POULSBO — Darkness had arrived at Liberty Bay just before 9 p.m. on Friday night, but that didn’t prevent Forrest Wells from placing a pair of sunglasses over his eyes.

Wells was about to compete in the Dock Boy Olympics’ most anticipated event — the kayak drop — and he was hoping the judges would award him extra style points for the sweet shades.

“Do judges even care about pieces of flair like this?” he carped with (perhaps) mock indignation.

If Wells wasn’t completely serious about his complaint, its tone matched the spirit of the annual event, which drew 30 spectators to the Poulsbo waterfront to watch six competitors compete in four kayak-based events.

The Dock Boy Olympics is limited to employees or former employees of Olympic Outdoor Center and is known as much for its fun spirit as its demonstration of athletic prowess. Friday night was no exception.

“Only the hearty are here tonight,” OOC owner John Kuntz said in his opening remarks.

Behind him, one competitor was munching on a piece of pizza.

Kuntz quickly explained the history of the event, which was meant as a fun, end-of-summer competition between the OOC employees who worked at the downtown shop, the dock or the kids’ camps.

He gave a brief description of the evening’s four events: the boat roundup, where competitors had to retrieve kayaks that were pushed away from the dock and push them back until they touched the dock; the kayak death walk, where competitors walked across a fan of kayaks, required to place each foot in the boat’s seat as they raced; the slalom, where they swerved around the pilings beneath the dock in a timed event; and the death drop, where employees sat in a kayak and were pushed off the wooden sidewalk into the water below.

In death drop, competitors would get points for style, Kuntz said, adding that it was the evening’s most popular event.

“They have bull riding at rodeos to keep people around. We have the kayak drop,” he said.

Kuntz also dropped a surprise on the audience: For the first time in several years, he would compete along with the employees.

The event had six competitors: Kuntz, Wells, Connor Inslee, Mason Walters, Joe Inslee and Brandon Hines.

As the audience watched, the competitors raced through the events, which drew as many chuckles as oohs and aahs.

In the roundup, the laughs came when one competitor, racing to chase down kayaks, was delayed when his own kayak tipped over.

In the slalom, another competitor was briefly tied up in the tubing beneath the dock. (At the time, he wasn’t visible, but the audience could hear his PG-rated complains from beneath their feet.)

In the kayak death walk, one of the racers stumbled in the final two kayaks, falling before touching the event’s finish line — the dock itself.

In the kayak drops, participants were treated to several memorable moments: Wells’ sunglasses, Kuntz’s insistence that he wanted to do a “pirouette” and even a cameo appearance by Representative Jay Inslee, who made tactical suggestions as his son Connor prepared for his own drop.

“It’s always the grand finale,” Connor Inslee said later. “It was fun. The water never hurts that bad.”

He won the event; in fact, he won all four events as he swept his way to the 2003 Dock Boy crown.

“It’s a lot harder than I imagined,” Kuntz said of his return to the event after several years.

He was smiling when he said, “I have more respect for my employees now.”