Last weekend the engineer and I attended Kiri and Rick’s wedding on the beach at Whangara, in front of the world famous marae, where “Whale Rider” was filmed. Rick is the son of an old family friend, while Kiri has family ties to the Marae. They had been planning their wedding for over two and a half years and sadly it rained most of the day. There was a break in the weather while their vows were exchanged on the beach. The tide was coming in rapidly, but all went extremely well. All 200 guests retired to the marae, where they were welcomed on and then the rain settled in for the rest of the night. We took our Rotary student from Chile, Beto (who will be attending Havelock North High School and looking forward to school starting) with us to Whangara. Last week we showed him the “Whale Rider” DVD so he was familiar with the Paikea legend and the Whangara area. Beto had a wonderful at the wedding, seeing Maori protocol for the first time and he especially enjoyed the haka.