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| Practicing our start: Robert and Druce Finlay Everglades Challenge Start Beach Ft DeSoto, FL 2019 |
This year was dreamlike, very dreamlike. We have done this race nine times before, this would be our 10th, never seeming to reach the end...
We race, no secret about that. We would race if beaten a hundred times. We would race if no one else was on the beach. Our biggest competitor is ourselves from past years, the Ghost Team, those guys are hard to beat. But we try, every year we try.
For the second year in a row we paddled the Black Boat, our Stellar ST21 and swung Odin Gara Racing Paddles.
Boat Team: IronBob and TheJuice aka Robert and Druce Finlay
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| Start to CP1 Everglades Challenge 2019 |
We had an efficient departure from the Mullet Key beach and a strong crossing of Tampa Bay. With a slight breeze on our nose all day, but taking advantage of tides and boat wakes where we could, we made fairly good time for the 60 miles to CP 1 Cape Haze; 11 h 27 m arriving at 1827 hours 2 March.
After a hot shower, a change of clothes, and a complimentary cup of noodles from the CP Captains Sunseekeer and Lawless aka Lori Bell and Shawn Payment, we began the night portion of our day, heading for Picnic Key.
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| CP1 to Bivy Everglades Challenge 2019 |
We break the 35 miles to Picnic Key into mentally manageable legs of 5 to 10 miles. We keep the banter up and we keep laughing. We keep hydrating. We keep fueling.
Crossing Charlotte Harbor that evening we took advantage of a stiff sea breeze coming off the Gulf and saw speeds of 7 or so mph. After that excitement, we experienced two manatee eruptions in the waters of Matlacha Pass. These 'sightings' helped keep us awake.
At around 0140 hrs 3 March, we found ourselves gliding to a stop at Picnic Key; 18 h 40 m for 95 miles of paddling. After changing into dry clothes, setting a camp, and eating some hot food, we determined we had 75 minutes of 'sleep' time if we wanted to catch some tide leaving San Carlos Bay. With that good news, we laid our heads down without a worry in the world, maximizing every second of shut eye.
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| Bivy to Rest 5 Everglades Challenge 2019 |
At the alarm 75 minutes later, we sprang into action as is our custom, at least on night one. Our goal today would be CP2 Chokoloskee. Before departure, our last task was a weather check; SE winds to 30 mph, with chop to 2 ft. With that forecast, we were not going to make the next tide cycle into Big Marco. Deciding there was no need to beat ourselves up all day, we left San Carlos Bay with the tide and headed for the Naples Coast.
We spent the day cruising down the coast, trying not to over exert though there was some headwind, stopping 4 times for 20 minute or so cat naps, and just generally taking it easy, timing our arrival to Big Marco in time for some more rest before catching the evening's flood.
Our expected nice long rest on Marco Island ended prematurely. It came to our attention the strong team of RiverSlayer and JustKeepPaddling aka Rod Price and Bobby Johnson were closing fast. Time to go now! It was approximately 1745 hrs 3 March as we continued our day's run to CP2.
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| Rest 5 to CP2 Everglades Challenge 2019 |
Though we left Marco without the benefit of the full flood. We did have some tide leaving Marco, the SE winds were abating, and - we were fresh from taking it easy all day. We made good time to CP2 Chokoloskee.
Our traverse of the 10,000 islands was bumpy. There were still the residual waves from the all day SE winds combined with the influence of the new waves from the onshore sea breeze, making for exciting burble.
The turbulent burble ended with the milky serene waters of West Pass. In the pass we were catching the full flood and making upwards of 7.1 mph.
Worn now having just paddled this 35 miles in 6 h 30 m, we glided tiredly into the beach of Chokoloskee at 0014 hrs 4 March.
It was good seeing PaddleMaker once again who was up at this midnight hour and it was good meeting his son Graeme. We talked about paddling, duh! But we also talked about rock climbing, I didn't know David was a climber and as it turned out, we had climbed some of the same crags in years past.
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| CP2 to CP3 Everglades Challenge 2019 |
We were haggard as we tried waking up at 0400 hrs, very haggard. Every movement seemed slow and unsteady. Part of our ritual before another hard day's paddle, we applied antibiotic salve, gauze, and tape to each others backs. Even simple first aid was laborious. But we persisted and readied ourselves to paddle. We had a long day ahead of us and we wanted to excel. We had a good ebb and were sheltered from the wind as we negotiated Rabbit Pass, but we could hear the wind over the mangroves. Once on open water we would face another day of SE winds, light to moderate though they would prove to be, they were still headwinds.
Once past the Plovers, we stayed relatively close to shore to mitigate the breeze. We were making good time, which meant we would have the flood crossing Ponce de Leon Bay into the Shark River.
Approaching Shark Point, there was so much flooding current, we could see the the point splitting the flow. Until we turned Shark Point, we were heading into the current!
We made good time across the bay and into the initial reaches of Shark River. Once we were in Oyster Bay, at around 1500 hrs, we had so much tidal love, we could paddle a maintenance pace and still see 5.9 to 6.1 mph. It was a hard fought day to get here but we did it!
We made the portage, readied our boat to leave and ate heartily before laying down for much needed rest. We were so haggard now, I was so haggard now, it was hard just trying to talk coherently to the CP Captains Kayakman7 (Jesse) and MizzonSpoon aka Jesse and Kristen.
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| CP3 to Finish Everglades Challenge 2019 |
While we were sleeping the Class 4 sailboat team of SkinnyGenes and SkinnyJeans aka Kilby Smith and Stephen Antworth had logged in to the CP and headed right out again. They didn't even wake us to say "hi". As we departed Flamingo around midnight, there wasn't a breath of wind. Pushing away from the dock, we thought out loud, with no wind and the tide flooding Florida Bay, we might have a chance to catch them.
Midnight, foggy, windless, not a sound, beautiful, perfect - except for us with our constant banter. We were catching the 'skinnies', we couldn't see them, but we could hear the occasional clash of their paddle on the side of their boat. We were happy, in good spirits, a little loud. They heard our approach long before we heard their paddle strokes. We caught them somewhere in Tin Can Channel and we paddled together for a short bit in the foggy dark.
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| Wee Hours of the Morning March 5 Passing Dump Keys, Florida Bay, Everglades Challenge 2019 |
Past Dump Keys, the fog wafted off and the above image from my memory is what greeted us. Just past that far horizon was Key Largo and the Finish. Our movement through the water seemed efficient but unrushed - a perfect night.
As we turned east out of the Crocodile Crossover, we had the wind! It was only a moderate breeze, but this was the first tailwind, the only tailwind, we had had for this entire journey. We upped our pace, we upped our effort.
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| Approaching Key Largo |
About 3 miles from the Finish, one more beautiful greeting - dreamlike, from a gallery of hundreds of dreamlike memories from this trip - the sunrise over Key Largo.
A perfect end to a good journey; 72 h 48 m.
Excellent adventure—I was right there with you!
ReplyDeleteThanks buddy!
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