Paddle

If you can bear the pun, these breast cancer survivors are all in the same boat. And they are paddling as if their lives depended on it. Cheryl Brower, three years out from being diagnosed with cancer, has organized a group of women with breast cancer from Baltimore, Annapolis and Washington to take up the oars of a huge dragon boat. The women will be competing in Saturday's dragon boat races at Tide Point Waterfront Park near the Domino's Sugar plant. "It is the best team sport ever invented, and I've been in team sports all my life," said Brower, an Ellicott City attorney and mother of four who has competed in dragon boat races internationally.

Share your good news and events with the community. Contact Laurel Leader editorial assistant Pat Farmer, paf1@patuxent.com , or phone and fax 410-332-6653. Sing-A-Thon — Fri., June 10, 6-9 p.m., New Weave Building of Historic Savage Mill, 8600 Foundry St., Savage. Benefits the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts Teen Professional Theatre. Support the theater's summer production of "Aida" by sponsoring a performer at the Sing-A-Thon. Cast members, CCTA students and alumni from past performances appear in 10-minute increments.

The Lantern Queen has paddled a long way from Wisconsin to the Chesapeake Bay. The two-story paddle-wheeler was built in La Crosse in 1983 as a replica of a Mississippi riverboat. Over the next decade the boat traveled from South Dakota to Florida to Pennsylvania. Along the way, the Lantern Queen sank, was salvaged, restored and renamed. Now the 90-foot vessel is undergoing another incarnation. A Havre de Grace couple bought the Lantern Queen and have started a cruise business that they hope will help promote local history.

Stevensville -- From a distance, the 644 swimmers who stroked and kicked their way 4.4 miles across the Chesapeake Bay yesterday looked like so many colorful bait fish thrashing the water to escape hungry predators. But up close, each was fighting an individual battle with his or her own body and the elements. And all enjoyed some measure of triumph as they stumbled, staggered or strode from the water alongside the east end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. "I used to be in better shape," said Mike Doyle, a 51-year-old electrical engineer from Pennsauken, N.J., who grabbed a pair of crutches as he left the water.

On Thursdays, Wendy Baker Davis secures her 16-foot sea kayak to her car. Next, she packs her personal flotation device, a water pump and a pair of water shoes. Then she sets out from her home in Lancaster, Pa., to meet up with 20 other kayaking enthusiasts at Jean Roberts Park in Havre de Grace. Davis' bunch, known as the Pirates of North, is a northern Maryland offshoot of the Chesapeake Paddlers Association, a volunteer nonprofit group based in Greenbelt. The weekly outings by the Pirates are one of several paddling ventures available in the county for beginning to experienced kayakers and canoers.

CLARIFICATION An item in the "2b" column published in Wednesday's Maryland section did not fully attribute a remark made by radio host Rush Limbaugh in which he called Maryland "a far-left kook fringe state." He made the statement on his show, which is broadcast on WMAL-Radio. It was repeated on DCRTV.COM, an Internet site for political commentary, where it was picked up by The Sun. The Sun regrets the errors. Coming to an airplane seatback near you: 36 glossy pages celebrating a place where downtown is booming and cultural attractions abound, where schools are topnotch and people kayak to work.

Members of the Canton Kayak Club can find a variety of colorful kayaks, paddles and life vests, and paddle around the harbor - as long as the sun is shining. Members can pick up a kayak at one of the club's four locations (Tide Point, Inner Harbor East Marina, Nick's Fish House and Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point) and paddle to one of the group's other sites. Some members commute to work via kayak. The club also holds weekly training courses and sponsors monthly events for beginners and kayaking experts.

Although their skinny legs barely reached the foot pedals, and the paddles stretched taller than the paddlers themselves, nothing could stop five young kayakers as they took to the water recently, navigating around blooming lily pad patches and concentrating on the perfect stroke. "I'm going to drop my oar," one small voice shouted. "It's a paddle. Not an oar," said patient Piney Run kayak instructor Jess Hall, for the third time. "Not. An. Oar." "And don't worry," she said. "Paddles float."

For more than 150 years, Shady Side watermen earned a living catching rockfish, perch and oysters. Today, however, the water is barely able to support the 15 watermen who continue to work out of Parrish Creek. Protecting their livelihood - and their heritage - is the mission of Discovery Village, a Chesapeake Bay education center on Parrish Creek in the tiny South County community. In its latest effort to encourage locals and tourists alike to appreciate the wonders of the bay, the nonprofit center is launching a free family kayaking program.

When Susan O'Brien was little, she said, she would play in a stream near West Joppa and Thornton roads. She didn't know it at the time, but that stream fed into the Jones Falls, which flows under Interstate 83 and eventually into the Harbor. Now, O'Brien helps organize the Jones Falls Valley Celebration, which raises awareness of the need to restore the falls. This year's daylong outdoor celebration is from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday. "People, when they think Jones Falls, all they think of is I-83 South," O'Brien said.