Awesome – the weather, the location, the people, the sport….. and just life in general on a great weekend.
Bunny – Jacinda Beyer-Rieger, better known as Bunny was the worthy winner of the President’s Award for her outstanding contribution to just about everything.
Co-operation – at the end of the dinner, and still facing a long drive home, many of the paddlers heading down to Christchurch stayed to help is put away tables and chairs. True spirit of waka ama.
DOC – we can’t do this without their support.
Eels – the Tuna from which our race takes its name were there in abundance this weekend.
Food – the centrepiece of our event is the communal dinner and prize-giving at Rotoiti Hall. The delicious Tom Kha Gai and Moroccan Tagine drew compliments all round. The good news is that they are stocked by many supermarkets in Real Meals packets and are all cooked by our own Jason Daughtrey
Green – our event aims to be zero waste and sustainable. Our food ‘waste’ amounted to one small bucket of scraps and we left the lake as we found it.
Happiness – everywhere you looked, happy people.
Itchy bites – I suppose sand flies must have some purpose other than to bite us but I’m not sure what it is.
Journey – TEHA continues on its journey but we are always open to suggestions to improve.
Kokiri marae – thanks to our friends from Wellington who made the long trip, flying in on Saturday morning, for coming to support us.
Love – aroha is what makes our event, and the world, go round.
Motueka – perennial supporters of our event and a great to see their blue army of rangatahi out on the water.
Ngāti Apa – thanks to Aaron Hemi for our karakia (and also for filling in one of our mixed crews !)
Onetahua – two crews from over the hill arrived and proceeded to battle with each other in their mixed race. As ever their laid back competitive spirit was inspirational.
Pub Charity – without their financial support we would struggle to make TEHA viable. They pay for our safety boats and the presence of our St John’s ambulance and the ever reliable Maarten
Quiet – the peace and calm of the lake, covered in mist in the early morning, was a beautiful thing.
Red Deer Lodge – the official HQ of the race and a hive of activity. Always guaranteed a blissful night’s sleep in the bunk rooms
Safety – thanks to our safety boat drivers Jason, Jamie and Zane who not only helped conduct the sprint starts but put out buoys and fished some cold paddlers out of the water ably assisted by Tasman Harbourmaster Pete Renshaw.
Te Waka Pounamu – Christchurch must have been fairly empty at the weekend as TWP arrived in force. Great people and particular thanks to Nicky and Hannah for crew organisation.
UV – the sun was out all weekend. Thanks to whoever organised that !
Volunteers – it just doesn’t work without them. Thanks to everyone, including those from other clubs who organise their crews, for making the event a success.
Waitaha – it wouldn’t have been TEHA without Rob, Barney and the gang. Great to see you.
X -Factor – he obviously has lots of it. Having V1 World Champion Manutea Millon at the event was an eye opener to many of us. Never has making a canoe go fast looked so easy !
Youth – great to see young paddlers from TTOA, TWP and Motueka. They were all a credit to themselves, their clubs and the wider waka ama whanau.
Zoe – the huge bundles of medals for the Rangatahi were hand made by Zoe. The kids loved them and even the World Champion asked if he could take one with him. (also big thanks for having a name beginning with Z so that I didn’t have to force a zebra or zoologist into the event)
Its never too early or too late to start paddling waka ama
We always welcome new members to the Maitahi Outrigger Canoe Club.
We have social and racing waka ama crews catering for a wide variety of ages and abilities.