You can’t keep the Hurley Y Knots down!

First of all, if you have never attended the Dragon Boat Festival on High Rock Lake organized by the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce, it’s now absolutely one of my favorite events! So many people, food trucks, drink trucks, great music and just the best atmosphere. Kudos to the organizers and their team and volunteers!

Our Y Knots is made of an adaptive group — Parkinson’s, stroke, RA and cancer survivors, paraplegics and families and friends. Friday night was our night to practice, and truthfully, I wasn’t sure if it was going to work. We have worked very hard on this and have been in the pool, but that’s very different from the real thing, especially the seating for our two wheelchair-bound people. But you know what? We did great! I was so excited how well everyone did and was stoked for our first heat on Saturday morning. During our training these past six months, we have worked on so many things — getting up and down from a chair, walking on uneven ground, stepping over things, rowing with indoor foam hockey sticks from a chair and our pool work out. We let the group feel how it is to wear a life vest and float in water. We even practiced on a two-seater blow up boat, and with lots of laughter, successfully accomplished that session! Throughout our journey, I kept reiterating to stay calm if the boat flips. If you end up under the boat, there is air and I would be there immediately to help them out (I’m still current on my lifeguarding), but, this almost never happens.

We were in the second heat on Saturday morning. We are backing up like pros, we are moving forward like pros, we are getting to the start line as pros. Then, we waited. We had to wait a long time for the other two boats, especially the third boat (made me chuckle because we were the adaptive boat and were there first). We are ready, we are good! The third boat is almost in place and a rescue boat comes flying by with the lights on. I am thinking, oh no, an emergency. I think the emergency was that the boat needed to be in a certain spot before the race started. Well, with that, a great wake was created. First some waves started to hit us at the side of the boat and within a few seconds waves were coming in the boat from the left and the right. And yes, our boat was lower in the water due to the weight of our team, all muscle! Before long, our boat capsized. And you know what? Our training did exactly what we needed to do! Everyone stayed calm, and two people were under the boat and were recovered immediately. All of our team members were helping each other and the other rescue boats were there in a split second and were helping everyone get on a boat safely. No one got hurt, except our feelings. We were prepared if the boat flipped due to our own actions, but not due to a big wake from a boat. We rebounded and were ready for our second heat! We successfully accomplished our goal, and the cheering of everyone when we finished made everyone’s day!

Lesson to be learned from this amazing group of people:

• Never give up
• Work hard and set goals
• When down, get back up and try again
• Use what you have, do not limit yourself because of your “limitations”
• Stick together, and have each other’s back
• And most of all, have fun doing it!

Ester H. Marsh is director of Healthy Living at the J.F. Hurley YMCA and so proud of Hurley’s Y Knots.