London

The Silvermasters came in 10th out of 40 teams in the London dragonboat festival today. It didn't rain as much as it did in St. Catharines, but it still rained and drizzled all day. I guess when you're participating in a water sport, you can't complain when you get wet from rain :) Fortunately, it wasn't too cold, and we had our fleeces and rain gear. Another thing of note was that there was a blue-green algae bloom (aka "pond scum") in the lake. The lake was actually closed for swimming, which makes you wonder how safe it was to get drenched in it. It also smelled something awful, and made anything white turn green.

Now, for the lists.... here are things I liked about the festival:

• They were on time almost all day.
• They had the results from each race posted very quickly.
• The awards ceremony was quite short. Last year, it dragged on for about an hour and a half, so this ceremony was a pleasant surprise.
• There was shelter from the rain.
• There were flush toilets. When all of them became clogged in the ladies room (apparently some people have trouble flushing slow toilets), they fixed them quite quickly.

And here are the things I didn't like:

• There were no volunteers directing traffic and parking. As a result, parking was somewhat chaotic.
• One of the volunteers on the docks was very, very rude to our caller (the person at the front of the boat behind the drum). That volunteer wasn't there afterwards, though, so I guess that's ok.
  
• They didn't disqualify the team that didn't have enough women. The rules stated that each team requires at least 8 women, and this team only had 4. Worse, they won a division and received their prize.
• There were no speakers in the shelter, so we couldn't hear what was going on while we were in there. Fortunately, there wsn't all that much happening at that time.
  
• There were portalets on the way to the docks, and they were never emptied or replenished.
• There were no recycling facilities.

Overall, the festival was good. If the water didn't have the algae bloom, it would have been fantastic paddling. I'd definitely go back to this festival, and I'd recommend it to others.