Just north of Salamanca, New York, there's a tradition that attracts hundreds of people with their canoes - or just about anything that floats - the first weekend of May each year. Prior to this I thought I had a pretty good idea of what regattas were all about. Then I witnessed two men dressed as golfers play an entire 18 holes along the Great Valley Creek, from a floating tee.
A party to say the least, this was the view of the chaotic boat return after this year's Great Valley Fireman's Regatta. The image won Photo of the Month for the New York State Associated Press.
Throughout the entire five-mile-long course, the boaters not only paddled, but often turned spectator, gawking as other boats made it around the same sharp bend that had just caused their canoes to flip. The sheer volume of boats on the narrow waterway meant frequent collisions with downed trees near the bank and serious traffic jams around tight curves, leading to a surplus of tipped canoes, all of which can be best appreciated by this snippet of video:
