OCEAN CITY- With the days clicking down to the event, a long-time Ocean City resident and his partner in Hawaii are preparing for one of the biggest challenges of their lives on behalf of another local man who continues to face his own challenges.

West Ocean City resident Sandy Deeley and long-time friend and fellow ocean enthusiast Teene Froiseth will compete on Sunday in the famous Molokai 2 Oahu World Championship paddleboard race across the Ka’iwi Channel, known for dangerous currents, high winds, big waves and an occasional shark or two. Literally translated as the “Channel of Bones” by those who have tested it and failed, the Ka’iwi channel stretches roughly 26 miles between Molokai and Oahu and has a reputation as one of the world’s most treacherous bodies of water.

Hundreds will brave the channel on Sunday in the annual Molakai 2 Oahu world championship race including Deeley and Froiseth, who are taking on the challenge on behalf of their long-time friend and fellow ocean sports enthusiast Steve Falck, a local man with deep roots in the resort community stricken three years ago with Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA), a rare neurological disease for which there is no known cure or treatment.

Falck, a pillar in the community, is a local builder, artist, surfer and girls’ lacrosse coach, among many other attributes. As if life hadn’t already dealt him a tough hand, Falck was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and is undergoing radiation treatments for that disease on top of what he is already going through with MSA.