Solar Pillar Sighting Everglades Challenge 2013

Solar Pillar off the Highland Coast Everglades Challenge 2013

Solar Pillar
I mention in our EC2020 report that Druce and I witnessed the solar pillar off the Highland Coast (some miles off of Highland Point) in 2013. This is my first attempt at recreating that sighting.

The silhouette of Druce, the boat, and the seas (sans light column) are from an existing photo of the setting sun that very evening, 4 March 2013.

I scrubbed the sun and the sky from the original photo, added a new sky, and tried to recreate the scene we witnessed that evening near the end of nautical twilight. The original photo jarred my memory of that sunset. I remember I could not resist my eyes from the resulting twilight to the northwest.

Near the time when twilight was complete, I panned my eyes to the northwest one more time. The light from the setting sun, just below the horizon was illuminating ice crystals in the atmosphere, that illumination reflected off the sea into our eyes, and that light was converted to electrical impulses which our brains interpreted. All of which is a miracle really, but at the time we had no idea what we were seeing. Honestly, it kind of freaked us out. 

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2020

Light winds from the north, final 6 miles to Key Largo 

This was a good year, it would be a year with plenty of challenge for everyone. There were over one hundred craft of various types on the start beach. Four did not start. Fifty-six started but did not finish. Forty-three out of a one hundred and three boats made it to the finish beach in Key Largo. You can see types of boats, crews, and results below (1).

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2019

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

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2018

Druce and I on the Start Beach the day before the race.

This is the 2018 Everglades Challenge story of IronBob and TheJuice, sometimes we're known as the Sea Breeze Ninjas. This was a very good year.

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2017

Sunrise on Florida Bay for IronBob and TheJuice

This is the 2017 Everglades Challenge story of IronBob and TheJuice, sometimes we're known as the Sea Breeze Ninjas. This was a very strange year.

There was a small craft advisory in effect due to strong winds...

Saturday morning Druce (The Juice) and I (IronBob) and Sunshine (our kayak) were ready to race in all respects. But at 0615 the morning of the race it was announced the challenge would not launch from Ft De Soto until the advisory was lifted, yet the advisory was not likely to be lifted any time soon.

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2016

Druce and I the day before the race on the start beach, Everglades Challenge 2016 

Paddling and Sleeping and the Ernest Shackleton Award

Everglades Challenge 2016 Report by Robert Finlay (IronBob):

It took me nine months to finally write this story down. 

This is our seventh story of the Everglades Challenge (the EC). Our WaterTribe names are IronBob and TheJuice and once again we paddled Sunshine in Class 2 (at night her name is Ranger). She's a SEDA Kayaks Triumph; 24' by 24", arrow like, agile for her length, and in the right hands quite seaworthy. For an explanation of our tribal names and classes of boat in this race, see my write up of EC 2014. 

Sometimes in writing up our EC story I've delved into my thinking and experiences, my emotions and passions, and even how I act and interact with fear and pain. My write up of the EC 2015 is a good example of all that. This time I think my story is going to be simpler. 

This year there were 90 boats on the start beach. There were 26 boats in Class 1, which are paddle craft in which 1 square meter of downwind sail per paddler is allowed. There were 10 boats in Class 2, which are paddle craft in which no sail is allowed. 

This year we would finish first among all paddle craft, our fourth time doing so, and seventh among all boats. This year we would receive the Ernest Shackleton Award for nautical excellence. 

But all we did was just paddle south and sleep a lot. 

Endeavor Team Challenge 2015 : Race Report Team Ryan Ross, Robert Finlay

Overview Map, Endeavor Team Challenge 2015

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul. *

* The first stanza of the poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley, the other stanzas will follow throughout this report. This poem would follow us, all the competitors of the Endeavor Team Challenge, throughout the competition. Invictus is a good word, meaning; invincible, unconquered, undefeated, unconquerable.  

Friday night, 11/12 September, 2015, my teammate Ryan Ross, my wife Rebecca, and I have a room in the Bear Valley Lodge. It is midnight. I am nervous and anxious and cannot sleep. In the morning, Ryan and I will begin the athletic event known as the Endeavor Team Challenge. At 6 AM, after months of preparation, we start. I have never, in my entire life, been apprehensive before an athletic event. How did it get to this point?

Team Kayak Lake Mead - Everglades Challenge 2015

Druce Finlay, Everglades Challenge 2015

This is our sixth story of The Everglades Challenge (the EC). Some of this story is about the event, the Everglades Challenge 2015, much of this story is about me and how I think, what my experiences are, what my emotions are, what my passions are, and even how I act and interact with fear, pain, and mental anguish. After delving into this article, you may quickly come to the conclusion that I am completely nuts, and you might be right to think that. But, I hope (we'll talk about that word later) you'll enjoy the read, because I am going to hold nothing back.

Endeavor Team Challenge : Race Report Team Ryan Ross, Robert Finlay

Team Endeavor Challenge 2013 - The Finish, Ryan Ross, Robert Finlay 

Alpine, CA - 7, 8 September 2013

The first mention I saw of this event was, in the words of the organizers, two former US Army Rangers, “the Endeavor Team Challenge is a monumental test of fitness”. Paraphrasing the descriptions of the event I found on their website and Facebook pages - teams of 2 would face 30 plus hours and 40 miles of mountain summits, obstacle courses, lake and stream crossings, physical challenges, multiple long movements of undisclosed distances of 10 to 20 miles, climbing and rappelling, kayaking, mental challenges and stress, memorization/recitation, problem solving, false finish lines, extra equipment to carry, limited sleep, day and night orienteering, culminating in something called a Sole Survivor run, and at an undisclosed place and time teams would face another challenge, something called the OPT Battle Drill, a crossfit torture test programmed by Crossfit Games Champion James Fitzgerald.

Well, that sounded like a good time to me. Immediately I contacted Ryan Ross to form a team. Inadvertently we had already been preparing for this event because well, that's kind of what we do. Both Ryan and I have years of adventuring racing experience under our belts. Now supposedly we would need only to fine tune ourselves to the specifics of this event.