Spiderman & Clumsy Gecko Dragon Boating

Slightly after 5pm, we started our first Dragon Boat practice. We were supposed to have this lesson 2 weekends back, but due to the thunderstorm, we had to postponed it to today. The venue was at Ap Lei Chau, which was quite near the school that I am teaching in. Around us, there were numerous boats moored alongside each other, most of the boats were old wooden ones. The entire place is quite cluttered, and there are small shipyards nearby. Thus the water isn't exactly clear or clean... as long as we don't get into the water, that would be fine.

There were 3 coaches, one of whom seems to be in his sixties but in absolute good shape. They spoke to us about the way to board the dragon boat, the proper way to abandon ship and techniques to hold the oar and row.

After the initial 30-45 mins of "lecture", we finally got the chance to board the boat... it wasn't the actual dragon boat, but a simple-looking one which was used for training purposes. I reckoned the important thing is the boat can take all 18 paddlers and 3 onboard coaches (one who handled the steering, another to hit the drum and the third who gave instructions in English) without sinking.

Along the way, we broke into the Hawaii Five-O theme song and created a racket. I was in the middle section of the boat and was responsible for scooping up any water. We had decided to call ourselves "Rainbow Warriors" and well, later during dinner, we discussed possible ways to "doll" ourselves up for the race on the 11th June... possible ideas include wearing tees to represent the different colours of the rainbow, multi-coloured Afro-wigs, headbands with dyed feather and painted faces that resemble the Maoris. Gee, I hope we don't have to perform a Haka for that day if we decided to look like imitation Maoris.

As each of us gingerly made our way to our seats (free seating, first come first serve basis), we listened to the drum beats and tried to paddle. At least our boat moved. We rowed to the granite breakwater, some 500m away and was told to rest. The coach then told us it would be time to refresh ourselves, and all of us wondered what that could mean... but of course, it had to be the 'nice' cool water that beckoned us each time we row. Afterall, we wouldn't know when our boat would overturn and it would be sensible to just try it once, even if it's in the dirty water.

After more paddling and a little competition between us, a 7-women team and another 4-men team, we finally called it a day at 7pm.

Tomorrow, there will be another training session from 1-3pm... sure hope that we would not need to abandon ship again.