Kai Ikaika Paddler

Unfortunately we didn't have anyone to take pictures this year (no one sat out!) so we have no racing photos! However, here are some post race photos. We got 1st place, Gorging Dragons got 2nd. Our "Go Kai Ikaika" Gorging girl blow up doll named Gigi was a huge sucess. Big thanks to our FCRCC Canadian friends for helping us fill the boat and to Gorging for the great party!!! I'll be seeing a few of the Canadians in Australia for IDBF worlds next month - will put my pics on my personal blog at www.travelblog.org/bloggers/blegs ET... read more

YAY! We won the Victoria DB festival. There were 100 teams, but our main competition was Gorging Dragons from Victoria. It was really fun. More pics on www.kaiikaika.org ! ... read more

Saturday was another big day of racing. We ended up 10th in the 500m race, which was of course not the same as first, but whatever. We had a good race and felt good about it. The 2000m race was scheduled originally for Thursday, but they moved it to Sunday night at the last minute and a few members of our team were flying out on Sunday morning, so they let us race with the men on Saturday. We weren't expecting much but we ended up getting EIGTH out of all the mens crews!! It was awesome. We had a great race. That was definately the highlight of our weekend. will add more pics soon... ... read more

First day of racing results: We got 9th in the 200meter. Not exactly what we were hoping for but we did everything we could do and raced our race. Our friends to the north, False Creek of Vancouver BC WON the 200m, which was very exciting. The times were all within 1-2 seconds, so the races were really close. The teams that finished ahead of us were mostly Canadian plus a few German and Australian. The good news is that we beat the other US teams here - Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, and Iowa . Tomorrow we will race the 500m and the 2000m races. We clearly have the heaviest team here so we are hoping our momentum moves us to the finish really fast in those races! More tomorrow.. ... read more

Toronto is cool! Walking around the city almost makes us forget we are here to RACE. Almost, but not quite. We practiced on Wednesday and today for about an hour. The race course and venue are really nice. They built the course just this year for this race. It's a 500m course and has 5 lanes. We saw teams from China, Australia, Germany and Canada. The Chinese men's team paddles with a rate TWICE as high as ours! Other than practice, we have been eating really good food and doing general sightseeing around the City. The opening ceremonies are tonight and our first race is tomorrow!! YAY. FINALLY. ... read more