Coast Busters!!!!

Friday morning I stumble upstairs for Breakfast with the Fab Four and Justine. They are going to go down to the little bay at the end of the street and practice rolling the local New Zealand style boats and Justine is going to film them. Since I have a vehicle large enough to haul boat and people I will be there chauffeur for the weekend. While they are playing at the waters edge I go for a little paddle down the coast. When I return we have lunch on the beach and I make tea for the group to warm them up a bit from being in the water.
We then load up all the boats and return to Paul’s were we then go to the venue to check out the lake were the on water demos will happen.
We arrive at Milford school, which is playing host for the event. We are there early enough to get Freya and Cherri in the water to practice rolls and for Justine to do some underwater filming with the use of a special camera that she mounts to the deck of the kayak. After a bit it time to return once again to Paul’s to clean up and get ready for the event. Everybody showers (not together, or at least I showered alone so I assume everyone else did too) and dresses for the evening. We Pile back in to Homey and with music blaring and gears grinding we return to Milford school were we all pile out and go forward to meet the crowds gathering in the main hall. After wondering around the main hall and shaking hands and meeting people the entire group is then broken down into “PODs” (teams of about 6- 8 paddlers) that will be building a cardboard kayak and paddling together as a group on Sunday. Paul calls everyone to order and the show gets on the road. Paul introduces the Fab Four and the other Foreigners in the hall (including yours truely) and then we get down to the presentations. Turner and Cherri do a neat slide show of their trip to Greenland and the Greenland paddling competition. Then Greg and Freya show a video on the Greenlanders kayak games done by a Greenland production company. After the presentations there is more hand shaking and boat talk and we finally slip away for Chinese takeaway back to Steve and Sue’s house. Greg and Freya are staying with Steve and Sue during the weekend.
Turns out that Steve is a ex Navy lifer, New Zealand Navy that is. And after we polish off the Food we get down to the task of serious drinking and sea stories. The girls excuse them selves to bed and the guys sit up late and swill beer and rum to the wee hours.