It’s a crisp fall morning, the sun is shimmering on the water at Jericho beach and you can hear the pump-up music blasting from UBC Recreation’s sound system. It’s my fourth year at UBC, but my first Day of the Longboat.
I’m with a team of people from all different faculties and friend groups. We’ve organized ourselves to wear the Thunderbird blue and gold and painted each other’s faces. It’s fitting with our team’s main goals as we signed up in the "Just for Fun" category, after all. Or so we thought.
After chatting with an opposing team, they seemed to think that if we’re racing this early that we must be in the competitive category. I could tell they were in the competitive category between the war chants and bulging muscles. I was wondering why they were here and not rowing for the Canadian national team.
So at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning, standing in line to run and jump into our longboat, our team realized we were competing against UBC’s die-hard athletes.
When we pushed off, nautical mayhem exploded between the boats. Luckily, our team managed to grind ahead of another longboat we collided with and set off ahead of the pack. Our team captain kept us rowing in time with a war-like “STROKE!” chant. Since it was so early, we glided across the glassy ocean without threat of capsizing.
As we set off for the final marker on our race, we gave a valiant effort to pass the overly-enthused athletes ahead of us. Even with power-strokes and cheers of encouragement, we couldn't quite gain on them before the finish.
As we approached the far beach to grab our baton, we almost got soaked. Our runner leapt out of the moving vessel as soon as he could reach land which sent the left side leaning dangerously close to sea level. Luckily, our squad managed to stabilize ourselves before we lost any more balance.
We did place second though. As our gong rang out along the shore, we felt a collective sense of accomplishment. We had a lot of fun and although some of us didn’t know one another very well, we were closer because of it.
I guess the whole point of an event like Day of the Longboat is to promote bonding between students through an activity that wouldn't be easily accessible to people outside of the school. I have to say, it was a really cool event and one I wouldn't have actively sought out on my own. The team component encouraged you to reach out and get to know people you may not have met otherwise and it guarantees an exciting, if unexpected, experience.
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