Sun, Sand, Sea and no Shakuhachi

The living room was cluttered with all manner of clothes and gear: surfer shorts, cap, guidebook, sunglasses, uv shirts, sandles, aloha shirts, carbon fibre paddle, waterbottle, camera, and ukulele. Twenty four of us plus our coach were soon to be on our way to a winter paddling holiday.

Warm blue waters, sunny skies and sandy beaches would be a welcome change from our gray, rainy Vancouver winter outrigger canoe paddle practices. For two weeks we would head down to the Kona's Keahou Canoe Club at the crack of dawn every morning to launch the 6 person racing canoes and blast our way out through the surf and onto the huge blue rollers off of the Big Island of Hawaii. We would go to hone our skills as individual paddlers, bond as teammates and, best of all, share some happy times.

The ukulele had nudged aside the shakuhachi for this trip. In fact the ukulele had snuck into my musical world riding on the ama of our outrigger canoe itself! A few of my teammates just happened to mention their interest in the Hawaiian instrument and soon a group of us were on a entertaining journey of discovery as we bought, borrowed and found various ukes. We joined in a few of the local ukulele circles, of which their are numerous here in the Vancouver area, and we met to practice chords and ponder strum patterns. The ultimate goal was to play ukulele on the beach in Hawaii after a long morning of outrigger canoeing. Sounds like a post card dream, you think. We are dreamers and not unaccustomed to making our dreams come true!