Dragonboat Races–Homosassa Springs

We had seen posters advertising the “Dragonboat Races” in Old Homosassa on Saturday, and since we weren’t sure what it was, we thought we’d drive down to the end of Fishbowl Drive and check it out.  We weren’t alone – there were lots of cars already parked on the grass when we arrived at 9:30am.

There was already a large crowd gathered at the edge of the pier.

We made our way through the crowd, and found a good location for watching the action from the pier.

This guy liked this spot, too!

The teams began to gather and after loading up the boats, they headed down to the starting line.

Each boat had 20 rowers, 1 guy to steer, and a person in the front to keep the rowers in rhythm.  Some teams were more coordinated than others.

Several teams were from the retirement community, The Villages, and others were from the Tampa area.  They travel to a different location every weekend during their season.  They need to have some pretty good upper-body strength to row like that.

We watched the 300M race, where most of the times were in the 01:38 minute range, but some were even faster.

There was a lot a friendly competition between the teams, and plenty of cheering from the spectators.

After the first round of races, the teams were matched up by times in the semi-final and final rounds, until there was an ultimate winner.  Those last couple of races were really close!

A group of pelicans even tried to get in on the action!

The final group of racers was a team from the Citrus County Sherriff's Department and another from the Citrus County Fire Department.  I think they each had some help from a few rowers from the regular teams.

The Sherriff's Department Team was the winner!

There were more races throughout the day, but we went back to the RV Park for lunch, and then spent the afternoon at the pool.

A great way to spend the day!