Glassy

This is what the ocean looked like this afternoon.

The wind has finally died down a little. In a week and a half, Katherine and I are racing the Kahala Challenge, an 800m swim, 5k run, 2 mile paddlboard race. Finally, we get a Kukio-style race here on Oahu! So we've been trying to get on the paddleboard at least once a week. It is so much harder than I remember from my water-girl days. We paddled from one end of Waikiki to the other and back late this afternoon, on perfect turquoise glass.

My first sport was paddling. My very best friend and across the street neighbor, Haseena, dragged me down to Hui Nalu at Maunalua Bay when I was 11. We were on the girls 12 and under team and had shirts made that said We Race for First Place! They were very cool. I wore pink and black flojos at the time, was about the same height I am now, 5'11" but about 20 pounds lighter. It was not pretty. I was the definition of gangly and uncoordinated. But my weight made me an ideal steersman, so it wasn't long before I was steering canoes out into the deep stuff. Another of my best friends was made in Maunalua Bay, when we were practicing open-water changes and I said to the random girl next to me: Look, it's cornflower blue! and she answered It really is. Do you want a kitten? I'm a sucker for kittens.. I still talk to Nani everyday. 

I paddled each summer for ten years, and four years of high school. High school paddling taught me to be an athlete. We ran every day, often timed, and did swim workouts and paddled for hours and hours on Saturday mornings. There were whales and dolphins and sometimes we would huli near Diamond Head Buoy just to freak ourselves out and see how fast we could flip the canoe back over and get out of the water. Once our canoe lost a plug and sunk a mile offshore and we had to swim for it as the sun set. I had a coach that changed my life for the better and had this incredibly faith in my ability that I never understood.

When I went off to Cal, I tried rowing. Practice was at 5 am. It was freezing. We rowed on the Oakland Estuary. I made it until spring break, when I was so homesick I was dying to get back to Hawaii. I hit a dead pig with my oar and that was it, I was done. It was not the sport for me. Someday, I'll go back to paddling, when I have the time flexibility to commit to a team sport. I'll probably be 45 or so and the kids will all be in college.. but paddleboarding today on that glassy, turquoise ocean reminded me that I have to get back to it someday. It's so nice to spend an hour on the ocean. Regatta season starts now, people.