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[This is a continuation from Hawaii - Aloha & Honor (Part 1). Please read that before this post. Mahalo!]

Sitting on the shuttle bus from downtown Kona to our race start, I enjoyed the view out my window. A few picturesque shots here and there of the women’s race. I squinted to see our wahine in the pack but they were all too far away to distinguish different teams. An older paddler was sitting behind me and a teammate who paddled for a club in Hilo. He was very friendly, and sported a salty pidgin dialect that kept me chuckling as he talked story of this and that. He offered us landmarks to look for on the course to show us how far we had gone. I asked him what some words in Hawaiian meant as we drove through different towns and through different streets. He was happy for the company and I was grateful for the distraction of my upcoming race. As we neared our destination he pointed out that the lava fields were were going through was, at one time, a battlefield in the days of King Kamehameha. “Imagine land dis rugged for one battle. Ova dea you die, you don’t get found by nobody.” At that moment the bus turned a corner and we were there.

You wouldn’t think lava rock would be a comfortable place to lie down and relax…but it can be under the right circumstance. It was heavenly as I found a patch in the shade, using my camelback as a pillow. About 20 minutes into a little siesta where I was dozing on and off, thinking about what the women must be feeling like out there, I was asked by a teammate if I had “heard about the girls?” I sat up to see if I had slept through their finish. No canoes were in the water yet, so I grunted a “huh?”

A little background on our wahine in the canoe, it was a mixed bag of 3 Ikuna Koa girls and 3 girls from other teams to complete the sixfecta. Our 3 were Jaclyn, Sung, and Esther. You would be hard pressed to find 3 wahine in smaller frames that pack more heart and power then these ladies. They trained hard for this day. 24 mile plus paddles were common-place of late. Showing up early to each practice. Staying late to latch on to any advice the coaches and elder paddlers might share. These girls weren’t here to just race and finish. They were here to compete, and represent our club to their best ability and I would be proud to have any of them in a kane crew.

Knowing that they took this day as seriously as I did, it was crushing to hear that their ama rigging had started to look less than ideal on their paddle out to the start line. Where the two iako (cross bars) meet the plastic ama (outrigger) a noise started to get louder and louder as the ama would swing side to side the farther out they paddled. Despite thorough checking prior to the race, something had gone wrong. Maybe it was the way the amas from mutliple canoes were stacked diagonally the night before or maybe it was just ‘one of those things’ but, while the iako’s rigging was solid to the canoe itself, the rigging on the other side was raising concern for the ladies. They continued their paddle out and discussed their options. I wasn’t there but can imagine the dialog, “Will it be ok if we just leave it?” “Should we try and re-rig here in the water?”, “Can we head back and get it fixed before the race starts?” From my understanding, the girls each had a chance to speak their mind on their predicament and took a vote. Despite the race about the start, they turned around and headed to the beach for the safe option to correct the problem. The girls were crushed, but knew it was the right decision.

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard this news. Their canoe was greeted with concern on the starting beach by many helping hands to see what was needed. Our coaches got a call from spectators familiar with the team and sprinted back and, with the help of complete strangers who also saw them pull back in, re-rigged the ama portion. The girls pushed off again, but the damage was done. They had missed the start. The canoe’s were barely visible on their horizon by the time they got back to the start line. Their race would be lonely and more challenging than imagined. But with frustration, adrenaline, and a lot of heart, they charged ahead. Determined to conquer what looked futile.

By the time this story was passed along to me, the loudspeaker was blaring at the women’s finish line that the first canoe was arriving. “Here they come, paddling strong, Hui Lanakila with a time of…” This narrative continued as other canoe’s started to arrive.

We felt helpless at the news of our wahine. But with the arrival of our female racing counterparts, we had to start scanning the horizon for the canoes we would be using in our race. The team I would paddle with gathered together and we took some time to talk to each other and had a mini pump up talk. We spoke of this honor we were about to embark, and how this culmination of our training efforts should be met head on and embraced. We were ready to do battle. Eventually we found our canoe paddled by the Hawaiian Canoe Club. The women looked tired but finished in a fantastic place and time. We felt this a good omen that our canoe had arrived so swiftly. They hopped out, and we jumped off “two-step rock” into the warm water to swim to the canoe, cautiously avoiding stepping on any of the fragile coral and limu.

After warming up in the hot sun, jumping in the water to refresh as more canoes pulled in we worked our way to what would eventually be the start line. Our other Ikuna Koa canoe was nearby. That team was a masters team and the Ikuna Koa members were again 3 of the 6: Jeff (fellow novice), Dan (the novice coach) and Gus (the assistant novice coach and na opio/childrens coach). These three had paddled hard for the past 2 months training. One goal…today. Jeff, who originally signed up for the trip to spectate and cheer, never thought he would be ready for such a challenge, but with the hard work and coaching of Gus and Dan, he was more than ready. Dan is an animal on the kai and would pull water as hard as anyone could that day. Gus, steering the canoe was in his element out there with water knowledge and experience. But what really made this crew shine, was the beautiful KOA canoe they were paddling. Having registered for the previous 5 years with the box checked next to “if available would you like to paddle a koa canoe?” (ok im not sure thats how its requested but I am guessing) the honor to paddle in such a wooden canoe…Gus’s stars aligned. And man was that canoe beautiful. We pulled alongside, gave shakkas, and sporadically looked back to the race course horizon.

As a few other canoes finished in the wahine race, we kept looking to hopefully see our girls. And then….they arrived!

Our wahine looked stronger then anyone should after 18 miles of paddling. And they weren’t alone! They had managed to catch up to the vicinity of two other crews! Despite starting so late and racing the entire way alone they had made up enough ground to still be in the race. My teammate Jeff in the koa canoe, who’s wife Esther was the kapena of the women’s crew went from solemn and nervous to proud and boisterous. Both our canoes hooted and hollered and screamed to cheer them on. And in the last 1/4 mile, those wahine, with small frames but packed with heart and power, passed a canoe and finished. They had competed. I was inspired and more ready to race than any carb loading and restful nights could ever provide.

Our kane crews began to assemble at the start line with the other 132 teams. Our race was about to start.

[to be continued...]

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 11:19 pm and is filed under General, Recreation, Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.