A few weeks ago, when trade winds gusting to 30 mph churned the Kaiwi Channel into a turbulent reach of froth and spray, Mark Sandvold couldn't think of anyplace better. So he and a few buddies hopped onto their surf skis near Makapu'u and paddled straight into an avalanche of swells for an hour of serious kayaking.

They wound up at Kaimana Beach, more than 18 miles away.

On a day like that, with seas reaching 20 feet, Sandvold likes to say the ocean is "nuking," but that's no surprise. His idea of fitness is not for the faint of heart. This is a guy who once ran so ferociously up the tracks on Koko Crater that he nearly blacked out at the top.

"There is no faster paddling craft than a surf ski," he said. "I have hit 20 mph out there in the channel. And it is also the most challenging of the paddling sports. With a one-man canoe you have an ama (outrigger float) to balance you. With the surf ski you are the ama. You balance yourself."

Sandvold has been an off-and-on-again fixture in Hawai'i's paddling circuit since he was a teenager growing up in East Honolulu.

He won national youth titles paddling flatwater kayaks and harbored Olympic dreams in 1988, but failed to make the 10-man team when he finished 11th in the U.S. trials. He also coached at Outrigger Canoe Club and belonged to crews that won the Moloka'i-to-O'ahu canoe race.

But even elite athletes discover responsibility.

Woven throughout his paddling career have been periods when Sandvold left the sport: first for college, then for the Hawai'i Air National Guard and later as a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines, his current job.

Now a 42-year-old father of three young girls, Sandvold juggles training, ballet and piano lessons, flying and a marriage.

After his children were born — the oldest is 8 — he sold his dirt bike, bid aloha to winter surfing on O'ahu's North Shore and scheduled his workouts more carefully. He'll target an hour a day to paddle his surf ski.

The payback is his sanity.

"I am very fortunate to have a wife who basically tells me to go paddle because if I don't get in the water every day, I am not my happy self," he said. "A lot of times, I evaluate my life and I think about business. Then I am home again with the kids and I take them to the park and we ride bikes. I spend hours with them in the pool."

The approach has proven to be very successful.

Since 2001, when Sandvold decided to focus his paddling efforts almost exclusively on surf ski races, he has consistently been a top finisher in races here and abroad. In the past five years, Sandvold has often finished in the top 10 at the U.S. Surf Ski Championships, including third place in 2004. In 2006, he was the first Hawai'i finisher in the prestigious Moloka'i-to-O'ahu race.

And at an age when a lot of men are slowing down, Sandvold hopes to compete in professional surf ski races in Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and South Africa.

Sandvold is a bear of man whose size hides what he has spent much of his life perfecting — a paddling technique that breathes life into his surf ski.

He makes it look easy, but in truth, a surf ski can be an unforgiving craft that requires balance and strength to master. Still, Sandvold has nothing but praise for the workout it offers, which he said is better than a typical session on the more popular solo outrigger canoes.

"You push off with your legs and use your core and your obliques to balance, and at the same time you are using your back and your lats to power yourself along," he said. "I feel you are using more of your body."

That isn't what stokes his passion for the sport, though. It's the ocean, especially when it goes nuclear.

"The surf ski allowed me to get back into the water, which was something I loved to do," he said. "And as much as I like to get to the gym, that is more work than fun. Paddling is fun for me."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.