Glamour and Heartbreak

Week 2 of regatta season, and things are already stirring. After last Saturday’s win, we all felt pretty good but also knew that one out of nine races does not make a season. Throughout the week, there was talk that the Puna crew was missing two strong paddlers last week and that they would be available to race for their club this weekend in Hilo (apparently they have an unlimited supply of paddling legends over there!).

Our crew on the other hand lost the stroker (seat 1) for a couple of weeks, so our coach tried frantically to find a new line-up. In Tuesday’s practice, Jack was put in seat one, and halfway through the session, I was put in there. Being a stroker is a high-stress job – setting the rhythm for the crew, finding that glide that makes a canoe fast, speeding up towards the turn-flag, it is indeed a lonely place up front. I didn’t do all that well in that seat, so coach settled for Jack in seat 1 and left me in 2. Behind us, there were two new paddlers who didn’t get to paddle last week, so the boat felt a bit different. In Thursday’s practice, we had some trouble while practicing turns, and the crew was a bit unsettled. Nevertheless, at the end of Thursday’s practice we felt we could have a good race once again.

This week was generally a very busy week at work, with some projects to be done, but The Fairmont Orchid was also the host hotel for the Big Island Film Festival, a fledging festival supported by the County of Hawai`i, the film office, and many other entities, as it focuses on local as well as international film makers and blends movie showings with seminars, meet-the-star gatherings, award ceremonies and great food and drinks over the Memorial Day Weekend. On Friday night, I had the pleasure of meeting two of the stars, Eloise Mumford,star of the new Dreamworks/ABC series “The River”on the right, and Jenifer Grisanti, protégé to the great television executive Aaron Spelling and well-known story consultant, on the left. Both of them, as were all the other attendees, were extremely happy and pleased to be on Hawai`i Island, and the entire festival was once again a great success (by the way, this is the glamour part of the title).

Now that we are racing on the other side of the island, in Hilo, Saturdays look quite a bit different. From Kona, one has to drive north towards the town of Waimea, then veer off right and take Saddle Road, which is a short-cut that leads in-between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa into Hilo, a round-trip of 190 miles. Saddle Road is a pretty good road, particularly on the Hilo side, but the speed limits vary between 40 miles and 55 miles per hour (and police are plentiful on the road), so each trip takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes. I wasn’t in a big rush to get there, so left Kona around 8:45am and took my time driving through the spectacular scenery in this high-elevation valley. The weather was perfect on the way over, with only a little bit of rain coming down into Hilo. Below is perfectly shaped Mauna Loa as looking East from Saddle Road.

Once in Hilo, it turned out to be an unusually nice day – fast-moving scattered clouds with lots of sun, so a beautiful day at the beach for racing.

As I only got to the club tent by 11am, the racing action was in full swing. Race after race, the canoes went out, and Kai `Opua did quite well, winning 11 out of the first 20 races. I unloaded my snacks (every week, men and women are supposed to bring either snacks or drinks for everyone to consume-this week my contribution was Gatorade and Clif Bars) and stayed around the club tent, assisting where needed and talking to various club members. As this is my first year with the club, there are still lots of people I don’t know and I try to make it a point to talk and befriend everyone, young and old, novices and experienced paddlers. What I have always enjoyed on Maui is going from club tent to club tent and talking story with all kinds of paddlers. After a while, you really get to know a large group of individuals and it is fun to go places and run into like-minded souls.

Around 3pm, our crew took one of the two koa canoes and we went out for a warm-up / course inspection paddle. The water in Hilo Bay is different, in particular around the turn-flag on the south-side of the bay. A small river flows into the bay, and depending on how fast the water moves, the canoe drifts into the flag. Just like in skiing, you have to go around the flag in order to not get disqualified. The outrigger (ama) can touch the flagpole and move it to the side, but the flag cannot touch the water. Below is a very short quotation from the 2012 Rule Book – as you can see it gets very, very technical.

All turns shall be left turns around assigned lane flags. If the flag bends over and touches the water, the crew will be disqualified. Where canoes assigned to adjoining lanes occupying the same lane during a turning maneuver, each canoe shall maneuver in such a way as to occupy as nearly as possible the one-half (½) width of the lane nearest its own line of flags so that the canoes will pass each other hull to hull.

For more in-depth studies of the race rules, you are free to go to below link: http://www.hcrapaddler.com/homeinfo/2012%20Race%20Rules.pdf,, but be warned, it may put you to sleep.

Quite a few canoes had already gotten disqualified throughout the day, so we knew that the turn would be tricky.

The time for our race came, and when we lined up on the starting line we saw that Puna indeed had stacked their team and were ready for battle. The flags went up and we went for it. Compared to last week’s race, where we had a fairly good lead going into the turn on the far end of the race course, this time we had both Puna and Keaukaha on both sides of us going into the turn about the same time. As I leaned over and outside on the left side of the canoe, putting my paddle into the water to anchor the turn, I was about a foot or so from the ama and the flag, and to my horror I see the flagpole precariously close to the inside of the ama, which meant that we would run over the flag and get disqualified. Everyone in the canoe is yelling, I lift my paddle a bit and try to rock the canoe back away from the flag, and watch how the pole slips on the outside of the ama (a good sign), but starts to tilt towards the water. We were lucky, it didn’t touch the water, and we were able to continue. Our turn was actually very fast and we came out ahead of the two canoes. As we headed back to the finish, it was a battle for one and two between us and Puna, with Keaukaha falling slightly back. We all got a bit excited, we heard the spectators scream on the beach and as we went into the last couple of changes (switching paddles from side to side), someone in our canoe yelled something which made some of us think that they had to switch sides. For a couple of seconds the canoe lost momentum, and in the end, we finished 1.26 seconds behind our nemesis (which constitutes the heartbreak part of the title). So here is how it ended:

Senior Men Masters (50)1 Puna Canoe Club 3:55.34 (Steve Blyth, Paul Malama, Michael O’Shaughnessy, Afa Tuaolo, Bubba Baldado, Brian Peterson)
2 Kai Opua Canoe Club 3:56.60
3 Keaukaha Canoe Club 4:02.11
4 Kamehameha Canoe Club 4:16.95

After two races, both Puna and Kai `Opua Senior Masters have 7 points, and while the season is long, it looks like we have a race on our hands and will have to battle every weekend for first or second.

After a long day of racing, I made it back over the Saddle Road, in the dark and with fog and rain, and arrived in Kona around 8pm. I am sure there will be plenty of discussion on Monday about our race and then we will do it again next Saturday.

A hui hou.

Chris

 

Ignorance is (sometimes) Bliss

At this writing, May 19^th, and with it the first regatta day, is now behind us. A long-awaited goal has been reached, and things will now settle into the routine of racing every Saturday.

Last Tuesday marked the beginning of final preparations for race day. Not only did we have to practice racing turns around the flag, but also needed to make some decisions on who would race in the first regatta. Probably one of the most undesirable jobs a canoe coach has is to make the assignments for a race, which invariably means that some elated individual gets to race, while a disappointed, hard-training paddler does not. I actually talked to Coach Eddie earlier in the week and assured him that whatever he decided, I would be fine with – if I could race, great, and if not, I would support the club with other duties. Given the fact that I was somewhat new to the club and we had about 13 or 14 paddlers in my age-group vying for 5 seats (the steersperson was already assigned), my hopes of racing were not all that high. On Tuesday, however, I was put into the canoe that would race the 50’s race on Saturday, and while things got shuffled a little bit during Thursday’s practice, I was designated to paddle in seat 2, taking over duties to pull the canoe around in the turn.  We spent quite a bit of time on Thursday coordinating our team, learning the correct approach to the flag, talking about the various calls which signal what everyone has to do in the canoe, and generally getting in tune with each other. At the end of the practice session, we felt good and were ready for things to come.

Saturday morning, I ventured to the Kailua Pier at 6:30am. The opening ceremony was slated for 8am, however much work was to be done before that. The tent for our club was put up on Friday, right at the edge of the pier and close to the starting line, but things had to be brought inside, a ladder had to be affixed to the pier in order to climb from the water back out to the tent, and other smaller items had to be arranged, all of which I gladly assisted with.

The keiki (children) were the first to race, and they showed up by 7:30am, accompanied by their parents and their coaches, and after a traditional Hawaiian ceremony, including a beautiful chant by a Hawaiian Kumu, the first races went underway. There were a total of 39 races on the roster, starting with girls and boys, moving up to the adults, by age groups, with many races for women, men and mixed (3 women and 3 men). I knew that I would not race before 2:30pm or so, so there was ample time to go around from club tent to club tent and check out what other clubs do, browse the vendors’ booths that offered everything from hats, t-shirts and Hawaiian jewelry, to food and beverages. I also had the chance to visit with three of our employees, Micah the bell person who paddles for Keauhou Canoe Club, Bryce from Security with Kai Ehitu Canoe Club, and Elaine from our beach, who lives in Hilo and whose young children paddle for Kamehamea Canoe Club. Paddling is truly a family sport, not only for traditional families that paddle together, but generally for paddlers who treat each other like family. Frequently I returned to Kai `Opua’s tent to support our other crews, watch the races and tally the points. While there were no official point standings during the day, we knew that we had amassed many top results and were pretty sure that we were leading the point standings.

Around 2:30pm, Spence Lavea, our steersperson, called our team together to go out and warm up in one of the fiberglass canoes. Dane in seat 1, myself seat 2, Jack in 3, Dave in 4, Dan in 5 and Spence in 6. The water was fairly flat and we went for a mile or so, practicing a few turns around a buoy floating in the ocean, and stretched our muscles a bit. Then we went back in to wait our turn.

As it got closer to our race, a rumor went around that Puna Canoe Club, based in Hilo, had assembled an all-star team of outstanding and well-know legends in canoe racing, including Steve Blyth, a canoe builder who makes some of the most advanced fiberglass and carbon fiber canoes available on the market today (as a matter of fact, he brought one of his IHE six- person canoes and put it on the beach for everyone to look at – incredibly light, strong and unbelievably beautiful). As this rumor continued, it was eventually confirmed that these six individuals would indeed race in our men’s 50’s race, and immediately it became clear that we would be racing for 2^nd (and it was a given that they would win by an unheard-of margin). As we jumped off the pier and into the water to climb into the koa canoe when our turn came, the excitement built and we were all looking forward to our first race. As we lined up, we had Puna Canoe Club on our left and Keaukaha Canoe Club on our right. Two individuals from our club were with us on the canoe and then jumped off at the starting line to hold the canoe in position until the race went off. One of the individuals was Coach Eddie, and when he heard someone say “look at those guys from Puna”, he immediately responded by saying “if that is the energy you have in your boat, you will not win – put good energy out there, and things will go alright”. For me personally, it didn’t matter either way – I had not heard of these individuals before today, only met them a few moments prior to the race, and was fairly ignorant about the incredible paddlers lining up on our left (which, without being disrespectful to their lives’ great accomplishments, in my case was bliss).

We were all ready, the yellow flag on the officials motor boat came up, waved, went down and red was raised, the signal for the race to start. We had a fairly good start, but none of us knew really how we stacked up, as all you do is concentrate on the person in front of you, trying to get the canoe up to speed quickly, then settle into a good stroke, grabbing the water with every paddle motion, controlling the breathing that was elevated during the start, and then starting to concentrate on the upcoming turn. As our canoe started to turn, and as I focused on the turn-buoy to make sure I had it in my vision to pull the canoe around, I glanced at Puna’s canoe and believed that we were slightly ahead. As we turned, I started to pull the canoe around and it felt really easy, the back-end came around in no time, and Dane in seat 1 and I were able to paddle forward almost immediately, picking up good speed out of the turn. Another quick glance to the (now) right, and I realized that we had turned much quicker than Puna. Now we were staring down the line, a quarter-mile to the finish, and the canoe moved smoothly. Dane had a very solid, long stroke, I emulated him on the opposite side, and it felt like we all gripped the water in complete unison. I faintly remember Spence in seat 6 yelling “three more changes, you can do it” as we motored along and getting closer to the finish, and all of a sudden, a pod of dolphins moved right in front of our canoe from right to left, as if they were coming out to welcome us at the finish.

When we crossed the line, I glanced to the right and saw Puna a couple of boat lengths behind us, which made us victorious in our first race against some of the most aw-inspiring paddlers in our age-group (and even younger ones) in the state.

Senior masters men 50: 1. Kai Opua Canoe Club 3:41.57 (Dane Enos, Dave Monson, Spencer Lavea, Christof Luedi, Dan Leyva, Jack Gillen); 2. Puna Canoe Club 3:50.09; 3. Keaukaha Canoe Club 4:04.45; 4. Na Waa Hanakahi 4:19.18; SCR Keauhou Canoe Club; SCR Kawaihae Canoe Club; SCR Kamehameha Canoe Club; SCR Kai Ehitu; SCR Waikoloa Canoe Club

Our time of 3:41.57 was the fastest half-mile of the day – but many of the elite paddlers have to go one full mile, so this statement is not all that important.

We will see what will happen next week – perhaps the coach will leave this winning boat intact for another race, perhaps he saw something that could be changed to make the crew faster – the only thing that is for sure is that we will paddle against Puna on their home-turf in Hilo, and they will not take this first loss lightly and will come back at us with a vengeance.

Me ke aloha, a hui hou.

Chris

Huli and Murphy's Law

The season has officially started, and at that with a bang! But let me recount this past Saturday one step at the time.

After a very busy work week, with lots of projects and unusual and unanticipated issues to deal with, which derailed any sense of normalcy, I expected Saturday to become quite a full day.

I felt quite tired all week, which was substantiated by a consistently higher-than-normal heart rate during training. Like many others, I am wearing a GPS enabled heart rate monitor whenever I paddle, run, ride the indoor bike or do any other aerobic activity, which allows me after the workout to connect to my computer and see great details about the workout, including a map of where I went, distance, time, pace and heart rate.

From experience I know that standing on the beach before the workout, my “resting” heart rate is normally around 65; this week, it was consistently at 80, 15 beats per minute higher. My highest heart rate the past few weeks in the canoe was around 175 (with my highest possible being around 188), but this week it was over 180, well above the range where lactic acid builds up in your muscles, which is the stuff that makes you ache the next day. I was a little bit concerned about that, but this can happen when you are tired or carry around a bit of a cold or something.

Saturday morning, I had to get up around 3:45am to get ready for the 2012 Visitors Industry Charity Walk, which took place at Waikoloa Beach Resort. As the chairman of the Hawai`i Island Lodging and Tourism Association, it was important that I was there, and as the General Manager of The Fairmont Orchid, I wanted to support our employees who not only came out in large numbers to run and walk the course, but also to staff the food booth for all the participants after the walk. I arrived at Waikoloa at 5:30am, signed a few checks from the association to the vendors, and signed up for the race. My plan was to race the running portion of the event, a 4-mile course, starting at 6:30am, then walk around for a while and show face as we say, before moving on to Kawaihae. The run start didn’t take place until 7am, which made things a bit tight time wise for me. I started at the front of the race, but after a mile I checked my pulse and saw that it was a bit higher than I wanted it to be (175 bpm), which again put me in the lactic acid range, not a good things if you have to paddle later on. I slowed down a bit and finish in about 29 minutes, a little over 7 minutes per mile – not all that good for such a short race, but sufficient for what it was.

After a bit of socializing, including Mufi Hannemann, former mayor of Honolulu, now the President and CEO of the state-wide hotel association, and this fall running for U.S. Congress, I had to get going and “fought” my way out of Waikoloa, with various roads closed off due to the charity walk.

Things didn’t get any better traffic-wise up at Kawaihae Harbor, as more than 70 crews (times 6 paddlers, resulting in over 400 paddlers, plus families) tried to park their vehicles. As I came up a bit late, I had to park outside Kawaihae, on the road towards Hawi, and walk/run down to the harbor.

Every Westside club was represented, and dozens of small tents dotted the area. I eventually found my crew; we paid the entry fee and got ready for race start. The Wahine crews (women) went out before us, so as they returned from their race, the Kane crews (men) were taking over the canoes. This exchange in these types of races is always chaotic, as the women want to go on land, but not the entire men’s crew is there yet. In our case, Scotty, one of my crew mates and I took over the canoe and paddled together away from the pier to make room for other canoes to come in. Eventually our entire crew was in the canoe and we went for a short warm-up before we lined up at the starting line. Johnny was our stroker, with Scotty in seat two, Dave in three, me in four, with Nick in five and Kawika steering us.

Starting lines are always crazy. Everyone wants to be in the perfect position when the green flag comes up, and every steersman is trying to inch a bit ahead of everyone else. We were on the far outside lane, thinking that we could get a clear shot out of the start without the danger of getting entangled with other canoes. The flag came up and off we went. We had a great start, pumping for four changes before settling in and ready to conquer the world (or at least the other canoes). All of a sudden, Kawika called a stop as we just had a false start as this start was only meant for a few canoes in the non-traditional category. Nothing you can do other than turn around, paddle back and line up once again. The second start was good and we started off well on the outside, slowly but surely moving landwards and towards the other canoes. There was wind and swells coming from the Northwest, which meant that the ama (outrigger) on the left side of the canoe constantly rose up out of the water, which obviously made the canoe quite tippy and unstable. We went well for 20 minutes or so, keeping up with the pack and settling into a nice rhythm, as much as that is possible with such choppy waters. The ama was up quite often, which required seats three and four the counteract often, and it also brought in a bit of water which I had to bail with a handmade bailer (a bailer in a Hawaiian canoe is a medium size plastic bottle, such as a detergent container, with the lid left on and the bottom cut out). When the water gets into the canoe, seat four, where the canoe is the deepest and most of the water collects, grabs the bailer and starts to shovel water out of the canoe.

Then, one inattentive moment, and we huli’ed. Huli is the Hawaiian word for flipping or turning, such as huli-huli chicken, which means rotisserie chicken (as it turns over and over). Huli in connection with food = good; huli in connection with a canoe = bad. The ama on the left side slowly but surely lifted up and over our heads, the canoe rolled over and we found ourselves in the water, with the canoe upside down on the water. When that happens, everyone knows what to do, but it still becomes a confused scene. Seats three and four dive under the canoe from right to left side, seat two and five lift the ama on the right side into the air and three and four grab the gunnel (wall) of the canoe and flip it back. That is the easy part. When the canoe is righted once again, it is full of water, which has to be bailed out before you can continue. Seat four (me) has to climb back in and start to bail, a process which can take several minutes and obviously is very tiring to ones bi- and triceps. While I was bailing, I heard the other canoes behind us come by and pass us, and by the time we were ready to paddle again, we were dead last.

A situation like this creates a big mental block as the competitive spirit is hampered and you know that you will not do well in the race. Normal reaction is that you just want to call it a day and go home, but pride makes you want to finish and overcome all odds, and so we did. We started out again and aimed at one canoe after the next in front of us, catching one after the other up to the turning point. The waves were quite strong against us, and at one point one hit the paddle of the stroker, who lost his paddle. It drifted past seat one, two, three and myself, but seat five was able to grab it and hand it back up, and so we continued. As I kept bailing water out of the canoe, my bailer lost its cap and I was now effectively bailing with a bailer with two open ends – not a guarantee for quick success. But despite Murphy’s Law, which as we know says that all that can go wrong will go wrong, we turned at the buoy, passed 16 canoes, made it back gracefully, and finished 18^th out of 34 canoes. It was a great training run and was my first competitive race since October 2008.

Unfortunately I could not stay around after the race for some food and socializing, and neither did I help the club to bring the canoes back to Kona after the race (a big no-no, and I will have to assist more than my share next Saturday at the regatta) as I had to go to work.

Later in the day as I arrived home, I decided to get one more chore out of the way and mow the lawn, 6,000 sq.ft. of St. Augustine Centipede grass which I mow once a week with a non-motorized, environmental friendly push reel mower – the ultimate healthy workout.

As my last act of the day, I attended a family dinner, so by the time I was done with that, I was ready for bed and a good night’s sleep.

A hui hou – next week is regatta week!

Chris

With Intent

Things are starting to get exciting! We have our first competitive race this coming Saturday, May 12^th – an early season long-distance race organized by Kawaihae Canoe Club. The race starts at the harbor, goes north for close to 5 miles, turns around and finishes back at the harbor, for a total of about 9 miles. This is an early season warm-up race, but Kai `Opua will have a good number of canoes racing, both kane (men), wahine (women) and mixed.

I am not entirely sure what boat I will paddle in, as the same morning the annual Visitors Industry Charity Walk will take place at Waikoloa Resort. This is the largest fundraiser by the state’s entire visitors industry (hotels, restaurants, activities companies, and anybody else that caters to visitors), and last year over $160,000 was raised on Hawai`i Island alone, which then got distributed to over 40 charitable and non-profit organizations on our island, all of which support the community at large with worthwhile endeavors. I will attend the charity walk at 6:30am, run the 4 miles, stay around for a while as I am the Chairperson of the Hawai`i Island Chapter of the statewide Lodging and Tourism Association, and then rush up to Kawaihae to paddle in the canoe race.

At the 2011 Charity Walk

All of this will lead to the first regatta on May 19^th in Kailua-Kona. All of us can’t wait, as it will give us a good first gauge on where we are at in our conditioning and blend compared to all the other clubs. After that, it will be non-stop, weekend after weekend of what will be a very long racing season.

One of the reasons why I love being part of a canoe club is that you get to meet a lot of interesting people from all walks of life, and each one of them can teach you something of interest, something that enriches your life. I remember quite a few years ago on Maui, I was invited to train all winter long with five other individuals for a pre-season long-distance race on the Island of Kaua`i. My friend Kimokeo was the steersperson, I was one of the paddlers, and it included a paddler in his sixties who came from the mainland to Hawai`i when he was a very young man and made a living performing all kinds of very interesting jobs, including being a writer for various magazines and newspapers. Every Wednesday, he had a column in the Maui News, and every Wednesday I would check and see if the story included some hints of our paddling adventures or any other hidden reference to some of what was going on in the group. He was a tremendous individual and always interesting to be around.



Kimokeo



Another gentleman, a local person whom I only knew by his first name, had made a lifestyle choice to sleep in his car, take showers at the canoe club and spend his days reading in the public library, literally everything from Tolstoi to Hemingway to contemporary authors, and he kept quoting from his readings and talk about his latest studies.

Yet another paddler was a whiz-kid electrical engineer who worked as a project engineer for just as long as he had to in order to earn enough money to live for a few months, and then enjoyed life as long as he could until the time came that he had to work again, which was mostly on some highly-complex and technical project that common human beings like myself have absolutely no comprehension of. He kept trying to explain to me what he was doing, but typically he lost me during the second sentence.

Here in Kona, I have already met many interesting individuals and once again get inspired and learn a lot from each one of them. Some of them are older in age like myself and bring a lifetime of experience to the club, while others are young “bulls”, full of abundant energy and not a care in the world. One individual in particular, whom I spend quite a bit of time with in the boat, made a very profound statement that resonated with me. While we were paddling on Saturday, he encouraged us to “paddle with intent”. In the heat of the battle, I didn’t think much about it, but later on pondered his words and realized that this made a lot of sense and was very similar in meaning to a saying that I use a lot, “do it once, do it right”. Paddling (or anything else in life) “with intent” means that we should concentrate on what we are doing and doing that particular activity really well, full of intent (or intention), and striving to do it the best way we can – not better than anyone else, but the best we can. Sometimes that ends up being better than anyone else, and sometimes it is just as good as we can possibly be. Too often, people do things just to get them done, off their to-do list and out-of-the-way. In the process, the job doesn’t get done properly or with mistakes and either remains that way or has to be redone. I find that nowadays, with all the information overload, telephone calls, instant messaging, electronic mails and multi-tasking, fewer and fewer people really work “with intent”, and it really impressed me that a steersperson in a canoe would make such a profound comment (obviously because us paddlers triggered this due to lack of intent in our stroke).

Another great moment was when our coach Eddie talked about the difference in various clubs and how we are “inclusive”, versus other organizations which may be selective instead. This statement very much mirrors life, as we often have to get something done with a group of individuals we cannot select, but who are there and we need to get them together as a group, utilize all their talent and make things come to fruition as best as we can. Sometimes it would be easier to have an all-star team, but not everyone would be able to participate and something would be lost. This very point is the subject of heated discussions in the paddling community when the talk turns to club crews versus all-star teams doing long-distance races. The traditional way is to take the strongest paddlers in a club and send them to do a race, while the most competitive paddlers want to take the best paddlers of any club and form the strongest possible team to achieve the fastest time. I have always been a believer that if paddling is your hobby, and you do it as a counter-point to the rest of your life, you stick with your team and see how far and fast you can go with the paddlers you paddled with all season long. If however you are young and paddling is the main focus in your life, I don’t see anything wrong with trying to get the best crew possible together, but it may not always be in the best interest of the club. Remember how in an earlier blog I wrote about how difficult the job of a paddling club coach is? The above are some of the reasons why.

A hui hou - until next week when I hopefully will be able to report on the first race.

Chris

Hui Holokai

As I mentioned earlier, in my opinion one of the best jobs in the visitors’ industry is that of a Hawaiian Beach Boy or Beach Girl. In our state, you will generally find two groups of individuals: those who are drawn to the farms, ranches and mountains of the upper regions of the islands, and those who are fond of the water. Sometimes they love both, but often they enjoy one or the other. No matter what their preference is, the locals love to share their knowledge and love with anyone interested, and that is how the job of the beach boy or beach girl at The Fairmont Orchid came about.

 From the turn of the century to the late 1950’s, spirited, ocean-wise local boys gathered on Hawaiian beaches on all islands to share their knowledge of the ocean and the Hawaiian culture with eager visitors from around the world. Those same eager visitors are still arriving daily and through the historic perspective and the interest of the visitors coming to our beaches, the tradition of “beach boys” came to life once again in 1995 at The Fairmont Orchid.

What does Hui Holokai, the name of this program, mean? Hui  is the Hawaiian word for a group of individuals who share the same interest. Kai is a word for the ocean, and Holo means something like enjoyment of. Therefore, Hui Holokai refers to a group of individuals who enjoy the ocean.

On the beach by 8:00am every day, Uncle Kalani, Umi, Loa, Tia, Elaine, John and EJ, all employees of our Hui Holokai Beach Club program, not only cater to the beach comforts of our guests by setting up chairs and cabanas with towels and ice water, checking out beach equipment and suggesting sunscreen, but share their knowledge of the Big Island’s rich cultural heritage as well as their own Hawaiian legacies mixed alongside. Guests enjoy weaving classes using coconut and hala (pandanus) fronds, lei making, outrigger canoe paddling in the open ocean, kayak fishing adventures and more. They are led on botanical tours, “turtle talk” sessions (the real story behind the Hawaiian green sea turtles that bask on the shores fronting the hotel), and archeological hikes on the nearby petroglyph fields, the largest in the Hawaiian islands. The resort’s rich history reveals itself through their eyes as they guide visitors to ancient lava shelter caves and man-made fishponds stocked with seafood once restricted only to the ali’i (Hawaiian royalty). They often can be seen in the early evenings leading a string of playful keiki (children) behind them as they run the resort perimeter performing the nightly sunset torchlighting ceremony and blowing the pu (conch shell) to the four winds, and they are just as often seen “talking story” (chit-chat) with guests sharing stories of Hawaiian life.

Umi Torchlighting with Keiki

What is really interesting about this is that much the above sounds like it is custom-made just for our visitors, but the reality of this job is that these beach employees live their job in everyday life. They do not need to be taught what to say or what to do when they start in their position, they already possess the knowledge, which is handed down to them from their parents and grandparents. Umi, for example, has family roots in Waipio Valley, a very deep and long valley in the northernmost part of the island. In Waipio today, the families that live there still practice the simple and sustainable life of times gone by, and very successfully continue to perpetuate the farming of kalo (taro), the ancient staple food of the early Hawaiians. So when Umi talks to our guests about Waipio, he talks about his family and what they have done and still are doing in the valley. When Uncle Kalani, our elder statesman amongst the beach boys, talks about the old days, he looks back on a life of over sixty years (yes, that is how many years he has been alive, and you would never guess it when you see him in a canoe) and jobs held on many beaches and islands in Hawai`i. When you encounter Tia, the ever-smiling and friendly beach girl, who amongst many things is a beautiful hula dancer, you will hear about the place where she grew up and still lives, in Kalapana, the end of the road on the other side of the island, in the Puna District, close to the volcano and an ocean and coast line so beautiful it would be hard to surpass.

Tia

What is most gratifying for me to see is that the newer (and younger) generation of our beach boys and girls is not able to draw from many years of personal experience yet (as they are only in their twenties), yet they possess a lot of the same knowledge and definitely the same pride in their job, their island and their culture, and that is what will assure that our culture will not disappear, but be perpetuated over many generations to come.

Me ke aloha, a hui hou,

Chris