Dragon Boating

The 5th annual Lake Bemidji Dragon Boat Festival
was this last weekend. 

Bill and Leanne and I were recruited to paddle with the Zea Dawgz! 

It was a blast.  69 teams participated. 

All the teams had tents set up in the Team Village.

Some were very creative.  Here's our pad...

Leanne and her friend, Nickel.

Some of our team relaxing...

We considered jumping ship to join the Rowin' Oaks

since the name fit better.  Just kidding!

We had several friends on the Oak Hills team.

Leaving the dock for our first race.

Moving out to get in place for the start.

Our drummer, Howie Zetah, the big dawg.

Four boats raced in each heat. 

We were racing in the Contractor's Cup.

And the race is on!

We're in boat 3.

Crossing the finish line- we are neck and neck with boat 4. 

Like one-hundreth of a second behind them.  We took third place.

Phew!

We are exhausted after 2.28.92 minutes of intense paddling. 

We improved our time to 2.28.72 in our second race.

Go Zea Dawgz!!  Woot woot!

We ended up placing 19th out of 69 teams-- not too shabby!

If you're interested in seeing more photos of the event check out

bemidjidragonboat.com