Submitted by Bette Ann Baker.
The Los Angeles Pink Dragons are celebrating our 21st year of paddling out of Mother’s Beach in Long Beach, California.
It is hard to out-do last year’s IBCPC festival in New Zealand, but we’re trying to keep it going! We thoroughly enjoyed Lake Karapiro and meeting so many of you; it was certainly a highlight for us.
This year will be more subtle; but we’ve already had a couple of pre-season events.
In February 2024 we were honored by California State Long Beach Women’s basketball team during their half time “play-4-Kay” event showcasing Breast Cancer thrivers and survivors.
On a personal note, we welcomed our first Baby Pink Dragon in 2023, celebrating the happy family with a fun baby shower and enjoying the rarity of the occasion for any BCS team. The little one has already attended his first dragon boat race!
Our outreach and Publicity Committee recently spoke at the Local Kiwanis Club and have other speaking engagements lined up to spread the word about our team.
In April we kicked off the season at our club’s spring “warm-up” festival. The races are mixed/coed, so our all-female BCS team doesn’t tend to be very competitive (but we came close!). Four new paddlers experience their first race, and another steered her first, so it was a successful day for all.
In June, we’re excited to head to Buffalo for the Niagara festival. We hear it is a fun event and look forward to sightseeing and meeting some of our east coast teams.
We’ll fill out the year by attending our own Long Beach Festival in July, Los Angeles County (Santa Fe Dam) and Las Vegas in Oct.
That is about all for now. Hope to see many of you this year and at the 2026 IBCPC Festival in Aix-les-Bains, France!
