[ed. Local paddlers Matt Kelly and Daryl Remmler competed in the Man Dragon Run which took place on November 22, 2008 at Hong Kong. Here is message from Matt at the finish of the race.]
At finish of dragon run. Challenging first 45 min out to 9 pin island where Daryl and I paddled out together. Moderate swell and big chop. Turning around island like racoon you are greeted by official 3-4 metre swell. Weird at first, but after a while you can catch the odd one in between the monsters. Daryl made some ground there but was still fairly close. Both using gps waypoint to keep on line in middle of channel. At about 90 min Daryl dissapeared and I was all alone and tired in a wide open channel with flamed wrists, big swell, the odd good surf wave to catch. 20 min later you turn in to shore at the beep of the gps and try to make a few spots as racers come together. A few sketchy turns around some buoys and I had to catch and just beat a solo outrigger at the line by a hair. Outrigger scene here is big. Daryl was about 6 min ahead of me (or 1/4 beer which was within my goal). Just glad to finish!!! Top 10 had lots of familiar names. Mocke won handily I hear. Chalupski 4th (go to surfski.info for results). Approximately 3 women kicked our asses…plus a lot of other dudes. A very well run race with excellent safety (several time cutoffs at first 2 islands). I would have to say that this is the first real “surfski” race I have been in when you see what conditions a surfski is really designed for. Results and prizes going down now. Oh yeah, plenty of food and beeer here too!!! It’s like hawaii here. Nice beaches. Did I mention all the beer we have been drinking?
Okay, we just met the 2nd place woman. She weighs 110 lbs!!!!!!! Michelle Eder. Very nice! Number one is Michelle Eray. Not sure how much she weighs as I never saw her, but I hope she is as big as Chris D. and has won an Olympics or something like that!!!
Cheers Matt
[ed. So does this mean we should be spending less time in the gym and more time in our surfskis?]
