How do female San Diegans observe 10 years of surviving and thriving after cancer?
Members of Team Survivor Sea Dragons are marking the milestone with a 26.2-mile fundraising dragon boat paddle around Mission Bay on Sunday, May 6. 
Beginning at the Youth Aquatic Center on Fiesta Island at 8 a.m., this “Round the Bay” event, concluding at dusk, will raise awareness of dragon boating while funding anti-cancer programs.
Dragon boats are human-powered watercraft typically entered in the team paddling sport of dragon boat racing, which has ancient roots among contending Chinese villagers. In competition, dragon boats are generally rigged with decorative Chinese dragon heads and tails.
Team Survivor San Diego is the local chapter of a national nonprofit offering free fitness programs to female cancer survivors. Those fitness programs include yoga, walking groups and other forms of exercise for cancer-stricken women of all ages and fitness levels, at all stages of cancer treatment and recovery. One of those fitness programs involves dragon boats. Female cancer survivors countywide meet at Mission Bay twice weekly for dragon boat paddling workouts in preparation for race events held throughout the Western U.S.
“It’s a celebration really,” said Team Survivor spokesperson Jean Snow about the May 6 Mission Bay paddle around. “We are also trying to recruit.”
Characterizing dragon boating as “a bit unusual because of the racing aspect,” Snow described Team Survivor’s dragon boat coach, Cheance Adair, a USD employee who donates her time, as “a phenomenal paddling instructor.”
Snow said most of the women in Team Survivor are between the ages of 40 and 70. “But we’ve had teens and women in their mid-70s and 80s,” said Snow.
Today, nearly 65 percent of adults diagnosed with cancer in the developed world are expected to live five-plus years. In the United States, approximately 11 million people – one in 30 – are currently undergoing or have undergone cancer treatment.
“The dragon boat team started gathering in 2007-08,” said Snow, noting the crafts cancer survivors use are donated, while the team itself pretty much pays for mostly everything else, including group insurance, race fees and their room and board while away at competitive races.
Snow said dragon boat paddling works well for female cancer survivors who “love the water, outdoors, working out and working together as a team. We actually are a group that likes to laugh a lot. Everyone on the team has a bit of irreverence toward life, which seems to help.”
Female cancer survivors don’t dwell on the disease, but rather, said Snow, “Go out and have fun and get past all this stuff.”