Smurfs and More in a Rainy Vogalonga

(as always, photos have been compressed for page display; click on them for full resolution)

It was the kind of rainy day that one normally would never choose to going rowing on--much less for a distance of 30 km--but some 7,000 rowers did just that, yesterday, for the 39th Vogalonga in the lagoon.

Just after all the rowers had passed by Sant' Elena a Venetian friend we were with recalled a Vogalonga of many years earlier: a morning of bad weather like this one, which only got worse as the hours passed. So that by the time the rowers, wet from rain and already tired from rowing on a rough lagoon, reached Burano and turned back toward Venice they were met by a brutal headwind that proved to be too much for a lot of them and the vigili del fuoco (fire department) had a very busy afternoon rescuing rowers who couldn't finish the course under their own power.

Fortunately, the weather did not get steadily worse yesterday, but ultimately became rather nice, and some of the entrants, tired though they most certainly must have been, may even have been able to finish their long row under a bit of sunshine, unaided.

As kayaks go, it's hard to imagine a bigger party than this one of 4...

and in a Venetian craft sixteen rowers are hard to top...

but both of the above crews seem almost anti-social compared to the 25 people in the above boat (including drummer)