Waikiki Rough Water Swim, 9/5/11

Long story short, friend Dennis suggested my name to take pictures of this event because another person had family concerns and was unable to take pictures.  I knew the race director Kaia and all was good.  I invited my photo friends to assist - I just needed one more person -thanks SWW.  This was a huge event with an expected 975 plus swimmers.  

Eeek, I don't know what the color of the finisher's t-shirt was.  The pink was for the coordinators and the beige was for the manpower.

Congratulations!!!

19 year old, George O'Brien from Autstralia - men's 

22 year old,  Luane Rowe from Australia - women's

I also wanted to be here  - Rainbow Aquatics "Bows" assists with the manpower and a portion of the proceeds is given to them.  My son swam for them and I too was involved with Waikiki Rough Water Swim "WRWS".

It was so well organized by Bows: with 5 groups and 975+ swimmers you have to make things go smoothly.  As you can see the letter D - swimmers went to their designated alphabet - had their race numbers written on both arms and had their alphabet written on the back of both calfs.

Safety was a priority.   WRWS obtained the needed safety crew.

 Waiting...

 The race to began shortly.

The race began when the canon went off.  I have to thank SWW for noticing this canon.  I would not have noticed it if I were the only photographer.
(I sat on the sand to brace myself, but was taken aback by the loud boom)

The next group.  Each group was identified by the color of their swim caps - mandatory to wear their swim caps - or at the least a swim cap.

Swimmers had to swim to this orange buoy and the one at the Hilton Hawaiian Village - 2.4 miles.

Since the swim began near the Natatorium and ended at the Hilton Hawaiian Village - swimmers belongings were transported by Bows.  Again - organization was key.

 Emcee: Joe Tiepel

The person sitting down was the official photographer taking individual shots - for the swimmers to purchase.

 Nathan was the videographer.

Mike Lewis with Luane Rowe. Mike also took pictures and used his water proof camera for ocean shots.

 Yes!!!

 He was okay, just pooped.

OMG, the last time I saw him, he was just 9 years old.

Here are some of the other tables, Bows took care of.

 This first tent was a vendor selling his sun protective gear.

The alphabets were for the swimmers to claim their t-shirts, the bags you see further down are the swimmers' belongings.

 WRWS again made sure safety was in place.

Confession, none of these shots were edited.  Only two were cropped.  It was fun and I took time to narrow down my shots to these.