COFFS Coast Outrigger Canoe Club has achieved another milestone with six members gaining selection in the inaugural Australian men’s crew.
The boys will compete at the upcoming Moloka’i Hoe race in Hawaii on October 10.
The race covers a distance of approximately 71 kilometres across the Kaiwi Channel, starting on the island of Moloka’i and finishing at Waikiki in Oahu. Providing the trade winds are favourable, the men’s event is expected to take between 4.5 and 5 hours to complete. The local club members who have been selected in the nine-member team are Mike Mills-Thom, Gordon Polkinghorne, Matt O’Garey, Daniel Jenkin, Tim Blay and Tony Bishop. Other members of the Australian team come from Sydney-based clubs  … Details
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HONOLULU — The city has started construction on a canoe halau at Ala Moana Beach Park, a project that was first proposed 20 years ago.
A blessing ceremony held Thursday marked the beginning of a project Luana Froiseth’s mother Moku and other legendary outrigger canoe paddlers first dreamed of in the early ’90s.
“They picked out places around Oahu that most of the clubs had their practice sites and they came up with 13 sites,” said Froiseth. “This is the eighth one.”
For years, the clubs who practice at Ala Moana Beach Park have had to leave their canoes out in the elements. When the halau is completed … Details
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My dinner lay spread out beneath me in every direction, plainly visible in the crystalline waters. The rocky inlets and kelp forests of Central California’s eight Channel Islands are home to what is considered to be some of the finest uni, or sea urchin, in the world. To better see them in their natural habitat, I was sea kayaking off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles offshore of the Santa Barbara Channel.
I’d decided on a day trip with Ventura-based outfitter, Island Packers. Confession: I grew up 30 miles south of the quiet coastal community (which is an hour’s drive from LA), but I’d never before visited the islands. It’s just one of those things on my to-do list that kept getting pushed aside, until a friend invited me to join him on a paddle … Details
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