HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Four days after her record-breaking journey from California to Hawaii, Kelsey Pfendler is sharing more details about her trek.<\/p>\n
\u201cDig deep to be like I\u2019m doing this for a reason and I\u2019m gonna continue even though it\u2019s really hard,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
For 43 days, 17 hours and 55 minutes, Pfendler endured \u201creally hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pfendler completed the 2,400-mile journey from Monterey, California, to Honolulu in record time, becoming the first American woman \u2014 and the youngest \u2014 to set a new record for solo female rowing to Hawaii.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is part of me that is so sad that this moment is over because I only get to hang out with the person that I am in those moments when I\u2019m there, there\u2019s a piece of me I\u2019ll never get to be again,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
The accomplishment took two years of planning, but nothing could prepare her for the relentless elements she\u2019d face \u2014 rough seas, high winds and, in the first seven days of her trek, only seven hours of sleep total.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was planning this row, I was thinking how much sleep does a person need because the crux of this is when you\u2019re sleeping that\u2019s when you\u2019re most vulnerable,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
Rowing more than 16 hours a day, she endured auditory hallucinations \u2014 the perception of hearing sounds that aren\u2019t really there.<\/p>\n
But Day 8 proved her toughest challenge. Battling a wind current so strong, she said she couldn\u2019t stop rowing or she\u2019d be pushed farther back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was rowing but I was crying I was just trying to make bargains with the wind like what if you stopped for a little while and I\u2019m just talking to the wind trying to convince it to stop blowing and you can\u2019t make deals with the weather but I was trying,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
On Day 42 \u2014 just one night before she reached O\u02bbahu \u2014 she said she realized the finish line was close after passing Moloka\u02bbi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was getting closer to sunset that doesn\u2019t look like a cloud that is coming from the sea, that is a very rigid line, that is Molokai and I got to see Molokai as the sun was setting and it was faint but it was there and tomorrow you\u2019re gonna see land,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
Her arrival at Hawaii Yacht Club in Waik\u012bk\u012b drew national attention, with hundreds cheering as she entered the harbor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected there to be 30 people and there was people chanting I honestly was overwhelmed then really anxious, I don\u2019t know what to do it was just so much so fast because you know being alone for that long and just that much intensity was hard to process,\u201d said Pfendler.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Four days after her record-breaking journey from California to Hawaii, Kelsey Pfendler is sharing more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,2356,11639,321718,451,318717,3,12770,452,453,12858],"class_list":["post-750167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-california","tag-hawaii","tag-hawaii-yacht-club","tag-headlines","tag-kelsey-pfendler","tag-news","tag-rowing","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-waikiki"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=750167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}