Waka Ama

Trying my hand and yet another sport! Yes, work was involved, again... Due to the contacts we made during the rowing eights, we were invited by The Waka Pounamu ( a local waka club) to try our hand at paddling a waka ama. A waka ama is an outrigger canoe.

We had our first training session on the river, which not only taught us how to paddle a waka ama, but also the Maori protocol that goes with it. The second training session was in Lyttleton Harbour. The open sea, scary! Luckily the harbour is in a bay so you are somewhat sheltered but still have to be aware of the tide times etc.

Today we could show off our talents and strengths in the finale! The three Meridian teams would race each other. The original plan was to paddle around Quail Island, but low tide prevented that. We still paddled over to the island, where we had our first race. We all started on the beach, had to run into the water and into the waka ama, paddle approximately 500m to a bhoy, go around it and back to the beach, jump out of the waka ama and back onto the sand. Unfortunately our waka ama was too big to make a sharp turn and our lead was lost on the turn. We lost that race, which we were not very happy about. However, race two was made for our waka ama. A straight 1km race. We won this race very convincingly with at least one boat length. Yah for us!! We all paddled into a bay where some of us swapped waka amas. Volunteers went into the orange waka ama to try their hand at flipping/righting. I was one of the volunteers, and after three attempts I can say we are very good at flipping...over! The aim was to try and get the ama out of the water without tipping over. We never managed that. Luckily it was a nice warm day and the showers at the yacht club were hot! We finished the morning off with a BBQ before going home, to some more house painting.

In two weeks time we are entered in a 500m sprint race, on the river. This event has so far attracted 30 other teams, so lots of competition. Keep checking this Blog updates on that event.