Twenty Years of Breaking Barriers, Building Community, and Redefining What’s Possible
“Paddlers, are you ready? Attention please.”
Every dragon boat paddler knows these words. They signal the moment just before the horn sounds and the race begins.
This past weekend at the Vessi 500 at Dragon Zone in Vancouver, those familiar words carried a deeper meaning. The event marked both the start of National AccessAbility Week and my twentieth year in dragon boat racing.
As I warmed up with my teammates from Vision Impossible—a BC Blind Sports team of blind, low vision, deafblind, and sighted volunteer paddlers—a teammate tapped my shoulder. They thanked me for sharing my story in the documentary We Can’t See You Beating Us, which follows the origins of Eye of the Dragon, the team where my journey began.
Their words took me back to where it all started.
Where It Began: A New Way to Understand Movement
I joined Eye of the Dragon in 2006, a team born from CNIB’s 75th Anniversary celebrations in the mid 1990s. The idea was bold: place blind paddlers in dragon boats and see what was possible.
Many assumed blind athletes couldn’t paddle effectively because they couldn’t see the paddlers in front of them. In one sense, that was true. But the assumption missed something essential: vision is only one way to understand movement.
The belief behind Eye of the Dragon was simple and revolutionary:
Blind paddlers could learn to paddle by feeling the boat—the rise and fall of the hull, the rhythm of the crew, the pulse of the water.
What began as an accommodation became an innovation.
Our team cheer—“We can’t see you beating us” started as a joke. But as we improved, it became a statement of fact.
Other teams took notice. Some even adopted blindfolded drills to improve timing and feel. What started as an experiment became a movement
A Sport That Changed My Life
I had no idea how profoundly that first season would shape my life.
Dragon boating introduced me to lifelong friendships. It led me to my life partner. Today, we’re raising two teenagers and this year, one of them joined the team as a sighted paddler.
More importantly, dragon boating taught me something I desperately needed to learn: Vision loss had changed my life, but it had not diminished my potential.
Like many people with disabilities, I had unknowingly built walls around what I believed was possible. Dragon boating helped tear those walls down. It showed me that success doesn’t require doing things the same way as everyone else—only that we pursue the same goals with determination, teamwork, and a different way of perceiving the world.
A World Championship Moment
In 2014, Eye of the Dragon became the first World Champion team in the adaptive paddling division at the IDBF Club Crew World Championships in Ravenna, Italy winning both the 500 metre and 2,000 metre races.
Those victories mattered. But they weren’t the most important outcome
The real victory was proving that accessibility is not about lowering expectations. It’s about removing barriers so people can contribute, compete, and participate fully.
What Accessibility Really Means
National AccessAbility Week reminds us that accessibility is not just ramps, policies, or technology. It’s about creating the conditions that allow people to discover what’s possible when barriers are removed.
On Saturday, when my teammate thanked me, they were really thanking everyone who helped build Eye of the Dragon—coaches, steerspersons, volunteers, organizers, families, and athletes who believed participation should never be limited by assumptions. And now, my teammate is part of that story too, just as the BC Blind Sport dragon boat teams in Fort Langley, Kelowna, Victoria, and Vancouver continue to carry it forward.
Twenty years ago, I arrived at my first practice wondering whether I belonged. What I found was a community that challenged assumptions, celebrated achievement, and opened doors I didn’t know existed.
Those lessons continue to shape my personal life and the work we do at Gateway Navigation today.
If You Want to Learn More
During National AccessAbility Week, we are reminded:
Accessibility is not about what people cannot do. It’s about creating opportunities for everyone to contribute, explore, and belong.
Paddlers, Are You Ready?
Join the team. Break down a barrier. Discover what’s possible.