FORT-itude

The FORT-itude Crew

Being a novice and this being our first regatta of the season in Deep Cove, I can only wish for all our races to be graced with such perfect weather conditions.

The volunteer crew never stopped encouraging all teams and provided many laughs, including the comment that they were so proud of the fact that they were running 20 minutes ahead of schedule…what a concept!

Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves and it was great to see such a broad range of ages represented. Dragon boat competitors are truly in a league by themselves, so friendly, considerate, and especially towards the Breast Cancer ladies.

From the team of Fort-itude we’re looking forward to many more great races this season and we wish everyone good paddling.

Dianne Johnson

Deas Divas

OMG!!! We had it all! Drama on the water, drama off the water, beautiful sunny skies, more drama on the water, and even one paddler who took the 'paddle till you puke' mantra to heart... all I can say is that it was definitely a day for the history books, I don't know if we'll ever have another one like it!

The Deas Divas Crew

With the help of Jean Buckley and our borrowed paddler, Nell, we had 18 paddlers in the boat for our first race of the day. As we approached the start line it seemed like the perfect day for our first races of the season, not to mention the first races EVER for our novices.Imagine our surprise as we looked back to see where the other boats were and there was one upside down with paddlers floating around! Florida quickly had us turned around and we paddled back to see if we could help. After a brief moment when there was a paddler unaccounted for (I believe she was under the boat), the rescuers got right to work and had them out of the chilly water in no time!

We picked up a few hats as did the other boat in our race and then paddled back out to the start line. Honestly, it was pretty hard to be focused on the race after that, but Florida got us all to grunt out a few 'hunhs' and that seemed to help to dispel some of the nervous energy. We finished with a time of 1:08.90 and our only 2nd place finish of the day. :) As for the swamped team, everyone was fine, they had a great day for drying out their clothing, and I heard they even paddled in their next race. WOW!

Our next race wasn't nearly as eventful, except that we had lost one of our novice diva's, Lois, to an upset stomach. We decided to paddle with only 16 and we actually posted our best time of the day 1:04. That was race #22, so we were surprised to learn that we were paddling again in race #30 and they were already marshalling for race #25! And by that time, Jo was already heading back out on the water to drum for the Barnet crew.

We were confident that she would be back in time, as we were actually paddling in the same race as Barnet (who had to paddle in #28 & #30!). As we waited on the dock for the boats to come in, we heard that there had been a collision in race #28 and that they were going to restart the race. And of course that wasn't all - apparently a drummer had gone for a swim as well!

From our vantage point we couldn't really see the race or the boats until they came in to dock, so we had no idea what poor Jo's fate was. Finally they came in and we were happy to see that our Jo was safe and in true Diva style, not a hair was out of place, as Lynn so kindly pointed out. ;)

We were pretty sure that we were done for the day at that point, but the Dash organizers had us scheduled for one more race paddling against the Richmond crew. Since we were still paddling with only 16 paddlers, and Richmond had 20, it was decided that they would loan us two paddlers so that each team had 18. It was a good reminder of how we are all one team, Abreast in a Boat. As we got ready to marshal for our 4th and final race of an exceptionally eventful day, a very tired Marlene, who had been sick all week, decided not to paddle. So we ended the day down by 2!

I just want to say that I think we truly did a wonderful job under some interesting circumstances. When we finished our 2nd race, Lois informed us that we looked great and our timing was good. We could feel it in the boat, too. Congratulations to our novices for paddling in their first races - Vivian was looking a little tired, but happy at the end of the day and Esther, well, she had the biggest ever smile on her face and as we were packing up she kept saying "I feel like a hundred bucks!" It was kind of infectious - I just couldn't keep the smile off my face either.

WHAT A DAY!!!

Marcia Rempel

Richmond

The Richmond Crew

It was a beautiful day and the new Richmond crew was ready to race.

After fighting the current in Richmond, Deep Cove looked smooth.

It wasn’t until the Fraser Dragons (our only competition at Saturday morning practices) capsized that we realized we still had work to do.

But when the horn went we dug deep, pulled hard, and tried our best to remember everything we had been practicing.

Our race times were great and our paddlers were proud…if not a bit tired. It was an excellent way to start the season.

Rena Pratt

Barnet

The Barnet Crew

The Barnet crew had a later arrival time – great for sleeping in – not so good for finding parking spaces!

We had four good races – five if you count the repeat of Race 2.

A collision dumped a drummer overboard and the race officials didn’t halt the race until we were at the finish line! So we did it all over again!

Our crew performed very well with respectable times. We are still working on our stroke and will be doing more stamina work.

Our novices were great – strong and steady. The competitive nature came out in a couple of them: “How’d we do? How’d we do?”

Many thanks to Jo Hutton who did a great job drumming for us. We are looking ahead to the 500 metres of the Bill Alley Memorial and of course, the fun of Women’s. See you there.

Dorothy Fenning