Harrison Regatta - 2007

Abreast In The Cove participated in the 3rd annual Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Festival on Saturday July 21, in beautiful Harrison Hot Springs. Our Crew was a combination of paddlers from the Deep Cove regular and Oz-season crews, and special guests Sue Tong, Anne Anthony, Alice Pennington and Carol Thorbes.

We were coached by Jan Evans who, with her boundless energy, also competed in this Regatta with "The Dragon Ladies". She always manages to juggle her many roles so well! Jan Evans was assisted by Jan Warren, our coach and mighty drummer, and Co-Managers Val Sommer (rehearsing for Oz) and Sharon Clements (best mentor in the business)! As per usual, our competent, inspirational, and blessed funny girl, Sue McMinn was in the back of the boat steering.

A few of us arrived early on Friday night and had the pleasure of luxuriating in the hot spas of the Harrison Resort ... more champagne Gail? Some crew members even made this their home for the night … lucky ducks … while others enjoyed the warm hospitality of Helen McGettigan's little getaway. Of course, the majority crawled out of bed at around 4:30am … groan! ... to make the two hour drive to the race site for a very early 7:30am start. Now that's dedication!

The weather was actually regatta perfect - not too hot, no rain, or at least not until the last race. Those black clouds did look a little ominous and threatening at times. The water mostly co-operated as well - not too much wind or chop as can happen on Harrison Lake in the late afternoon.

The Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Association helped to make us feel welcome by handing out apples and little "Happy Face" yellow beach balls for each crew. Of course, ours only lasted two minutes after "Nelson", our mascot dog, decided to play killer soccer with it! One particularly nice feature in the Athlete's Village was the gigantic high definition video screen - the best we've seen for monitoring all the races.

We had a total of four races, probably a little too many given that there were about 50 crews participating this year, which was a record for Harrison. The organizers were also running late all day … about 2-3 hours late. Even our very patient coach, Jan Evans, was heard to say "Don't anyone else ask me … ‘What's happening, when's our next race?’ ...cause I don't know!" We finally finished around 6pm, but they were far from finishing the final races and some crews just packed up and left. Needless to say it was a VERY LONG DAY! Talk about testing our endurance!

The venue at Harrison is spectacular for the setting and the opportunity for our spectators to view races all along the beach. However, the organization of the event is sadly very much in need of an overhaul. Hopefully this will improve in the future.

Article submitted by Lou Moreau