Mike and Beth's Adventures

Canada's first dragon boat festival was held in Vancouver after Expo '86, a very popular World's Fair located in the False Creek area of the city.  The dragon boats used in this initial race were gifted from the city of Hong Kong. The festival was repeated in '87 & "88 and was so popular that the Chinese community and other volunteers formed the Canadian International Dragon Boat Society and now sponsor multiple dragon boat events across Canada.  The 2024 Event consisted of over 200 teams and almost 5000 participants. As Vancouver is an international community and the event has strong cultural inclusiveness undertones, we were not surprised to see this dragon at the event.  In fact, 2024 is the Year of the Dragon! Yes!  The boats do have a dragon figurehead on the bow. Here is a race boat with its dragon figurehead, the drummer who sets the rowers cadence, and the rowers,   At the stern there is also a helmsman who uses a sweep, a long oar, to steer the...

Recently we attended the Seattle Boat Show.   It is one of the largest on the west coast of North America.   The indoor portion of the event was held at Lumen Field, the home field for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, the Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer, and OL Reign of the National Women's Soccer League.   The in the water portion of the show was on the Seattle waterfront at Bell Harbor Marina.   We were in town visiting kids and grandkids and decided to take a couple of days to visit the boat show to see what was new.   While the grandkids were in school, we took Seattle’s Light Rail from my daughter’s house to Lumen Field.   It was a short walk from the station to the venue.   We purchased a multi-day pass for $40 each.   This gave us access to both the indoor and in the water venues as well as a bowl of Ivar’s delicious clam chowder for lunch.   As soon as we entered Lumen field is was clear that the ...