After surviving the stress of finals, summer finally came. Normally when people think of summer, they think of spending time on the beach, fabulous vacations, and even eating summer foods such as watermelon. Summer for me is race season for outrigger canoeing and working hard to perfect my dance for recital month.
During the weekend of the 16th, there was a race in Valencia at a beautiful lake. Although it was hot, we all managed to find a way to cool down by swimming and drinking tons of water. There was food and dancing to be enjoyed while teams were racing out on the water. It was really nice out on the water because of all the splashing, but when you got back on land, you immediately felt as if you were going to die.
Most of the Kaimanu's 16 and under team was gone or couldn't race, so the coach had to put in the new kids. They had never raced before and so my friend and I were put in the more experienced seats of the canoe. I took over seat one (the seat that sets the pacing) and my friend took over my seat three (which counts the strokes so we switch in time for the turn). The new kids had been to a few practices over the last two months, but had never went at a fast speed. Surprisingly enough, we got third place which is very unusual for the 16 and under team.
Needless to say that I was very proud of the new kids, but also very proud of myself. Now this might sound a little cliche, but if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.
Coincidentally, I have a story about an outrigger canoe: I happened to check out a DVD of Disney's "Swiss Family Robinson" from the Castro Valley Library yesterday. It's a movie from way back in the 1960's. I remember loving it when I saw it in the theater as a child. I wanted to show it to my 7-year-old nephew, Mason. Swiss Family Robinson is a story about a family shipwrecked on a remote island in the Pacific in the early 1800's. To make a long story short, when Mason and I watched it last night, I noticed that, in addition to building themselves a fantastic tree-house home out of salvaged parts from the ship, the family also built themselves an outrigger canoe and used it to explore the island. The movie is still very entertaining almost 50 years later and I thought you might be interested in seeing the building and sailing of the homemade outrigger canoe.
Sounds like an excellent movie! I'll have to check it out. Thanks! Analisa, Thank you! Teamwork does make the dream work! Don't mind if I use that for my team. (: