Tampa Bay Dragon Boat Races

Our 1989-1990 foreign exchange student, Christiane Schoeller, is visiting from Germany along with her mother, Margret, and her four year old daughter, Isabella. Yesterday we all went downtown to see the dragon boat races.  Michael's friend Dahlia was the drummer for one of the boats.

I had no idea what a big deal this was going to be.  It was nice to see hoards of people in downtown Tampa on a weekend.  The races took place in Garrison Channel between the two bridges connecting Harbour Island to Channelside.

Tampa's Riverwalk passes through here.  There is a great aerial view at 00:20 in the video on the Riverwalk web site:

Christiane, on the Riverwalk just past the Convention Center.  Michael is standing by the fence behind her.  Margret and Isabella are sitting.

Sherry,  Margret,  Christiane, and Isabella, on the Riverwalk.

A dragon boat race!  We are looking across the channel from the Marriott.  Harbour Island condos in the background.

There was a lot going on besides the races.  Here is a karate demonstration.

 Spectators at the karate demonstration.

Dragon boat crews:

 Pink Dragon Ladies

Canadian Red Heat

 Team Blue

 I had to cover my eyes here.

Invasive Species

More photos in a local News Story.  But it's "Garrison Channel", not "Harrison Channel" as cited in the caption under the video.  (Makes you wonder about our local newspaper.)

Lettuce Lake Park

Our 1989-1990 foreign exchange student, Christiane Schoeller, is visiting from Germany along with her mother, Margret,  and her four year old daughter, Isabella. On Thursday of last week I took the three of them to Tampa's  Lettuce Lake Park for a small taste of the real Florida.

The Hillsborough River runs through Lettuce Lake Park, and widens slightly to form Lettuce Lake.

We rented a canoe and paddled around the area shown in the map above.

Cypress tree beside the river at the canoe launch area.

Isabella with her grandmother at the launch area.

A friendly park ranger helped us launch the canoe.

"Tini" in the canoe. Margret is in front of her.

Isabella

The observation tower, seen here, is reachable on foot by a boardwalk.

We saw a lot of wildlife on the river.

After an hour or so of canoeing, we walked the boardwalk.

"Tini" on the boardwalk

Isabella

At the base of the observation tower.

An interesting story about a rare case of an invasive species benefiting a native species.

Note the apple-size snail shell at the center of this picture.  The ground below the boardwalk is littered with shells like this.

At the top level of the observation tower.

Another visitor snapped this picture of the three of us.