Im going to join 19 of my closest co-workers from the newspaper I work for in an "Asian" canoe and compete against 9 other local teams in a Dragon Boat race.

Now while I have a bit of paddlng experience, I have never been in a boat w 19 other paddlers, a steersman & a drummer! We only had slightly more than half the team at tha practice but we made the boat go forward!

 It will be fun and I hope you will wish me luck. If you don't know about Dragon Boats a google search will give you plenty of info.

The result of the race will be an OKP exclusive, I will not twitter this despite the Iranian ternd.

Awesome!  Be sure to have a "ground crew" armed with a good zoom lens!

Love, Columbine 

Ok we Sucked!

I had expectations of grandure but we finished 6th out of 8 teams. Our canoe drew a bit more water than others as were are a hefty team, hence more drag on the boat. ;) get it?

We had had a good practice w a little over a half the team early in the week and I thought we had a chance to be competitive, but when you add the people who did not have the benifit of any practice ( 8 People in the 20 paddler boat) we were fighting aginst ourselves in spots, like 45 min of practice makes me an expert.

As I know you all are rivited by this compelling thread, when the photos get put up on line I will post a link!

stroke, ...stroke...stroke

Nick:

Our canoe drew a bit more water than others as were are a hefty team, hence more drag on the boat. ;) get it?

Hey, at least you weren't last.  And you got to be in the race - that's MUCH better than just watching it!

Love, Columbine 

Can't wait to see the photos!

Anne

One of my coworkers shot some video  of the event w his iphone and posted it on youtube. There seems to be a slight problem with the way it loads, there are fits & starts, I started it and just put it in backgroud  for 10 min or so & replayed it and it went fine. Im  the guy on the bus early in the video talking about the boats and the afternoon race ect, Im wearing a NY Giants hat and red beard.

The company that brings the boats was from Montreal so when Bob complains about the winning team not being from Candlewood Isle (CAndlewood is the lake where the race took place) he acuses them of being Canadinan Dragonboat Racing Ringers! Stills to follow!

the video is here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV1bAxLRiVU