A day in the tropics -- almost

Alex Coolman

The caterers were almost ready with the barbecue, and the band Kalika

was humming a quiet tune. There wasn’t any Plumeria blowing through the

air, but there was something unmistakablytropical about the atmosphere at

the Newport Dunes on Sunday afternoon.

Gathered on the beach near the bridge was a crowd of people waiting

for the finish of a men’s outrigger canoe race, which had been gunning

from Catalina all morning.

It should have been a tense scene; this race was the climax of the

California outrigger paddling season.

But Nora Seager, a Newport Aquatic Center member who helped organize

the event, was looking relaxed. Sipping on a beer in the Dunes parking

lot, she held forth for a while on the reasons she loves the sport of

paddling.

“There’s a lot of camaraderie with your team, even though there’s also

competition,” she said. “When push comes to shove, you want to be the

first across the line. But you’re always happy when the other people win,

too.”

Around the beach, there was a curious ease on spectators’ faces. Women

paddlers with abdominal muscles to die for chatted with mellow men with

facial hair and plump bellies. Every third person was wearing a lei made

out of orchids, shells or ti leaves.

In the shade beneath an awning, Darrin Trahan, who paddles with the

Dana Point Outrigger Club, was forming his own theories on what makes

paddling culture so distinct.

“Most of the people that do this around here are not Hawaiian people,”

he said. “They’re people that are touched by the Hawaiian spirit.”

When these people try to find a way on the mainland to connect with

the Hawaiian sense of warmth, Trahan said, they often do so through

paddling and surfing. The community that assembles around these

activities is one of people who treasure family and togetherness.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “They’re all here to win.” But the time

commitments involved for people who paddle seriously are so extreme that

only a fundamental love of the sport -- and the paddling life -- can keep

people coming back.

Around 2 p.m., the first of the men’s finishers started to arrive, and

the front man for Kalika made an announcement over the PA system. The

caterers took the aluminum foil off the trays of steaming food. The party

was starting.

Sure, it was only Newport Beach. But for a while on Sunday afternoon,

it felt just like the islands.