Hilo Parade and White Lightning

We spent all of this past weekend in Hilo. We started off on Saturday morning representing the park in the annual Merri Monarch festival. The parade had all of the typical parade stuff; 6 or 7 bands, floats, horses and riders dressed up by island colors, commercial displays, and candy for the kids. About 130 units in all.We passed out candy, stickers, and removable tatoo's. There were hundreds who turned out to watch. It was fun even though our parade got rained on a few times.

Saturday afternoon allowed us to get in one more canoe practice before the big races on Sunday. After the practice we set up tents on the beach, cleaned Ahi for Poke, (Tuna for a raw fish dish), cut up ferrel sheep and deer for smoking and grilling, and had a few beers and even tried our first poi.

The races are very competitive, but also a very festive and social occassion.

We made it home by about 8:30 Sat evening and then drove back down to Hilo on Sunday morning for the first race at 8:30 am.

There were a total of 110 teams competing in the races and the Park had 10 of those teams.

The majority of teams compete in the novice Business Class, although I don't know how some of these teams can call themselves novices as they have been racing for years. Classes include Men, Women, and Mixed. There is also an intermediate division with the same class breakdown, but many of those teams were not as good as some of the novice teams. They also had an open division with about a dozen boats. These folks were pretty good and could really move the boats.

All the teams except the open division consist of five people and use the same six boats complete with a person who steers and all the boats are the same. The open division also has their own person steering. There are six lanes which are drawn for before each race and the lane you get does make a differnce due to wind and currents. The race is only a quarter mile and is a flat out sprint.

They have a system set up where teams keep advancing if they keep winning and if they loose they can also advance through a loosers bracket. A total of 60 races were scheduled starting at 8:30 and going until 5 pm.

Patty and her team raced twice. Check out Patty in the front of the white canoe racing the really big boat. My team raced 4 times and ended up in the last race of the day for the Business Mens final.

There were two teams from the park in the final and the skinny white guys pulled out a second place,check photo hence the name "white lightning". We beat a lot of good Hawaiian teams most of who were a lot bigger then we were. It was a lot of fun and a great day and even though there was food out all day, the feast began after the races were done. We have met some great people and have made some good friends here, although everyone is very friendly in this state of "aloha".

We came here for three months because we wanted to be more than tourists and learn a little about the culture and the people and we have learned a great deal. The native Hawaiians have been fantastic and very good to us. Patty now knows how to make lei's from Ti leaves, and I can make Poke. Now if I could just catch some Tuna out of the Swan River.

Take care!