Waka Ama 🚣‍♀️

On the 15th of March I woke up excitedly and quickly got ready for Waka Ama  ( canoeing ) I may or may not have forgotten about the Waka Ama so I came to school late, luckily I was right on time and saw that my class was still there when I had arrived. Oh boy I was relieved. I quickly changed, put on sun block and we all waited for the bus to arrive. Once the bus arrived, we all went into our own little pairs to sit next to each other. The drive was not that long but that is also the time when I started getting a bit nervous but never showed it. My mind kept on making up the worst things that could happen like what if I drown, or the boat flips over and I can’t swim in the deep, and all those other incredibly dangerous things that could happen to me. As soon as we got there we sat in four groups of five and sat in a line with our groups. As we got into our lines with our groups I start to see life jackets right next to the paddles. I start to feel a bit better but still feeling a bit anxious until I start hearing them talking about safety and saying that it is not possible for the boat to flip over and that made me feel relieved.

After our safety talk we combined 2 of our teams into one and did the same with the other team, then my team and our instructor went down to the wharf and saw 2 big beautiful boats waiting for us to hop in and paddle around the sea. We went one by one getting inside, and some had to hold on to the boat so it wouldn’t flow away. When everyone was in, we started paddling in time with the instructor, he also told us that when we paddle together it puts pressure and power on the boat so that it can boost itself to move. After a few paddles around the lake we decided to do a race. Each team came next to each other and started paddling. People in my team were rushing. We started to slow down and the others started catching up to us. My team lost, but there was another race back to where we started, we also lost on that round because we were too busy looking at the other team and seeing what they were doing instead of focusing on where we were going. The last race was when we had to paddle with our arms instead. Our team won that round, we were all happy and had another few rides around the lake and also picked up some plastic that we saw along the way. Later on we started playing in the water and had fun splashing and throwing water at each other.

 

Once we finished playing in the water, we all helped carry the canoes out of the water and put it on top of rolling tyres so that all we had to do was push the canoes into the garage where they belong. Once we pushed all the canoes in to the garage, we all went to shower and change so that we would be all dry and warm. We all said our thank you’s and quickly hopped into the bus and went back to school.