What is dragon boating?

Dragon boating is often described as the ultimate team sport. A full crew consists of 20 paddlers working in unison to move the dragon boat (a traditional long boat) through the water, with a sweep steering the boat standing on the rear, and a drummer up the front keeping the timing. 

It's a fast (and sometimes splashy) sport that works out the entire body to ensure maximum power is extracted from each stroke. It gets the adrenalin flowing and is a fantastic way to de-stress at the end of the day. Similarly, there's often no better way to kick off the weekend than with a paddle on Blackwattle Bay Saturday mornings. 

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_boat:

A dragon boat (also dragonboat) is a human-powered boat (Paddled Water Craft) traditionally made of teak wood to various designs and sizes. It is one of a family of Traditional Long Boats found throughout Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands.

It is now used in the team paddling sport of dragon boat racing which originated in China over 2000 years ago. While competition has taken place annually for more than 20 centuries as part of folk ritual, it emerged in modern times as an international sport in Hong Kong in 1976. For competition events, dragon boats are generally rigged with decorative Chinese dragon heads and tails. At other times the decorative regalia is usually removed.