Here it is 6:00am Sunday after the race. Can’t sleep. It’s a wonderful day. Don’t ask me why I’m up so early. Went to bed at 11:30 pm last night after a long but fun day. Thought I’d never get up, but here it is seven and a half hours later wide-awake. It seems like whenever you get a chance to sleep in, you somehow can’t. I blew it. Yesterday was our second 9-man race of the season with one more to go, Catalina. We had good weather, light winds, nothing much. Congratulations to NAC who took first overall in the women’s race with Lanakila finishing second and Hanohano third. In the men’s race Lanakila managed to finish 1st over all after a tight battle with Team California’s Masters, who took second and Dana third. A brief rundown shows the results of the day.
Coed master 1-imua 2-hokuloa 3-imua
Coed open 1-oceanside 2-imua 3-ka nai’a
Gldn mstr men – 1- hokuloa Sr mstr w- 1-oceanside Sr mstr men 1-dana 2-Lanakila 3-oceanside
Master w 1-oceanside 2-imua 3-kahakai Master m 1-otc 2-oceanside 3-nac
Bradley w 1-oceanside 2-imua 3-kahakai Bradley m 1-dana 2-marina 3-kahakai
Spec w 1-nac 2-lanakila 3-hanohano Spec m 1-lanakila 2-dana 3-imua
Chef Chris Conejo hands out a plate of tortillas across the front of Sue Chef Thomas Shahanian as he prepares the seared ahi.
As far as the day went, we brought an escort boat, but never got to use it, because there were extra escorts available, which is a rarity.I think it was because there were more women entries than men. Anyway my team has been ironing out our wrinkles.Boy do we have a lot of wrinkles. But we can fix them easily if we list them instead of commit them to memory.Seems like with all my experience I would be able to control and predict all the different factors.Nope.Solving problems from the canoe is not a good recommendation. However we had an exciting race and it was fun.And that’s the way we should look at it.Do your best and remember the journey.When I was young I used to get so upset when we didn’t win or do well.But now when it’s over, it’s over. Done, kaput, finished.Take your mistakes, your camaraderie, the excitement, enjoy it, refine it and move on.Guess what? It’s actually so much more fun now and we’re doing very well thank you.
Host George Bishop barbeques more food from the sundeck.
After the race, we went to Molly and George Bishop’s party and rehashed it over a few beers and the stories got more and more ridiculous after each telling.One incident included two guys fighting to get into seat two. Actually they were supposed to get into seats two AND three.Well after a frustrating drag the bigger guy won and climbed in first.He was surprised to find out he was in the wrong seat as evidenced by everyone yelling at him.So he sheepishly climbed back to seat three.The poor guy still climbing had a look of, “ I told you!” on his face.Meanwhile the rest of the crew kept paddling, glaring thoughts of, “@#%*.”
Junior Wright, Jerry Marcil and Randy Wise, rehash the days events. "If only," was an often used phrase.
Speaking of fun, we had a great time yesterday.I forgot how exciting it can be in 9-man racing as compared to iron-man.In iron man racing, generally once you get ahead of a crew you lock in your lead and it stays that way until the finish.Basically if they aren’t beating you in the early rounds, heck they aren’t going to beat you later, unless you run out of gas or,“You totally screw it up.”But in 9-man, the complexion of the crew changes every 15 minutes or so.
"Professional partiers, groupies, what-ever." Kelly Lancaster and Kim Lanie.
In that few minutes, a multitude of things can happen. Your crew can go faster, slower, flip, swamp, drop a paddle (my favorite), you name it.
Yesterday a big red escort boat threw up a set of big wakes and nearly swamped us along with several other canoes.I saw the wakes coming at us from an angle and couldn’t get away. Three wakes in a row did us in.We were like a ship hit by torpedoes.One minute you’re flying at top speed and after the hits you’re dead in the water calling for bailers.It reminded me of those movies where everyone aboard ship is scrambling to repair the damage amidst the yelling and orders. All we were missing were the bells and whistles.
Kare Haereiti tells her version of what really happened and how she thinks she can fix it.
After that the complexion of the crew changed. We misconnected with our escort in making several silly mistakes.It was awful then, but funny now.In fact, after the race we got together with a few of our favorite adversary, “Dana’s Senior Masters” and had a good laugh about it.Bill Bauer of Dana said when they turned downwind they planned to put in the best possible combination for the bumps, no matter if they had to climb over people to get them oriented.It paid off as Dana and Marina literally paddled right up on us and kept on going. The momentum had swung.
Mike McKinney, Jerry Marcil, Celeste Wise and Junior Wright
By the way, Molly’s party was great, “Sorry George.You’re just the cook.”They have a great big house and sundeck, with banana trees, bamboo and flowering plumeria plants.George brought home some fresh tuna from the fishermen and suddenly there were platters of seared ahi being served up with slices of avocado, salad, and tortillas with drinks.The cooks Jeanne Barrett, Chris Conejo, George and Thomas Shaghinian kept passing out plates of food.I felt like we were being served at Bennihana’s as each plate kept coming out of the kitchen.Many of us had not eaten much during the day and we were starving.The food settled our stomachs for the drive home.
Cora, Juli and Rell Wolfe. We'll call them the Wolfe pack.
While driving home, Jerry Marcil, Mike McKinney, Junior Wright and I listened to the music of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of What a Wonderful World and happily sang along.We enjoyed it so much, Jerry turned it up and played it again, and this time we belted it out.By the third replay, we were well into the moment and sang at the top of our lungs. It must have been a strange sight to see an SUV towing a small motorboat, with four senior masters howling, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”But that’s part of paddling.
Next week we rest in California, while some of us travel to Kona Hawaii for the Queen Liliuokalani race.Then the following week everyone returns for the Catalina Channel race.That marks the end of the season for us.The Molokai Race begins in October.
Mahalo to Oceanside OCC for hosting the race and of course all the officials and skippers.Great party Molly and George.See you on September 6th Women to Catalina and September 7th Men back from Catalina.
Mahalo Al
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