Well, here we are in Hilo and it’s amazing. The people are really friendly and very helpful. We have been here 7 days and time seems to be going so fast.
We had a great send off from Nelson airport.
We have a house about 3km walk from Hilo downtown. There are coconuts in the tree just outside and two fell off yesterday! For the first few days we walked into town (wild gathering avocados, mandarins and papaya) and made friends with the Uber drivers on the way home. There is a farmers market in the centre of town which has plenty of fruit and vege. On Wednesdays and Saturdays there is also an artisan market with local crafts etc.
Our managers Linda and Paul Heath joined us on Saturday, and on Sunday we got our Turo hire car so now we have our own transport. Jane, our 7th paddler, arrived on Friday so now the crew is all here.
Last Thursday we went to Carl Smith beach which is about 15mins by car from our house. It’s a small lagoon. The lagoon has springs feeding into it so the water is salt and fresh water, cold and warm in patches. We saw a turtle pulled out on the rocks. There are notices all over not to go closer to the turtles than least 10ft. We felt privileged to be able to see one. We saw another on the reef. Then as we left the water, another turtle swam in just at our feet.
This turtle has a very interesting story. It had a damaged shell so they took it into Honolulu to resin the shell back together and to rehabilitate it. They put a tracker on it and released it in Honolulu. It swam straight back to the Big Island and is a regular visitor to Carl Smith. You can see the resin patch on its back where the shell was damaged.
Today we went back to Carl Smith and it came cruising in about half an hour after we arrived.
Yesterday we had a plan but that was disrupted by the rain. we ended up doing some exercises at home and were going to go to Ken’s Pancake House for lunch. However, the call came thru’ that they wanted crews to help take the Matahina waka from the Port to the beach. Of course we put our hands up. We raced over. Because we had 2 steerers and 6 paddlers we got to take over 2 waka. It was great to get out on the bay and feel the water which is so different from ours. It meant we didn’t get lunch until 3:30pm when we went to Ken’s Pancake House where the panckes are the size of dinner plates.
Tonight is our first Haka and Waiata practice so we will be meeting up with other crews from Aotearoa.
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.