Bosom Buddies of Nova Scotia is a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team established in 1998. Our current membership is 68. Some of our members paddle on the beautiful Mahone Bay. However, the majority paddle and train on Lake Banook in the “City of Lakes,” Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Lake Banook has held world-class paddling competitions, with war canoes, K1s, and K2s, as well as local dragon boat festivals. Olympians have paddled and raced on its waters. On one side of the lake are many beautiful homes; on another a boardwalk; and one end of the lake feeds directly into Lake Micmac.

    Four paddling clubs grace her shores. One of these is a private men’s club known as the Owls Club. Bosom Buddies is fortunate to have access to the Owls Club; we moor our boats here and use their dock and the washrooms facilities on the lower level of the club.

    Bosom Buddies has a “baby” dragon boat, all wood, which holds 12 paddlers and is excellent for new members to learn the skill of dragon boat paddling. When the following event took place, Bosom Buddies also owned one full-size race dragon boat; we now have two full-size race boats and the baby is up for sale (please see our website at the address above for details).

    The following is a true story involving Lee “Our Athlete” Mac Donald, Janice “Strong-Armed Janice” Bowie, Natalie “Spinach Lady” Bourke, and me, Eileen “Shorty” Bowlby. We are all breast cancer survivors. We are fit and we are strong.

    It is not at all uncommon for Nova Scotia to receive extremely high gale-force winds from hurricanes roaring up the Atlantic Coast in the early springtime. Dartmouth is approximately two miles from the wide-open Atlantic Ocean. When these events took place, on May 25, 2005, we knew that the high winds and heavy rains would soon be attacking the coast. Weather forecasters had been issuing warnings since late the previous night.

    We, Lee and Shorty, had been busting our butts all day, racing around the city of Halifax, purchasing new team life jackets. In a phone conversation earlier that day with our good Buddy Janice, we had all expressed concern over the safety of the boats with the impending weather. The Bosom Buddies baby boat was moored approximately one-quarter mile off the shore from the Owls Club, in her usual spot, and the team’s race boat was tied to the dock, her normal place to bob in the water until the next practice.

    Janice, Lee, and Shorty all arrived at the Owls Club on Lake Banook at the same time, 4:00 p.m. It was very cold and very windy. No surprise after two weeks of stormy weather.

    “Geeez!” said Shorty, pointing to the boats. “Look at them!”

    Lee replied, “Gosh, I’ve never seen them this bad!”

    Janice said, “Well, you guys, it’s the baby I’m worried about!”

    The baby was so full of water that it sloshed over her middle, and only her stern and bow peeked above the water.

    “Okay, ladies, let’s start!” bellowed Janice.

    “But how?” asked Shorty. The race boat, our only way to get to the baby, was totally swamped at the dock.

    Shorty sat on the bow, figuring that if she started bailing at the bow, which was secured to the dock, she could make her way down the length of the boat to the stern, which was tied to a buoy a bit off the dock. But the boat began to sink.

    “Eeek! Help! Janice, I’m gonna go in this blasted lake,” roared Shorty, as Janice almost wet her pants laughing.

    Hearing Shorty’s screams, Lee raced across the lawn at a fast trot. Before she knew what was happening, Shorty was grabbed under the arms by Lee and Janice and hauled off the boat.

    Good ol’ Janice said, “Well, that isn’t gonna work. Hey, Lee, I think I’ve got a wetsuit in the trunk of my car.” She checked it out. “Nope, it’s at home.”

    Off she went, assuring us that she also would bring us hats, gloves, and dry clothes because it was now raining hard and we were quickly getting very cold in the wind. My, what a kind Buddy! Back she came with a laundry basket full of dry socks, mitts—you name it, she had it—plus a one-piece wetsuit that looked very much like a giant red condom. It was supposed to come with a jacket, but there was no jacket in this gear.

    Into the bathroom we headed, all three of us. Lee started a stripping act, right down to her skivvies, and said, “Is this the inside of the wetsuit, Janice? How does it zip? In the back, maybe?”

    “Yeah,” said Janice, but those of us who know Janice know that this was a less-than-reassuring reply.     Then she told Lee that she hadn’t been able to get into that wetsuit herself for “ahem . . . quite a few years” (and—sorry, Janice—but Shorty was thinking to herself that the last time you got into that suit, you were maybe 10 years old).

    But Lee is tough, so she started to squirm and wiggle into the suit. She was perched in a lawn chair, almost fully reclined, trying to haul the legs and crotch of the suit up. Shorty said, “Hey! Look at your crotch. It’s hanging way down!” and Janice almost wet her pants yet again as we collapsed in gales of laughter.

    “I don’t care,” said Lee, determined soul that she is, “as long as I can get into it!”

    Shorty figured that she might as well pick up a broom and clean up the mess the boys had left. She started sweeping away, acting like Carol Burnett, as Janice hollered, “Look at her sweeping! Ha, ha, ha!”

    Lee yelled over the noise, “Zip me up, Janice, but don’t you dare get my skin caught in the zipper.” Then she bellowed, “I’m choking to death!”

    Dropping her broom, Shorty hollered, “You’ve got the blasted thing on backwards!”

    “Holy s**t!” came from our athlete Lee. “I tell you—you should never listen to what Janice says.” (Shorty vowed to remember this, since she was the newest member in the group.)

    Then began the act of trying to strip the blasted thing off, with Lee almost dislocating her hip in the process. “The heck with sweeping,” thought Shorty, as she got into the action of assisting strong-armed Janice to get Lee out of the red condom suit.

    “Okay, ladies, let’s try her again,” said Lee, who noticed that the suit was smelly and moldy. Only then did Janice tell us that it had been stored under her basement steps for eons. Now that it was right-side out, they saw that the red condom was actually a brown one with red lining. Our athlete Lee popped into the suit like bingo—and she looked like a million bucks. Talk about Slim Jim! What a figure!

    “Man alive, am I jealous!” thought Shorty.

    The Three Musketeers headed across the lawn toward the swamped race boat. Splash! Into the water went our Buddy Lee. Shorty hollered, “Do the breast stroke!”

    Mighty Janice held the mooring chain as Lee unlocked the boat from the buoy, up to her neck in cold water. Shorty stood in awe of these wonderful Buddies of hers. She might also have been thinking that they were crazier than a bag of hammers, but she loved them just the same.

    “Okay, ladies, let’s push her off the dock,” hollered Lee. They started to bail her out, but to no avail. With the heavy rains and the extremely high winds, the water was pouring in as fast as they could bail.

    A light bulb came on in Shorty’s head. Since this happens only once in a blue moon, you sure want to pay attention to her when it does. “Can I suggest something? Why not bring her around to the right, close to the little beach area?”

    “Smart idea, Shorty!” Lee said.

    “Yeah,” thought Shorty. “Maybe I’ve earned some Brownie points with these dudes!”

    There was some kind of function going on in the Owls Club that day and the men inside were merrily entertained by our antics. One generous fellow came down to the dock, wanting to assist. We took his suggestions very willingly and without rebuttal. Then he gave Janice a bite of something to eat. “Hey,” thought Lee and Shorty, “there are two other starving women here too, you know.” But we kept bailing and before we knew it, the race boat was empty.

    By this time, Lee was turning wonderful shades of purple, so she headed off for some dry clothes, hollering that she needed help to get out of the brown condom before she cut off all her circulation. Janice ran up to help while Shorty babysat the race boat, watching that it didn’t crash onto the rocks, as a real good wind was blowing up and the water was very rough. 

    When they got back, Janice issued a command. “Okay, get your life jackets on, girls! Grab your paddles!”

    We must have looked liked something out of a comic strip, three women in a race boat, paddling through very rough water to the swamped baby boat a quarter mile offshore. The weather, she was blowing up a gale. But sure enough out we went to save our baby.

    “Are you in stroke, Janice?” hollered Lee.

    Ol’ grey-haired Shorty was trying to behave herself, although it’s usually a difficult thing for her to do. She yelled above the wind, “I see the finish line! Now what?”

    “Start bailing the baby boat! You gotta bail fast!” bellowed Janice as the rain lashed around them.

    “But it isn’t working, Janice!” said Lee. “She keeps filling up with water.”

    Bingo! Shorty thought she had, ahem, another brilliant idea, but in hindsight, two brilliant ideas within an hour and a half was just too much to expect. She told Lee to wave a white bailing bucket at a rescue boat that was alongside a group of kayaks further out on the lake. But, rats, it didn’t work. In that rough water, the rescue boat was concentrating on the kayakers, as it should have been.

    Shorty asked, “Do you think we can haul her in ourselves?”

    “Geez,” said Lee. “She’s awfully heavy full of water. Wanna try?”

    All three exclaimed, “Why not?”  

    With the rain pouring down and the wind roaring around them, good ol’ Janice told Shorty to tie the race boat onto the buoy while she tied the baby onto the race boat’s stern so they could tow it.

    “Okay, let’s go!” Janice said, once she had untied the baby boat from the buoy.

    “Gads! This feels like we’re pulling a million buckets!” complained Shorty as they paddled.

    “I know!” agreed Lee. “How come we’re not moving?”

    Oops! Shorty had forgotten to untie the race boat from the buoy after Janice tied on the baby. Confession is good for the soul.

    “Don’t tell anyone,” cried Shorty. “I just lost all my Brownie points!”

    With the race boat finally free of the buoy, they cheered, “Yeah, here she comes!”    “We’re moving her in, but where are we going?” asked Lee as she stroked.

    “Head for shore, any shore!” Janice’s commanding voice boomed over the raging storm.

    As we looked up, who should we see waving a big pink (of course) bucket from the Owls Club dock but our good Buddy Natalie? She came to the rescue after finding a message from Janice on her home phone. And were the Three Musketeers happy to see her! Before we knew it, she was crashing through someone’s shrubbery, pink bucket flying, to meet us at the shore. But there was no time for hugs. The four of us were on a mission: to get the baby bailed out.

    Shorty tied the baby to someone’s tree on the shoreline. Nat must have eaten a full can of spinach before she hit the deck with us, because—let me tell you!—she was firing water out of the baby boat like sixty.     Lee entertained us by holding the hose part of the snorkel pump between her legs so that the water appeared to be flying out of her butt with great gusto. Apparently now that she had achieved her freedom after being trapped in the brown condom, she was really feeling like a free woman! 

    Next on the agenda was to get both boats back to the Owls Club beach area. By this time all four of us were good and wet, the storm was really going full force, and the water was extremely rough. Lee grabbed hold of the rope, untied the baby boat from the tree, and walked both boats back to the Owls Club through the shallow water, while Natalie and Shorty paddled and Janice steered.

    We cheered, “Yeah, we’re home!” 

    “Okay, ladies, let’s haul them up on the beach!” yelled Natalie the Spinach Lady. It was hard but none of us were ones to give in. On Natalie’s command—“One, two, three”—we hauled and hauled the race boat until finally her last command was “One, two, and a half.”

    “Tie her to the Owls Club!” hollered Shorty.

    As Lee took care of protecting the baby with bumpers and securing ropes, Natalie, still full of spinach, said, “Okay, now let’s do the baby! Pull her up on shore.” Janice agreed.

    Were we crazy or what? Grunt, pull, push—we hauled to the commands of Spinach Lady Natalie. “There we go! She’s up and she won’t be going anywhere,” said Nat.

    I expect that by this time we had been videoed by the men in the Owls Club for future entertainment.

    Shorty said simply, “I gotta get changed.” She was freezing cold; her feet were like blocks of ice and she was wet right up to her crotch. But Lee was wet straight up to her neck. Natalie looked like she was wearing 10 wet diapers. And Janice had blown the entire rear end right out of her yellow rain suit.

    As we finally left at 7:00 p.m., our last comment was “I can’t believe we did that. Can you?” Then home we all went: Janice for a beer; Lee for a long, hot shower; Natalie for a hot shower and a glass of good wine; and Shorty for a deep, hot, hot bath.

    I would not have missed this for the world, Buddies! You gave me some hilarious laughter, and I adore you all!    

    Hugs, loves, and paddles up from Shorty.