My Day of the Longboat team!
Well, my Saturday involved a group of my floor mates and I being soaking wet, a lot of screaming, singing, and an unexpected seal sighting! How was your weekend? This past Saturday I was lucky enough to compete in the UBC Rec’s Day of the Longboat. The all-day event is a series of heats between different longboat teams. All different types of people in teams went out to compete that day – sorority sisters, frat brothers, residence house/floors, some co-ed teams, university clubs/faculties, and many others! Some people adorned hilarious costumes in order to win the competition of best dressed team.
My team wore our house color, green, and chanted our house cheers while we were out on the water in order to represent! The day was really fun, but most of my team, me included, has never paddled a long boat before so it was quite the experience. The beginning of the race commences with one of our team members running from the beach to push our boat off in to the water. Needless to say it was a rough start! Our boat was sardined in between multiple other boats so it was difficult to paddle our boat off the beach, but we eventually got moving. Unfortunately, we ran in to another obstacle after we got going – our team managed to miss the first buoy so we had to take some time to back track and go around it. However, this didn’t slow our team down. We sang lots of house cheers to boost our morals and keep pace with each stroke in the water. We even through in “Row Row Your Boat” just for laughs. After we managed to gain some speed again it was back to the beach to grab our group’s baton. As we were making our way we ran in to a slippery supporter – a seal! Naturally, being in a boat full of girls, we all took time to “Ooh!” and “Aww!” before moving on.
After hitting the beach, baton in hand, we were advancing yet again to the final leg of the race. It was full throttle now – everyone giving their all. Much to my team and I’s surprise we managed to claim the title of 4th place, not too bad for all of the obstacles we had to navigate around. Even more surprising, we advanced to the final round! However, my team had to opt out for various reasons, but the one experience was more than enough for me to recommend it for anyone else. Sore arm muscles aside, it’s a great day filled with lots of fun, good food, great music, and laughs with friends. Oh, and a hot tub – can’t forget that!
🙂