Stanley, paddling and ASSociations

This was my first dragon boat experience in Hong Kong and I am hooked. Our team came from our university and hotel industry, comprising novices as well as very experienced paddlers. Our first race was a disaster. I was in the third row and didn't see what happened but there was a noticeable stall in the middle of the race. Apparently an exhausted paddler was out of rhythm and the paddle clashing took out two other paddlers. We were disheartened to find out that we missed qualifying for the next set of competition by 0.3 seconds. Our team rallied for our final race in the Gold Cup division and won convincingly. One of the event photographers is a friend so she made sure to take a lot of pictures of me looking psychotic as our team paddled into the win. In my defense I was very focused and did not know that we had a very comfortable lead. I will not share the images.

Our pleasure boat was dead center of the row facing toward the beach and we had a wonderful cross wind unlike those on the shore whose ventilation was being absorbed by us. The only moment of discomfort other than the heat occurred when the boat to our right turned on a very loud generator and began expelling noxious fumes into the air. After several attempts to ask the occupants to turn down the generator we realized that despite being unable to hear us over the noise of their generator and bad music they understood what we were trying to convey and chose to pretend ignorance. At this point the harbour police, who didn't have any pressing issues, decided to investigate and helped to convey our request to move the damn generator to the other side of their boat. The people on board the boat, which appeared to be a decrepit ferry, decided that they were very aggrieved at our request and retaliated by increasing the volume of their godawful europop music and yelling at us, only their music drowned out whatever insults they were trying to convey.

We didn't have any other incidents until the end of the day when the group on the eurotrash ferry began a play fight by throwing empty beer cans at each other. You can guess where most of the cans ended up. As the boat pulled away from the race area they left a distinctive wake of aluminum.

Now here's the best part of the story: several members of the eurotrash boat had boarded our boat to share in our hospitality and sheepishly informed us that their boat belonged to the DUTCH ASSOCIATION. Yes, members of a country known for its environmental policies were spewing fumes, dumping beer cans and cigarette butts, and playing criminally bad music. The Atlas of Dutch Water Cities sits on my bookshelf in the office along with various publications about water conservations systems. Like Milli Vanilli they apparently have fooled me with their lip syncing of eco-communities and pristine landscape but I've got their number now.


In other news SB and I were awarded a dragon boat drum and we are over the moon. SB has shown his excitement by refusing to let me carry it and getting chased around by a policeman who wanted him to stop beating on it. I half expected to find it occupying my half fourth of the bed last night.

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