OUTRIGGER--This wasn't supposed to happen

I wonder whatever became of that article I wrote once about our outrigger ride. I'd written one years ago.

*****

The summer between my 9th and 10th grades, we took another furlough (went to the U.S. from Okinawa), so had a stopover in Hawaii. On our last day there--all our things had been packed and readied for our trip out to the mainland--my mother had been planning to have the family spend a restful, final day at home.

Her youngest sister came over with her daughter, wanting to take her nieces out for a last fun day at Waikiki. Mommy didn't like the idea.

"You want to go to the Beach? But they'll need a change of clothes, and everything's already been packed..."

"Oh, we won't get that wet, we'll just be walking around." Mommy let us go. Reluctantly, but she let us go.

Aunty Sally took us to Waikiki Beach, where tourists went outrigger surfing on the waves. Our Aunt, her daughter, Joyce, Janice, myself, and several beach boys all clambered aboard a long canoe, taking off our flip flops and tossing them in the bottom of the boat.

We sat, holding the paddles, carefully listening to the leader up front calling out when to paddle, when to change sides, when to lift paddles out of the water, and gradually moved the vessel out where the larger waves were and then let the water turn the boat around so we were facing the shore. 

In other words, most of us could not see the waves coming at us anymore; only the leader, who was facing the back, could. He let some other large waves go by, but seemed to want us to ride a REALLY BIG one.

"Here it comes--got your paddles ready?" he said. All of us felt excited. "NOW! Paddle!"

But I think it was a second too late. Or the wave was a little faster than we thought. Instead of riding in front of the wave, we found ourselves right under it. The leader could see it.

"IT'S GONNA BREAK!" we heard. SPLOOSH! When I opened my eyes, all of us were sitting in the canoe, floating about a foot...underwater? (I remember people's chests, shoulders, heads were above water, but the boat they were sitting in was submerged!)

"I...am...SO SORRY," the leader was saying; "I think we've had an accident...these things are unsinkable; but they CAN flip over. Can you get out and hold onto the outriggers while some of us bail out the water?"

We did. Joyce not only got onto the outrigger but stretched out her leg onto the outside float as well. I hear Janice hoisted herself up around that outrigger pole and was quietly quoting scripture.

Joyce and Janice were on the back rod, and I went on the front one with my Aunt and her daughter. She said later how Mommy had told her about my epilepsy. Altho' her own daughter was next to her, I was now in her safekeeping, and Aunty felt she could not face Mommy if she let anything happen to me. 

2 of the beach boys were constantly swimming around us, making sure we were all right; 2 others were constantly checking to make sure the canoe didn't capsize, and of course, 2 others continued to bail out the water until all of us could get back in and head back to shore, with relieved laughs and an unexpected souvenir story from Waikiki!

Here are some miscellaneous thoughts from that time:

that outrigger leader: the surrounding surfers are all jeered, that call was mis-timed, and the tourists will sue the beach! "I wonder if I'll lose my job for this?"

Aunty Sally: "I told Kimiko I'd take her girls only walking around Waikiki, and I almost got them drowned!"

Janice and cousin Lisa: "We're too wet for this to happen from just walking!" "Tell them we sweat a lot."

Joyce: (looking at her now-drenched watch) "I'd asked, just before the outrigger ride, if I needed to take this off, and I was told, 'Oh no; you won't get that wet.'"

What a day. And God knew, from eternity past, all this was going to happen.