Canoeists in Tahiti to take to the water as Canadians win ice:

Paddlers in Tahiti to take to the water as Canadians win ice:
Tahiti is a perfect November day in the small town of Fare on Huahine Island.
Huahine:
Huahine is an island located between the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Leeward Islands group. HiTi Actually, not even close to the same. This is normally a small town. But it is the eve of the Hawaiki Nui Va'a outrigger race, and the place is jumping. There are dozens of stalls along the road selling hamburgers, Casse-Croute, grilled mahi-mahi and even, um, chow mein on a baguette. Blood drips from a freshly caught tuna that is suspended from a tree next to one of one million, the sale of pineapple and red-green mangoes, which would be perfect for a Polynesian Christmas table. Dozens of workers are research boats, slapping on stickers from dozens of sponsors of the upcoming race. Teams are registering for the event as dozens of pavilions with red folding chairs set up. A small child, he is overcome by the tension sleeping on the shoulder of her mother, but older children do from police dive boats and private yachts and battered boats that drift in the aquamarine lagoon, while children and youth in the city bear parade minimal clothing.
part of Polynesia:

Hawaiki Nui Va'a is the annual like the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras mixed with the Olympics, all in a chaotic explosion of South Pacific culture and sporting joy. Outrigger canoe, where teams of half a dozen racers in a long canoe with a balanced outriggers on the side, is not just a sport in Polynesia. It is a part of their being, like ice sports are part of Canadian culture. Canadians have had to endure snow and ice and ways to enjoy this vast country are to conquer, as Polynesians were the ways of the open ocean to find food and travel from island to island to learn. Eva Perles, a resident of France, who studied at the University of Wisconsin and is a black pearl shop on Moorea, Tahiti says everyone follows the big race. "Yes, I think it's like the (Green Bay) Packers," she says with a laugh. "There is a lot of money involved, Shell Oil and many local companies have teams of people to train really hard all year long." "It is very important to our culture," says a Tahitian guide that would only provide her name, Ruth. "It's on TV and hear it live on the radio''. People would like to, it's expensive to get a boat or fly to other islands to watch it. People fight to get their vacations during the race, So they will not miss. " When a Canadian is somebody who knows how to make love in a canoe, like former prime minister Pierre Trudeau once said, Polynesians are people who can give birth, love, marry, fight, and probably cook a meal in a canoe. So when a canoe race, they do not find a tranquil lagoon and go on a 500-meter race as you could see in the Olympics. No, they dig in for a three-day, 128 km, mother of a race that goes between the three islands in the Tahitian islands.
Three days of the race:

The race is approximately four hours per day for three days in a row, with no replacements or at rest or timeouts. They start on a lagoon island, but soon find their way past the breaking waves in the open water where waves can tower over their smaller craft and the wind flows over them and push them in the wrong direction. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of private boats mad dash with them a glimpse of these heroes, creating back swells and waves and chop crazy canoeists who work against all dripping with sweat in the tropical Sun There are six people to a canoe. The man in the back of the helmsman and tactician, known here as a peperou. He looks at the trends and causes the boys to speed things up when a wave rolling in the right direction. The man for fahaoro, sets the pace. "You can use the boat for medical leave, but you can not be replaced," said a tourism official Tahiti. "If a team loses a boy, they must row with five until he comes back." It's a long trip, so support boats drop cans of fresh water into the sea for the riders to pick up as they dash past. The canoeists also flows into the ocean, where they recovered by the support of workers. If the spring racing near one of the islands, you often see people driving along the coastline to the action to be measured. When the canoes pulling into a gate at the end of the day, thousands along the seawalls to see which team is in the lead and cheer on their favorites.

Pure madness::
The scene on the open water is pure madness, like putting a Stanley Cup playoff game in the middle of a frozen lake, Grenadier, allowing fans to skate inches away from the players. The tourist boats are fun parties, full of grandparents and babies and topless girls and boys with ABS and steel blue flowers in their hair Downing cans of ice cold Hinano beer. There are dinghies in the swell of the open water is not safe to find a two minutes trip in a quiet lagoon, not to mention a huge yachts of sponsors, women lying on the roof of a water taxi boat gets a good view and a some guys are going island to island in bright yellow jet skis. Others were just spotted in the middle of a coral reef, watching the parade swirl past. Most of the teams are from French Polynesia, but last fall the event also brought fans from Brazil and Germany. "We started training eight months ago in a lake in Bavaria," says one of the German riders. "We have waves like this" - he holds his hands maybe two inches apart and flashing a grin - "not like." The waves were so rough last autumn that the German team twice reversed. They came 85th of 85 teams, but could not stop grinning when it was over.

Over 1000 boats::
A team representing Shell had won the race three years right, but Team OPT, representing the local telephone company, in 2009 won the crown with a strong finish between the island of Taha'a and Bora Bora. There are more than 1,000 boats within one quarter mile from the finish near the beach of Bora Bora, which borders one of the most impossible aquamarine lagoons on earth, near the foot of a mighty mountain called Otemanu. Thousands of people lined the last mile of the route, throwing water on the exhausted winners. Any racer, even those who struggle to get a hour or two after the finish, are greeted with fresh flowers LEIs. Racers folded hands as they crossed the finish line, looks of exhaustion and joy painted on their bronzed faces. Girlfriends, mothers, cousins and friends hugged and kissed. More than a few beers were passed around. Later there was a formal ceremony with Tahitian raucous music and dance. A small fight broke out between supporters of rival teams, but it was quickly extinguished and the night moves. My last image of the day was a young man shimmying on top of a boat, stretched his arms high in the air for a Tahitian / rock as it celebrated the end of the race, the sun, rocking him in an incredible orange glow. There is nothing like this anywhere.


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