Nanaimo Regatta

To quote a fellow teammate C. "This was probably the best weekend I've had... well in at least 4 years!"

I concur. And I've had amazing weekends, like just the one last week camping. But there was something unique about sharing the energy, excitement, and spirit of another 20-odd teammates. After coming together for only 4 practices, I was truly surprised to see how well we all got along. (Half of Team Nanaimo was from Concord Pacific Flying Dragons One, and the other half was from my original team CP Flying Dragons Too.)

First race, first place. Second race, second place by half a second. This set our tone for the rest of the weekend: "No Frickin' Way!". Still, our times are good enough to put us in the semi-finals for Diamond A division, second from the top and a lot higher than our original goals were! Time to celebrate, we are all off to the beer garden for the paddlers party. With the expection of a long Elvis impression bit, the night was amazing. If you'd have been there you would have seen a great circle of amazing dancers right at the front next to the stage having the time of their lives. That would have been us. Even while partying the team stayed together, danced together (lots of sweat sharing...), and drank together. All under a beautiful sky that went from sunny, to orange and pink sunset, to dark blue with stars.

Third race, we get hit on the right side by another boat, our steersman D. yells "Keep paddling" and we do, and bam! another first place finish, which puts us in the final for Diamond A division. Then, it's time for the last race, if we place anywhere but last we get a medal. There's No Frickin' Way we're going to loose this one. F., our team manager, tells us to paddle angry. And we do! On the finish, our drummer M. sees that we are loosing ground and starts bellowing No Frickin' Way over and over again and she feels our boat surge ahead. And guess what? Yet another first place finish!! This time for GOLD.

Now unfortunately, when planning my bus ticket down to Victoria I didn't leave time for a first place finish and an award ceremony. So I was off to the bus depot before getting my medal. Luckily my fellow teammate P. has my medal, and I plan to where it for a whole day once I finally do get my hands on it!

Here's a tease though: Our jersey, our medal. Thanks to Herbert Yen for the picture!