Ravenna, Italy, Sept. 7

Ravenna! Famous for its UNESCO world heritage status.  Mosaics and frescos draw your eyes to ceilings, walls and floors. Not restricted to flat and domed surfaces mosaics also make up statues and monuments and of course, all sorts of tourist items.

We headed in on the local bus in between practice and race days. We spent the morning with Anne and Lubbert getting our bearings.  Of course, half of our team had the same idea and we ran into a few throughout the day.

Our first stop was by fluke as we explored the narrow cobblestone streets, a Mosaic studio.  The artists allowed us in and we were able to watch and take photos of them at work.  A wonderful intro to mosaics before we had even seen any!  We were able to speak to a Taiwanese student who was learning the art.

Anne V in studio window

Copy of famous mosaic

Photo

mosaic of photo!

Lubert and Richard, Mini mosaics

We parted ways at the Bascilica di St. Apollinare Nuovo, on the UNESCO World Heritage List.  We were on our way to a geocache.  On the next corner was a ruined building, the Palazzo di Teodorico.  We went inside and up the spiral staircase into a room filled with partial mosaics that had been recovered from some other buildings. Then on to the geocache located next to the Santa Maria di Porto Church and in front of the Museum of Art.  Even the flower planters were mosaics.  We quickly found the magnetic geocache near the horse statue in front.  Our first in Italy.

Bascilica di St. Apollinare Nuovo

Bascilica di St. Apollinare Nuovo

Bascilica di St. Apollinare Nuovo

Palazzo di Teodorico

Palazzo di Teodorico

Palazzo di Teodorico

Mosaic planter in front of Santa Maria di Porto Church, Museum of Art

Richard taking photo of horse

Geocache on back of sign

We continued down Via Roma to Porto Nuava and headed west along the inside of the old wall to the Tamo, a museum of the history of mosaics in the San Nicolo complex. Quite spectacular!  Many casts of mosaics from the Vatican made in the 1930s.  These duplicates show the condition of the originals back then. The originals fade with time.  There were also modern mosaics of some modern art.    Back in the pedestrian only area we met up with John and Mo and Ray.  We all went into the  Cripta Rasponi in the Palazzo Della Provincia, the second of 3 on our voucher.  Of course, we ran into teammates!

The highlight of the day was the Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra, Judit's recommendation.  Awesome! Entering through St. Euphemia church we descended 3 metres to an underground room decorated with magnificant mosaics dating from the 5 to 6th centuries.  On display were Byzantine mosaics from a 14-room palace only discovered in 1993. Check out this link for the specatular images as no photos were allowed.  Our favourite mosaic was the Dance of the Geniuses!

Friday evening is market time in Ravenna and the Piazza's were crowded with vendors and shoppers.

500 m Race Day, Sept. 6

Lots of excitement and anticipation at breakfast as we all prepared mentally for our last day of races, the 500m races.  We've been lucky with the starting times of our races, mid afternoon, so another respectable 11:00 am departure from our hotel.  Races 232, 243 and 253 starting at 2:15pm and finishing at 5:10pm doesn't give us much recovery time but we are pumped for the challenge.  Our start kept us in the race but we lost some ground in the middle of the race ending up in 5th place with a time of 2:21:549 just 0.661 out of 3rd spot!

To the start.

Re-gouping and pumping each other up on the way to marshalling was calming.  Another good start (no, a great start) we settled into our race.  Ben took out the power 10's in an attempt to keep us going long and strong in the middle of the race.  It seemed to work and we had lots left for the finish.  But, once again, our rivals inched us out of 3rd spot by 2/3 of a boat.  We still had a good time of 2:23.376 s.  Once again, we need a fantastic 3rd race to stay in the medal hunt.

A Circle of the Best 

And that we did!  Although slightly slower than races 1 & 2, race 3 was the best!  We ended up 4th, just 0.4 s off of 3rd place.  Way to go Titanium.  A great finish and just 2.5 seconds over 3 races out of the bronze medal position.  Such a team.  I am so proud to be part of it.

Oh, what a feeling!

Ocean Celebration, Lido Adriana

Fort Langley did get a taste of the podium.  Our Abreast with FORT-itude finished 3rd in 500 m races added another Bronze medal to their collection.  Way to go, FORT-itude.  You make us proud.

FORT-titude near finish

FORT-itude wins Bronze

200 m Races, Sept. 5, so close but yet so far!

After a day off spent touring Ravenna it was off to the races again!  This day was our best chance at a medal, the 200m race, our specialty!  3 races today - 76, 87 and 97.  Race 76 was at a respectable time of 2:40pm followed by 87 at 3:30pm and 97 at 4:50pm.  With much better conditions today, Judit lined us up quickly backing into the start platform where our tail was held by the start crew.  We got off to a good start and were neck in neck with the other Canadian teams, FCRC, Pickering, Gorging Dragons and Quinte Heat and 2 American teams, Dragon Max (our host team from San Francisco) and a team from Vermont, Dragonheart.  Wow, 200 m is fast.  The race was over before we knew it.  We ended up 3rd with a time of 56.489 s, less than 1 s off of 2nd place.  A great first race and our personal best so far.

Marshalling for race 87 was called as soon as we got back so off to the start line once again. Coach Ben impressed on us the need to have a better time in race 2 as our final standing would be the average of our 3 races.  Another great start but somehow we faltered in the finish and ended up 4th with a time of 56.819 just 1 second off of 3rd place.  One more race to go and it would have to be our best in order to be on the podium.

Race 97 proved to be our best, with a time of 55.50 s and a 3rd place finish.  Unfortunately, our average was 0.5 s more than Quinte Heat bumping us to 4th place.  The entire team felt great as we had left nothing in the boat.  We know the feeling now and need to sustain it through the 500 m races tomorrow.

200 m results 

(Richard took video so no photos!)

Race Days

Well, who knew blogging would be so onerous!  Our internet is intermittent at best so uploading photos is difficult.  So we'll fill you in on the last few days!
We did get one practice in on September 2 in slightly better conditions than the day before.  Water poured in at every wave and we were buried up to our elbows and higher!  Bringing our own bailers and sponges was a necessity!  Some teams do not have them and scrambling at the dock for one is very difficult.  Judit, our steers person, did an excellent job taking us through some practice turns (this is where the swamping occurred the day before as the waves are broadside) and getting comments from the grandstand on their quality!  Way to go, Judit!

September 3rd was our first day of racing, the 2000m!  What a way to start.  We watched a few races before ours and again the wind and waves made for a challenging start.  The marshals and the race starters were quite impatient even though all boats tried to overcome the wind that pushed us against the shore into the weeds.  Oh, to have our Alcan official crew including Kim, our fantastic starter (BTW - Kim is on site but was working the loading dock!).  After some sexist comments to all 7 boats of 60+ women we were underway.  Leaving in first position seemed great but we never had anyone to chase which may have affected our time.  At any rate, we lead the race until the last leg when low and behold, who came up on our stern?  False Creek Senior C Women!  We ended up 5th in that race with a time of 11:26.  Canada took the top 5 positions!  Way to go Canada!  It's like curling, so difficult for Canadian teams to get out of their country!

Out to the start

 struggling for position at start

Oops!  Dragon Max looses their head

 Fast & Furious around turn 2

Results 2000m - 5th place

Stay tuned for the 200m and the 500m races play down.

Ravenna Dragon Boat Race Course Practice Day

Let's jump ahead a couple of days.  We'll return to Iceland in a later post.  Today was our first day at the race course for our only chance to practice in the Champion boats (new to us).  Of course, this is the purpose of our Excellent European Vacation, for Karen to compete in the Club Crew Dragon Boat World Championships! Click here for more details:  World Championships
 What a day!  A 6:30 wake-up call, breakfast and the team on the bus at 7:30am!  Richard stayed at the resort with the other supporters.  Good thing as it got worse as the morning progressed.  The storm of last night (lots of spectacular lightning and thunder, wind and rain) continues even now.

Our younger sister team, Fast and Furious (50+) were on the water first.  The race officials were scrambling to get practices going after the disastrous night.  Much of the volunteer work that had been done on Sunday (signage, tent assembly, etc.) had to be redone so boats were not in the water for the scheduled practice sessions.  F & F had to put their own 12.4 m long, 250 kg boat in the water.  After fighting with the shoreline vegetation they were on their way. We watched them head out to the race course then went off to our own practice and trial sitting in the boat.

 Fast and Furious 

Coach Ben has us try out the Champion boats.  Great foot rests!

False Creek raises the Canadian Flag

Then things fell apart weather wise.  During our warmup a few returning boats ran into trouble.  Champion boats aren't quite as stable as the BUKs we are used to.  2 boats got broad-sided by waves and tipped over, filled with water and swamped!  2 other steers people fell off their boats!  All got back to shore safely and the race officials called off the remaining practice sessions.  We didn't get our chance on the water which may have been a good thing. Even the portashowers weren't safe!  We've got an 11 am practice scheduled for tomorrow, the day of the opening ceremonies.

 5 ways to wear a Canadian Buff!

And of course, the best way to wear a Canadian buff, the Italian way!

 The best way to keep your boats in a row

Even the porta-showers fell to the wind

We left the site to the lone windsurfer.