sailing misadventure

Alright so last Friday I think it was, I wake up and one of my roommates
comes in to tell me that she and her friends are going out on a sailboat at night and I'm invited.

So later on, we meet up at the Waikiki marina. There's 4 girls and 4 guys including me on a 25 foot sailboat.
I could tell by how long it took the captain to get his boat out of the slip that he hadn't
been doing this very long. The captain's name was "Noah". I found this to be ironic later.
I wasn't worried going out sailing at night because the waters had been calm off Waikiki earlier in the day.
We motored out a few hundred meters in choppy water to drop anchor and watch the weekly fireworks show.




The view was amazing and we all enjoyed a glass of champagne while watching the fireworks. The show was short but spectacular. Out of all the people on the boat, I knew only 3, having just met them the day before.





On our way out we had seen some large waves come in not too far from the boat.
The captain and another guy thought it was from the cruise ship several hundred meters east of us.
I knew cruise ships didn't make wake like that but didn't say anything.

After the show the captain started motoring parallel to the shore.
We headed straight to where some large waves were forming.
The proper way to deal with waves is to face them head on, so the waves hit the hull first.
Being parallel is never a good idea, as the waves can come crashing down on top of you, while also tilting the boat on its side.
In between waves the captain motors up to try and pass through where the waves are coming in.
All of a sudden the boat comes to a sudden halt.
My guess is we hit a sandbar, others thought it was reef.
Whatever the cause, all of a sudden, there we are, perched in shallow water, a sitting duck for
these large waves to come crashing down on.

First one comes and sprays everyone on  board.
One girl starts to panic. The second wave starts heading this way.
It's much larger than the first.
As it nears the girl asks "Should I be panicking?! I'm panicking!"
The captain replies with the last thing you would ever want to hear from a cptain or pilot: "I'm panicking too!"
Great. So then another girl starts freaking out. There are still two on the hull, everyone else gathered in the back.
I tell them to hang on tight.
As the wave nears I can only think of three things.
My phone is going to be ruined.
I'm going to lose my passport that's in my pocket.
I wish I had a surfboard.

The wave lifts the boat on the side and comes crashing down on top of everyone. I thought for sure we lost someone but everyone managed to hang on.
I was on the left side of the boat where the wave hit and was literally looking down at the water on the other side. The thing nearly capsized. Everyone is soaked. The girls are screaming.
I'm just thinking get ready to swim.
There's now about 3 inches of water in the cabin and it doesn't look like we're getting unstuck.

A third wave comes with less intensity than the second.
The captain throttles it in a different direction and suddenly the boat moves.
The boat finally turns and we face the next wave head on, going over the top of it head on like you're supposed to.

One girl is still shaking and the other has her phone out about to call 911.
We make it back safely into harbor.
I saw a catamaran approach us on the way back. I wondered
the crew had witnessed the incident and had come to help.
Later on I found out the captain on that boat works at the Hilton,
the same place as my other roommate who had decided to not go at the last minute.
He told her he was very worried and almost called the coast guard.
Apparently our captain had driven us right into a channel facing the wrong way.
Afterwards I found out he only had 6 months sailing experience and had never gone out at night before.

The other captain said he was worried someone would die if the sailboat capsized, being in a channel with large waves.
I wasn't ever worried about that....at least for me.
Drowning in less than 10 feet deep of water just a few hundred yards off shore surrounded by other boats is not how I'm going out.

Another interesting piece to this story was that video of a great white had been shot just a day before, a few miles north of us and a few miles off shore. So some on the boat were freaked out about that.
Here's that video. Warning, foul language.

Shortly after we launched, I had asked my roommate aboard the boat if she'd ever seen "Open Water 2".
She hadn't, but I told her it's about a group of friends whose sailboat capsizes and they are unable to climb back aboard, all the while being encircled by a group of hungry sharks with no help in site.