All
the dragons are really starting to take shape after 3 days of
carving.  We have all pretty well resigned ourselves that the
carvings will not be finished on Friday night.  Perhaps 10 days of
carving is more realistic than the 5 we have available.  Tuesday
was a slow day for us, as only Bob Brinson and I were able to work on
the carving, and I had to go work at the library from 1 to 5pm. 
Things were complicated because Eric was unable to supervise on Tuesday
evening, so we carved from 10:30am to 5pm.

Good work was done on both our head and tail figures as more
help arrived for Wednesday.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy team paddlers
Dave Samis, Naoko Watanabe and Alf  Charboneau showed up to
carve.  Alf even brought a potential new team member Jojo. 
Six people working on the logs really made a difference, as the other 3
teams Abreast in a Boat, Women on Water and The Wong Way, all generally
had about six to nine people consistently working on their projects.

Alf and Jojo really did a good job getting the tail section
shaped, after Chip and I had initially squared it off on Monday
night.  Now the tail is about 6 inches wide after removing about 4
inches from either side and one inch from the top and two inches from
the bottom.  Naoko helped Alf and Jojo start to carve out the top
and bottom to give our tail section the wavy lines that it will
contain.  Our “tail” is conceived to be like the “rooster tail” of
a speed boat.  It will be the illusion of water spraying up behind
the boat – like wavy lines of water – echoing the Gung Haggis dragon
boat logo.

These same wavy lines of “water” will become the neck of our
dragon supporting our dragon's head.  Our dragon head is almost
cartoonish – It is cartoonish!  With large eyes, and a large mouth
in a silly grin.  A tam-o-shanter cap sits on top of his head, and
his horns will be modeled after bag pip “pipes”.  Very cool.

Dave
and I started working on the mouth tonight.  We took off some of
the end piece at the head to allow the tongue to protrude from the
mouth.  It almost looks rude!  I started gouging some of the
wood from the mouth area, leaving wood to create the large teeth. 
We also started removing some of the excess wood around the neck to
give it an undulating motion.  Except that we removed a bit too
much.  Bob was perturbed when he came back from a Dragon Boat
Association meeting to find that the neck was a lot thinner than it had
been before he left.  He explained his vision for the the waves
from the Gung Haggis dragon boat logo to support the head and become
the neck.  Oh – that's what it was supposed to be.  Kind of
hard to imagine – an abstract neck concept on a dragon boat – oh
well.  As we keep saying… we are all brand new at this carving
stuff, and we learn from our mistakes and adjust.  That's how the
dragon really reveals itself.