Well I'm back from Taiwan. I'm still working on a photo album. I've found that I have only a few days to do the album or it doesn't get done. Basically life just continues to happen and there are more adventures and more to blog about. I hope I have time to write a real blog account of the trip, but I doubt it. There was just so much going on. It seemed like our time was busy from the minute I got off the plane in Taipei.

Going into the trip I knew only a few people. I knew Bill Freed, who introduced me to dragon boating from the Kent Island Outrigger Canoe club and ... a few people I had met at practices. But it was mostly new faces. Waiting in line for passport inspection I met two of my team members, Rachel who would be my roommate for the entire trip, and John who joined DC Dragons from Philadelphia. Rachel was a great roommate, quiet and polite with occasional bursts of humor. One night in Tainan she spent the evening chasing down a cockroach on steriods in our room in between screaming and jumping to avoid the flying insect. I would have helped but I was exhausted and lying comatose on the bed.

So I won't spoil the blog about Taiwan ... but I will say that we won. DC Dragons placed first in the "International Friends" Division. But even though the race was the purpose of the trip and the culmination of our week it wasn't the only reason we went. As David explained to the Taiwanese press, which gave us great coverage, it was about providing a cultural exchange between Taiwan and the US. To read a press report about our visit, click here.

So I got back late Wednesday night and I was at work early Thursday morning. I was starting to feel like wonder woman ... flying around the world for the dragon boat races, flying back, never stopping to rest properly and rushing right back to work and out to kayak. Thursday night I picked up the now finished SOF from Dave's house and Friday night I was out on Triadelphia Reservoir. The excitement from the trip was still lingering in my mind and now I was excited about the new kayak. I was barely sleeping at night.

I also met a new paddling partner on the trip and we had made plans to kayak that weekend. So Saturday Gordon, resting in the photo above, and I kayaked down the Potomac from Alexandria South to Pohick Bay Park where the NCA outrigger club was hosting an outrigger race. Gordon took my Purple Mirage and I took the surfski. I was hoping to smoke him in the surfski but the Potomac was covered in hydrilla so deep and thick that it wrapped around my rudder to the point where I could barely inch out 3.5 mph ... in a surfski! While I was struggling with the hydrilla Gordon was cruising along smoothly in the Mirage. The Mirage has a rudder but it's sleek and built into the shape of the kayak ... in other words it doesn't suck in hydrilla like the surfski. Singularly focused on paddling Gordon basically cruised a mile ahead while I struggled in the hydrilla. When I finally caught up with him I gave him a little lecture on paddling partner etiquette and we kept pace together for the remainder of the paddle.

By Sunday night the wonder woman feeling was starting to wear off. Basically I hit the wall ... big time. I was so exhausted I skipped outrigger practice tonight. Wednesday night I'm taking the SOF to Pier 7 and Shannon will be filming the "Maiden Voyage". Tonight I adjusted the foot bar and made sure she could fit in it as well. Since she's the greenland rolling queen I thought I'd have her do the rolling test and I'd do the paddling test.

-Susanita