a huge blow up turtle and both of us made some sort of comment like “WHERE’S THAT TURTLE HEADED WE ARE HANGING OUT WITH YOU GUYS” and thanks to our big mouths we actually found out that the family was leaving Maui and they were looking for kids to give the turtle to. JACKPOT. We were those kids.

Meet Cruffin:



So not only did we have to haul around our bags all day, but now we had a damn 7 foot tall turtle floaty also in our possession. The sun finally came out and we got some good pool and beach time, including $25 sunscreen from the resort, followed by a beautiful Maui sunset & lots of selfies.





Long story short – we thought my friends were lost at sea because they hadn’t showed up to Maui by 6pm. I called the Coast Guard. We cried to the front desk people at the resort. We were 10 minutes away from booking a flight back to Oahu. Then finally our friends showed up cold and wet at 10:30pm. Coast Guard was a little salty with me. We were exhausted from our 3:30am wake up time and basically went right to sleep. The whole day was essentially a fail, but one of my favorite days of the entire trip because Tori and I are pros at making the most out of a situation.

The Sail from Maui to Oahu



Puke & rally was really the theme of the day on our sailing trip. Not having any idea what to expect, Tori and I took ginger pills at the beginning of the sail and were basically Gucci for the first 2 hours of the sail, which happened to be the roughest part. We were sitting on the side listening to 80’s Rock and I was in heaven. Our boating route was from Maui-up around the north shore of Molokai- and back down to Oahu.



 There was a faster route back to Oahu but the entire trip was focused on the sea cliffs of Molokai which are the tallest in the world. The cliffs were AWESOME. Full of waterfalls and the cliffs in general were unreal, we are so lucky to have seen them. They looked like something right out of a movie and although this is when we started feeling really sick – we still both agreed that the sail was totally worth it.



Tori and I had a little too much fun between being delirious and sick, we were screaming Backstreet Boys songs, and laughing our asses off the entire trip. We are probably the only two people in the world that can be exhausted, starving, sea sick and also crying because we are laughing so hard. We got to see some fireworks from the water once the sun went down. There is no one in the world that I would’ve rather experienced that sail with. 11 hours of sickness was also one of the coolest days of my entire life. An adventure that I will never forget. Not to mention the land sickness/vertigo that I’m pretty sure I felt in the shower this morning lol.







Shout out to Kirsten for the invite and all of our friends on the boat who had to listen to me throw up like a baby dinosaur four times. You guys are da real MVPs. And shout out to Tori who held my hand and let me cry on her shoulder the whole time while also laughing at all of my shitty jokes. You’re the best.

It's safe to say I won't be sailing for a while, and if I do go it'll be more like an hour and half. But I'll never forget the weekend we sailed from Maui to Oahu.

P.S. If you're wondering where Cruffin went, we gave him to some kids at the pool when we thought my friends were dead at sea in Maui - it was an emotional decision. 


Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram to see more of my MarissAdventures! @mlreinert24


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