Wonderful 3 days of Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.

Friday: we take our 5 person parade dragon down for opening night

Saturday: host TSA Dragon Flyers from California, our Gung Haggis team welcomes rookie paddlers, returning paddlers and guest paddlers from Go Ju Go.

Sunday: we raced for a medal in E Championship, and witness steady improvement with our paddlers. Our guests TSA Dragon Flyers won Gold in Rec D Championship.

Lots of fun, new friends, old friends… simply wonderful.

We had a joint team dinner on Saturday night at Floata Restaurant in Vancouver Chinatown, where I had to simultaneously attend a banquet dinner for the Irish & Scottish Studies International Conference, organized by the Centre for Scottish Studies at Simon Fraser University. The conference featured a Gung Haggis Fat Choy-styled dinner, so I invited dragon boaters to help carry our 5 person dragon to help lead the procession of the haggis. California paddlers were very keen to help out.  In this picture l-r is Anthony, Laura, Steven (from Gung Haggis), Billie and Jose.

Before our final race, our team relaxes by doing a group circle massage.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy team raced for a medal in Rec E Championship, but while we came 1st in lane one last year for the Rec D Consolations, alas, we came 8th in 2013. While Geoff George of TSA had steered for us in our 3 earlier races, the TSA team had to race 22 min later in the D Final, so our guest steersperson was my friend Suzi Cloutier from Portland’s Wasabi Team Huge.  Suzi paddled in the Women’s A Final to come in 2nd place, then stayed on the dock to await our team. She took control of our boat, and gave us lots of encouragement, while drummer Deborah Gee give us the calls for our starts and power series.  Assistant Coach Debbie Poon gave Deborah prompts, while we both yelled out along with Deborah to give her more support.

Here are the final results for all teams in the Rec E Championship race. It was good to race against our friends O2P, Metro Van 44 Cheeks, and the Eh Team.  Congratulations to the medal winning team and especially O2P – nice to see them beat us this year, after we bet them twice in race consolation finals last year in Vancouver and Steveston.

• 8^th– 2:33.510  – Gung Haggis Fat Choy
• 7^th – 2:30.610 – KDBC LIFT WHAT’S DRAGGIN
• 6^th – 2:30.040 – Metro Vancouver 44 Cheeks
• 5^th – 2:29.070 – Kwantlen Sea-Eagles
• 4^th – 2:25.170 – O2P
• 3^rd – 2:23.640 –Red Eyes Paddling Club
• 2^nd – 2:20.940 – The EH Team
• 1^st – 2:19.170 – Concord Pacific Team Too

After we did a quick team debrief, we watched TSA Dragon Flyers won Gold in Rec D with a time of  2:15.990.  They had a good start, and pulled out ahead after their transition to race pace, from their start.  It was fun to watch them come down the course, while boat 2 was very close, and other boats weren’t too far away.  TSA had a strong finish and kept a steady surge to the finish line.

Gung Haggis Fat Choy team is in Race #70 lane 2 11:07 – We will advance to Rec E Consolation 2:36 or Rec E Final 2:47 or Rec D Consolation 2:58 or Rec D Final 3:09

The Irish & Scottish Studies International Conference is being hosted by SFU. June 20 to 23, at SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings.  It’s formal title is On The Edge: Transitions, Transgressions and Transformations in Irish and Scottish Studies.

My friend Dr. Leith Davies, director of the Centre of Scottish Studies is one of the organizers.

The first event Wed – June 19th – features my friend violinist Cam Wilson (Van Django, Yaletown String Quartet, various symphonies etc) plays during the 7-8pm reception preceding  opening night talk by Dr. McIlvanney on “Scottish Poetry in the South Seas”. This takes place in Segal Room 1400

On Thursday 3:30-5pm – There is a Community Panel that features local community members involved in Scottish and Irish cultures in BC

I, Todd Wong will speak about my Gung Haggis Fat Choy, and my Robbie Burns Chinese New Year related events.  Four other speakers are Rosemary Coupe (Scottish Dancing in BC), Maura de Freitas (History and aims of The Celtic Connection), Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruesaat (Irish song in Australia vs Irish song in Canada), Brendan Flynn) Irish Monument in Thornton Park, Vancouver).

Then on Saturday 7-10pm.  Gung Haggis Fat Choy style dinner at Floata Restaurant. $55 is regular price.

Yes… I will perform my “Rap to the Haggis”

Entertainment includes M’Girl – Aboriginal Women’s Ensemble

Followed by ceilidh – so we can bring our instruments….