Huli time!

Beach towels .. a necessary part of life near the ocean .. the more colorful, the better, in my opinion.

Bruce and his team spent the week practicing mistakes.  In the outrigger, it's easy to tip the boat over, which can happen for a variety of reasons ... large waves, paddler or steersing inattentiveness, boat imbalance, or horsing around.

New paddlers have to be indoctrinated to the huli procedures for safety reasons, so Bruce and his team took the occasion of beautiful weather to dunk themselves into the water and learn how to get back into the boat in a timely fashion.  The goal is to be quick about it and have the paddlers be calm and knowledgeable in their roles.  Each team member has a specific job to do that contributes to the speedy recovery.  A huli tends to happen more often in bad weather, so practicing often is necessary.

Yesterday, Bruce took out his regular team and practiced advanced recovery techniques learned from scouring hours of Hawaiin boating video and adapting it to his particular group.  Here, from Youtube is a short video so you see what he's been up to.  This is not his team, just a huli practice from the Oceanside Outrigger Canoe Club .. not sure where their home docks are.