Mike Atwood bleeds Kai Opua blue.
The Big Blue chief has spent his life promoting canoe paddling.
He, along with so many other paddlers, suffered a double whammy last year when the Moku O Hawaii Outrigger Canoe Racing Association and Queen Liliuokalani Canoe Race — the Super Bowl of canoe races — were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Atwood is the Queen Liliuokalani race director, but more importantly, he’s a people person.
It’s seeing all the paddlers from the Moku O Hawaii clubs that he misses most.
He’s hoping for some clarification by this weekend about what’s happening with the Moku O Hawaii season, which normally would get rolling in April with regattas starting in May.
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “We have a meeting this Saturday to determine the regatta season, among other things.”
In the movies, whenever a character says, “ I don’t know,” that’s almost always not a good thing.
That’s four days away. And if the anticipation is killing Atwood, he’s got months to figure out the Queen Liliuokalani, which is held on Sept. 2, the birthday of the last reigning monarch.
“It’s a Kai Opua event, so our motive is to move it forward,” he said. “We don’t know the requirements, but our goal is to put on the event. But there are so many variables. It’s almost impossible to say yet.
“We have to apply for the permit from the DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources), Coast Guard, other agencies.
“It’s also a major regatta, especially at Kailua Pier they’ll be so many people in close proximity.”
It’s a tough fight when the enemy is invisible and keeps changing, mutating, and doesn’t stop.
But that’s the power of wishful thinking. Maybe enough people get vaccinated and the Hawaii numbers take a dramatic turn downward by September.
“We still have to wait and see,” said Atwood, shifting in the role he plays best, optimistic realist.
Remember 2019? Atwood has been in a ton of races, but the Moku O Hawaii/Aunty Maile Mauhili championships will be one to remember forever.
Call it the Uncle Bo one-point special. Kai Opua beat Puna by one point to dethrone the four-time defending champion with Uncle Bo Campos, who passed away in December from pancreatic cancer, in mind.
The 2020 season was wiped out, but the thing about sports is great memories are always waiting to be made and remembered.
