Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Lies, Tell me Sweet Little Lies
I try not to lie. Most of the time I am successful but there have been a couple of times when I have lied and was consequently cosmically punished.
On this particular occasion I was a novice outrigger canoe paddler. At the urging of a good friend I had taken up paddling on a lark and fell in love with it. The first year I spent trying to learn the technique of paddling and the teamwork involved. It challenged me in ways that I had never been challenged before. Having never played a team sport (I was in high school when Title IX was passed) I loved the comeraderie of the paddlers, the feeling of connectedness while in the boat, the group effort toward one goal; pulling my paddle through the water in time with the rest of the crew, feeling the canoe under us rising and falling with the waves, getting into a zen state of mind feeling one with the boat, one with the team. As I paddled through that first year my technique improved and I could feel my body getting stronger. This was a sport I felt like I could do for a long time.
The following year my fellow paddlers encouraged me to do some of the long distance races.
I thought they were nuts. But they kept pushing and I finally relented that perhaps this was one more time I needed to get out of my comfort zone. Unfortunately the club did not have a novice team that year so I would have to go to the first race and find a team that needed one more member. This I found was even scarier than going into a race with people familiar to me. As it neared the day of the race I realized I had no idea what to do in the case of a huli which is when the 44 foot long, 400 pound canoe flips upside down in the water dumping its crew.
The ama of the canoe is the floating outrigger attached to the left side of the canoe by two narrow planks called iakos. The canoe has no stability designed into it, so if the ama pops out of the water the boat can flip very quickly. A huli can happen at any time with little or no warning. It happens most often during a race when there is contact with other boats or extra boat speed and paddler effort. I thought what to do in the case of a huli was probably something that should be on the top of my list of things to know before my first race. The day before the race I asked one of the more experienced paddlers about hulis and what I was supposed to do if it should happen. She said “Oh it’s not going to happen, you’ll be fine. But if it should just be sure to cover your head before you come up in case you hit the boat.” That was it, that was my huli training. I must have gotten that wide eyed panicked look because once again she assured me “It rarely happens, you’ll be fine.”
The next day I set out for the race which was in Santa Barbara. I found a team of young novices from Santa Cruz who were missing one of their team members and were glad to have me on board. They seemed nice enough and very supportive knowing it was my first race. They too were fairly new to the sport. As we stood on the shore next to our canoe, a group of paddlers headed out through the breaking waves to get into position. One of the boats entered wrong and you could hear a collective gasp as everyone on shore watched their canoe huli. I turned to our steers person and said “We aren’t going to do that are we?” “No”, she said “We’ll be fine.” I nodded. But then she asked the golden question “You have had huli drills haven’t you?” Yes siree, I looked her right in the eye and said “Of course I have” because I was afraid if I told her the truth she wouldn’t want me in the boat. “Good”, she smiled and nodded.
With the next group of paddlers we pulled our canoe into the ocean and jumped in paddling hard through the breaking waves and quickly moving our canoe out to calm water. It was a beautiful day to race. Warm but not too hot, the ocean stretching out before us calm with rolling swells. It was a six mile novice race and we were ready. As the boats lined up my heart raced and I felt my stomach rise up in my throat. I could feel that this team of women were strong and only hoped that I did not let them down. I was anxious and not just a little bit afraid. This was not only my first race but as I usually paddle in the Bay, it was the first time I had ever paddled in the intimidating expanse of the ocean. When the horn blasted we headed straight out from shore and quickly got into a good solid rhythm, powering up when we could, passing some of the other novice boats and staying toward the front of the pack. About a mile into the race we made our first turn left around the buoy and headed south. By now the group of canoes had spread out a bit and there weren’t as many boats near us. The cadence of the strokes put us in a zen mode and everything else fell away as our concentration went deeper into the stroke and gliding action from within the boat. Stroke, glide, stroke, glide, stroke, glide, hut! ho! stroke, glide, stroke, glide, stroke, glide - turning left again we were in the final 2 miles. I was tired, my muscles feeling the strain, trying to keep my concentration, a little anxious because I could not see the shore but we remained in the head of the pack and that was just enough to spur me on. There was no wind and the ocean remained calm beneath us. But then - it happened so quickly that I didn’t even remember the canoe flipping over but there I was in the water. The cold of the water literally took my breath away. I came up for air totally forgetting the one and only thing I knew about what to do in a huli, cover my head, and nearly bumped into the ama of the canoe. At that moment I realized two things - number one was that I had no idea what to do and number two I was a very small speck in a vast vast ocean. I began apologizing “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” knowing I was not going to be of any assistance in getting this canoe righted and thinking that it was my lie that brought the bad karma to the boat. They had no idea what I was apologizing for. We all looked at each other in shock wondering how we ended up in the water but quite quickly this team of beautiful strong women went to work. The steers person did a quick roll call to be certain everyone who went in had come back up. Then they all passed their paddles to me. I thought to myself ok, maybe seat five is supposed to take all of the paddles. I can do that. Two of them jumped on the boat to pull the iakos while two others moved to the ama to push it over the top and while I was still wondering how the hell they were going to possibly get that boat flipped over they had already done it. Thank the Lord. One of the women had in fact bumped her head and was bleeding so they had her climb back into the boat first. We were after all in an ocean with sharks. I wondered how I was going to have the strength to pull myself up into the boat but I needn’t have worried as I was so anxious to get out of that big vast ocean that I quite literally jumped up over the side with barely a struggle. The bailing started and within minutes we were on our way again, bleeding, bailing and paddling. But it seemed everyone else had passed us up while we were in the water so unless a miracle happened we were sure to come in last. But alas, we saw one boat not too far ahead of us. The huli had not damaged our competitive spirit and we collectively decided to shoot for passing it up so at least we wouldn’t come in last. We hit those paddles hard and it seems the adrenaline from our huli was now working in our favor as we moved closer and closer to the other canoe finally passing it marking our little victory. But as we passed we turned and looked and it was in fact a canoe full of ten year old boys. Aww man. We felt bad and I wish I could tell you that we did the adult thing and slowed down for them but with our pride already bruised we didn’t feel bad enough to even allow a group of 10 year olds to have their moment. And so we came in second to last, beaten and bruised and still wondering how the hell we ended up in the water.
Once I got home I actually completed a huli drill and went on to race with this group of women for the rest of the season. We never huli’d again but if we had I would have known exactly what to do. And my lying? Well, let’s just say I learned a valuable lesson.