Seeing Dragons on Gray's Lake

Well... dragon boats anyway. Saturday, sixteen teams of nearly twenty members each gathered at Grays Lake for the first annual My Angel Foundation Paddling for Hope benefit. The event was to raise funds and organ donor awareness. I later learned that a number of the participants were donors or recipients. The turnout was good and the people looked like they were having a good time.

Each boat had a several pairs of rowers, a person in the back to steer, a person near the front to beat the drum, and a person in the bow to grab the flag at the finish. It didn't look like there was much of a break when you were on the water. They'd paddle up to the start, race to the finish and then do it again. There were four boats in the water at any one time and the teams would swap out after their two timed runs. It looked like everyone was having a pretty good time but I bet there were some sore backs and shoulders before the day was done. It was quite a show!

One of the nice things about the way they ran this event was that, even while the races were going on in the east end of the lake, people were able to canoe and kayak at a more relaxed pace in the west end.