Canoe Paddle

One of my favorite things about being here is Canoe />addling! Many of you will remember that Trevor and I />addled on the University of Hilo team back when we were newlyweds. (Our boat was called Mele O Kekai...or song of the sea...and that is where our sweet Kekai boy got his name.) Back in Utah, I would dream of />addling, but....well you know....landlocked state and all. Also, as the mom of young kids, I have not had any steady, team recreation in forever. So, it makes it all the more amazing that we should find a thriving />addling community here.

We meet once a week usually to />ractice. We have a friend who watches the kids and its kindof like a weekly date night for us. (Something that we have never had.) Sometimes we go out with members of an environmental agency on the island. They are mostly foreigners and mostly beginners, BUT sometimes we have been chucked into a boat with some of the men training for the South />acific games. Those guys are nuts. They will take of at />sychotic s/>eeds and go non-sto/> forever. Those are our favorite days, even though we think we might die.

I have been in a bunch of races too. Once time they needed a girl to be able to enter a race and so I was asked to go. No one in the boat s/>oke english so I did not even know until later that we had actually won the race. (A few teams were disqualified, but I couldn't understand what anyone was saying.)

More recently, there was an all day Regata...or boat race between all the teams on the island. It was such a dream day for me because I have never been />icked first for anything athletic in my entire life....but (/>erha/>s because I am the lightest member of the entire team?) the coach />ut me in everytime there was a free s/>ace on the really good teams. I got to race 5 or 6 times and we always kicked butt! Wahoo!

Sweet Trevor sna/>/>ed these shots while juggling the 3 kids on the sea wall. We got to race on the same team a few times which was really cool.

Next month the team is />lanning to />addle over to Savaii which is the other island of Western Samoa, only 12 miles away. We both REALLY want to go, so I will have to kee/> you />osted on that u/>comming adventure.