Outrigger Regatta

After being off paddling for a few weeks for our trip back to the mainland, it was nice to get back into the routine of outrigger canoe again. Last weekend Sara and I were able to put some of that experience to work at the Moso'oi Festival Outrigger Regatta.

It was a large group of paddlers that came out for the canoe race. Between adult and youth paddlers there were easily over one-hundred participants. After registering and getting our gift bags we were randomly assigned to teams.

The weather was off and on raining, so some of the paddles were wet and some were sunny, luck of the draw. Each race consisted of four boats per heat. It was actually two races going on at once, the 2 heavier boats were facing off against each other and the two lighter boats doing the same. So in theory you could come in 3rd place out of four and still potentially win your race.

The actual racing for Sara and I was not that interesting. Neither of our teams preformed well, my team was eliminated after two rounds (of double elimination). Sara made it one round further, but were losing when one of the boats they were not racing against flipped. I hadn't yet seen a boat flip and was surprised how quickly it happened. Once the ama started lifting, the momentum quickly spun the boat over. Before you blinked the boat was over and the competitors and their paddles started bobbing to the surface around the boat. Sara's boat turned around and assisted the flipped canoe with flipping it back over and bailing the body of the canoe. The post flip mop up process took about fifteen minutes, which slowed the pace of the regatta.

With several heats still to go, Sara and I decided not to stick around until the end. We passed our raffle ticket off to a friend who was spectating and headed home and called it an afternoon. We weren't sure what to make the next day when there was a picture posted on Facebook with us tagged, talking about our new stove. Apparently the ticket we passed along won the grand prize for the raffle, a propane stove. Having a perfectly good electric range, we're not sure what we're going to do with our race day prize. My vote is having the best car camping kitchen on island.