Hawaiki Nui Va'a

Mario, a man in the Jamet's church, invited Yves (Aimana's father) and I to go to Hawaiki Nui Va'a with him. This is the first and largest-scale pirogue (canoe) race in the world. They told me we would be following the pirogues during the race. I had no idea of the scale or popularity of this event when I accepted this invitation. In a way it's their World Series and there is much coverage on the evening news. People come here from all over the world to participate or witness this event. I was amazed to discover that none of the Jamet family had ever been able to do this before. They'd always watched it on television with everyone else. But suddenly, we found ourselves in a boat with Mario, who was a coach for one of the teams. Incredible! We had a front row seat! Even the other boats had to keep their distance more than us.

Mario's team was Air Tahiti -made up of employees from an airline here that flies from island to island. The first day this team of 6 men rowed for over 5 hours from Huahine to Raiatea Island. Mario would yell out instruction and encouragement. We became cheerleaders also yelling, "Allez! Allez!" (Go! Go!) They were amazing to me to keep rowing hour after hour. They had little tubes from which they'd drink water. When they'd run out, they would toss the water container high up in the air to the ocean. Then a support boat would pick it up, fill it with more water, go way out in front of the pirogue, and then 1 or 2 people would jump in the ocean to hand it to the team members as they passed by.

At one point Mario could tell that the lead man in front, who sets the pace for the others, was becoming too fatigued. Later I asked him how he could tell and he told me that he had just begun to sway from side to side rather than dive into the rowing. So he yelled out for the lead man to change places with someone farther back in the pirogue. They both jumped out and did so. Later on we had a scary moment. The pirogue actually tipped over. This was several hours into the race and the last thing we expected to see. Mario was instantly in the water helping to right the boat and get everyone back inside.

They came in at 27th place that day. To me that was pretty amazing considering there were 85 pirogues in the race. But I could tell Mario was disappointed saying, "Dommage, dommage". On one of my visits to Tahiti several years ago, I remember Mario giving a testimony in church about participating in this race. He was in the winning pirogue.
So that was the first of three days of the race. More to come.