Paddle For Kids 2009 – Recap

First off I want to thank my dragon boat team, Gary and Meaghan for supporting me.

the H2O GEEKS

BC Childrens 11th Annual Paddle for Kids charity event happened on Sunday, 30 teams registered though only 24 teams took part in the event. The weather was nice, wasn’t to hot out either. H2O Geeks raised over $3441 dollars in 7 short weeks and were ranked in 6th spot as of Friday afternoon for most fund-raised, which is not bad if you ask me. In the end Paddle for Kids raised over $95,681 dollars that’s over half a million dollars for BC Childrens hospital in Paddle for kids lifespan.

Our team H2O Geeks could have arrived on site on Sunday never having a chance to be in a dragon boat and then race, for me that was not an option, I wanted this team to be on the water as much as possible, for one get use to the boats and to learn the stroke. Like the old saying goes “practice makes perfect”. All summer long we never had a chance to paddle with a full boat (of 20 paddlers) until race day. It was a great experiences for all. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Racing in a storm

Its almost a week since I posted oops (brain has been elsewhere with this heatwave).

The racing was great on Saturday I raced in 3 of our 4 races and I only raced in 2 of the ladies races which was fine for me didn’t want to over do it on a hot day. As we were warming up for our last race of the day the heavens decided to open by the time we were about to start our race the thunder and lighting started so the event organizers canceled the rest of the regatta. I think this is the 2nd regatta that got cancel half way though due to mother nature (the 1st one was two years ago where the wind was nasty and the white caps looked like we were in Hawaii)

In the end 4 heats of 4 boats (so 20 teams.. one of them being our A boat) each did not get a chance to race in the finals. Instead we all have an interesting story to tell as we got to see it before the rest of the lower-mainland did.

This wasn’t a normal thunderstorm either it was a sun storm, the lighting went from cloud to cloud mostly. When I got home I looked outside at the power lines near the house and noticed lighting hitting the same rod more then once. I was surprised that Vancouver still held their annual summer fireworks display.

While the fireworks were going on, I was hanging out with Gary, Rainer until 2:30 in the morning as they took part in the Blogathon.

So now I can say I’ve paddled in a thunderstorm/sun storm, hail (x4), white caps/nasty wind, snow(x3), smoke haze (there was a fire near by), fog, on the hottest day of the summer (outrigger in the morning and then went out again with #H2OGeeks), rain that felt like rhinos and elephants.

WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

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