Last weekend we went to see the Dragon Boat Race in Yomitan, a small village on the west coast of Okinawa. Dragon boat racing is an Okinawan tradition, going way back to the Ryukyuu kingdom roughly 600 years ago. You can read about it here if you’d like.
There were many teams and they had a tournament that lasted all day. Typically each city will put together its own team, or multiple teams and then they race to see which team gets to represent them at the all-Okinawa races. There are various tournaments and competitions throughout the season.
Sometimes, there are opportunities for foreigners to sign up to race. After a while, there can even be foreigners that run the boats (the person with the bell and the hammer setting the tempo). Many people I know participate in these races and they have a great time!
Some people were taking on quite a bit of water, and it looked like maybe they should start bailing out that water! Luckily, no one went in. On disembarking however, everyone ended up in the ocean, as you can see in the photo above. We took our shoes off and waded in the water a bit, but no one fell in (except for the 4-year-old that was with us, haha).
Thanks for reading!