Meaghan Howard

“In the summer, I’m typically the pacer, or ichiban. Because our races have turns, that seat is a bit stressful, as I have to also call the turns, plus do the rate changes. It’s difficult, but it can also be fun (the view is nice, too; out here, left-seat one and right-seat five typically sit alone on the bench).

I started dragon boat when I moved to Okinawa; I’d always wanted to do crew, but Alaska (where I’m from) isn’t exactly a rowing hotspot. When researching my new home, I saw dragon boat and knew right away I had to try it. It was like crew (I thought at the time), but even better because the boats were shaped like dragons!

My favorite memory is from my first summer season; our team was invited out to a tiny, ferry-access only island for a race. The island, Tsuken, is also called Carrot Island as that’s what they grow. The race was very small, with no women’s division. As we were loading the boat, one of the other boats was a group of young men, all in street/gym clothes and not very organized-looking. They looked over at us (we were the first women’s team to compete there) and were snickering about racing girls. I think most of us were thinking the same thing: this was not going to go the way those boys thought.

We pulled out to an early lead, and the boys panicked. Every time we pulled ahead (a 350m 2-turn course), they would look over, panic and shout “oh my God!” (in English), and furiously push ahead. In the end, they narrowly won, but the whole crowd was rooting for our boat; it was singlehandedly the most fun I’ve ever had in a race. We then swam at the white sand beach near the port all afternoon, and went home sunburned on the last ferry.

Tsuken is probably the least competitive race on our schedule, but that experience is what solidified my love of dragon boat, Okinawa, and my team. Like Ice Cube said, “it was a good day.”

[Meaghan Howard (USA & Okinawa, Japan), paddler and coach on US Navy and Summer Dragons.]

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