This posting is very long so I'll bold the highlights for you.
I spent this 3-day weekend deep in the paddling world. My team and I flew to Kona for the 35th Annual Queen Liliuokulani long distance canoe race - it's the worldest largest outrigger canoe race. I estimate there were about 2,000 paddlers in town for the event. I saw women with jerseys that read "San Francisco Outrigger Canoe Club", there was a crew from Japan, from Marina del Rey, from Fremont (weird, right?), and I think from Tahiti.
The events officially began Friday night with an 8:30pm team meeting in our coach's room where we learned our crews (I was assigned seat 4 on boat #5), we were told to stay positive and reminded that this was a big accomplishment. Then we went to bed. Only to wake up at 5am.
Saturday morning was CRAZY. Boats stacked next to each other, women running all around. Duct tape being passed back and forth to secure camelbacks to our seats. We actually took over both the women's and men's bathrooms in the hotel. The guys were scared. Hundreds of buff athletic women amped on adrenaline. All prepping for an 18 mile race.
Strangely enough, I wasn't feeling nervous about this race. It was estimated to take just less than 3 hours and our practices are usually about 2 hours so I knew I could keep my arms moving til the end. I was a bit worried about feeling miserable - tired, sweaty, hot, sore. But I was super calm. I also knew we had no chance of coming close to winning. So as long as we weren't the last boat to cross the finish line, we were safe.
We did really well. We were a boat of all first-year paddlers and our steersman had never steered a long distance race before. And we worked our asses off. Of the 85-ish boats in our class, we got 55-ish place. And of the total 135 boats in the entire event (women only) we got 80-ish. I think our time was 2 hours and 45 minutes. About 2 hours and 15 minutes into it my back hurt so bad I thought I might be doing permanent damage to it. And my fingers were burning with blisters that I thought they might actually be bleeding. But I couldn't stop to check them out. No stopping for anything. Eventually the pain lessened a bit and I sort of enjoyed the last 15 minutes or so of the race. Most of my teammates claim to have had fun in the race. Not me. It wasn't fun. It's cool that I did it. And if I paddle next year I'll probably do it again. But it wasn't necessarily enjoyable.
After the race we chilled a bit until our minds were somewhat coherent and I stuck around to snorkel and swim with a few people. The rest of the day is a total blur. We watched the men's race finish back in town*, finally ate some food, and took a nap. In the evening we gathered to watch the Parade of Paddlers (we should have participated but we're a lazy club and we decided to drink instead) which involved hundreds of paddlers walking along the street all carrying torches - very Olympic-esque. Then we partied.
Throughout much of the weekend I had moments where I felt like I didn't fit in or that the other girls were all much better friends with each other than with me. But it was an absolute blast to drink and hit the bars with a big group of girls. It felt just like being in college again. And there are many good stories that came out of it - injuries dancing, hook-ups and drunken conversations. Some people didn't make it home until 4am.
At 9am on Sunday I was greeted by my friend yelling at me "Where's your paddle? You're racing right now! Get downstairs!" I was completely dumbfounded and a silly argument ensued. Turns out, I was racing. All of the Novice B (first-year paddlers) girls were racing in the 6 mile double-hull. Yuck. So I changed, grabbed my paddle, and went downstairs on an empty stomach. A few girls had it worse - they were still drunk. But we had fun.
This race was crazy. First off, we had two normal canoes connected by 2x4's. Which was actually quite cute because that's how we all learned to paddle 5 months ago - and all together. As the race started, we immediately pulled ahead. About 3 minutes into the race we were pretty far out front with only two other boats. We were chasing a red boat as we paddled at a sprint pace. About two thirds of the way through the race we started to catch the red boat. And we quickly passed them. It was awesome and unbelievable. I don't think I've ever felt that good in a canoe. And then, about a quarter mile from the finish, our tail passed their nose and we turned in for the finish line. And they turned towards us, clipped the back of our boat and spun it out. Seriously, like a NASCAR race, we spun out and lost first place. We managed to be the third boat to cross the finish and walked away with a second place medal because the team that spun us was a Masters team. So while we didn't take gold, we showed ourselves, the red boat and everyone watching from the beach that our boat of Novice B girls could out paddle a masters crew. That was fun.
And then we ate, napped and partied some more. And I caught an early flight home to spend Labor Day with Bryan.
If Bryan contributed to this blog, he might tell you about his weekend. I can give a brief summary. He hung out with our friends on Friday night and got dinner and drinks. On Saturday he met a friend to watch the UH game on TV (they played Alabama so it was a big deal) and played basketball later. On Sunday he went to his boss's 41st birthday party which is a very big deal in the Japanese culture. And we went to the beach on Monday.
The picture is a group of us Beachboy paddlers. Our team has the reputation of being athletic pretty white girls. This picture doesn't do us justice because many of us are sunburned or exhausted but trust me, they're all beautiful.
Thanks for reading.
Lots of love,
Jenni
*For those that know the area, the Saturday race went from the Kona pier to Honaunau (City of Refuge), then the men took our boats and paddled them back to the pier. The Sunday race left the pier, went out three miles, turned around and ended back at the pier.
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