Carrying on from the awesome Bamski lost and found thread is this gem about Nappy's little altercation with a Cook Islands reef break during the recent Vaka Eiva iron race last week.
Nappy steering, took a close line looking for a run advantage and uncharacteristically wiped out on the reef. I was shooting video from the media boat and caught some of the action, but had to drop the cameras to pull Big Sam and a fellow Anueanue crew member into the boat and in the process we took a huge hit ourselves with the wave breaking over the top of the media boat. Nappy, the canoe and the rest of the crew were washed over the reef and made it safely to the beach where they retrieve the canoe and paddled inside the reef to return to the finish line.
Nappy's new prescription sunglasses were lost in the wipe-out (about 200 metres from shore) and finding them seemed a impossible task............ Enter one of Nappy's best Aussie Mates Johnny Stewart from Outrigger Australia Club. 24 hrs after the event, unknown to Nappy, Johnny decided to take a snorkel, mask and Nappy's wife Anona back to the location, as Anona had a fix on the reef area where the incident happened as she was watching from a vantage point on the beach. After an hour of searching in 10ft deep water, Johnny returned to shore and realised it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Suddenly, something moved Johnny to walk further down the beach to search some more and he had just walked knee deep into the water when he spotted something, yep it was Nappy's glasses.
Johnny and Anona decided they would play a little joke on Nappy when returning the glasses to him. Johnny sat down with Nappy to have a coffee wearing Nappy's glasses and made the comment that he should try the new glasses that he was wearing to read the menu, Nappy put them on and made the comment " GEE JOHNNY, WE MUST HAVE SIMILAR EYES, THESE GLASSES ARE JUST LIKE MINE " ( not thinking that they could possibly have been his) confused, he handed them back and Johnny suggested" WHY DON'T YOU KEEP THEM NAPPY, AS YOU LOST YOURS YESTERDAY" Nappy being the perfect gentlemen declined the offer and over the next few minutes the glasses were shoved back and forwards across the table until Johnny finally had to tell Nappy the unbelievable story of how he had found them. Needless to say, Nappy was stoked.
Over the next few days of racing, Nappy would repeatedly say to me, "RAMBO, I'M SORRY I COULD NOT OFFER YOU MORE EXCITING ACTION TO FILM, NO MORE WIPEOUTS,.... we both laughed.
Cheers Rambo
(I also did a few interviews with Nappy ... will be online soon)
Submitted by Rambo on Sun, 11/23/2008 - 12:41am
RIGHT ON, that was another story worth hearing. Glad uncle nappy found them. right on ocp community.
aloha,
kcchee11
#1 Sun, 11/23/2008 - 2:06am