Eva and Martin won the prestigious Wet Rock Race and even beat course record for the mixed group and last year’s overol track record. But three male teams were a little faster in the 60 groups strong line up this year
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Bra genomfört, vi jagade Er, men tappade på simmningen, vi är dock väldigt nöjda med en total 5:e placering och placeringen efter Er. Nästa år skall vi börja med crawl och hoppas komma bättre till, precis som Ni vill antar jag
I read that you guys are looking for the ultimate adventure…cool…I think me and my paddle partner can beat any 2 thule paddlers in this event EvergladesChallenge….here is a short story
EVERGLADES CHALLENGE:
DAY 1: The Competitors show up early for a 7:00 am start. Everyone is
looking generally south at the first 10 kilometer crossing of Tampa Bay and
hoping the weather forecast will be wrong. It’s predicted for 10-20 knot
winds out of the southeast shifting midday to south. The forecast is not
wrong and the first 30 hours of the race are headwinds! So it is tough, but
its a tough field and what can not be avoided must be endured.
Although the headwinds turn leg 1 into a full on sea battle, other things
are occurring. By midday you reach Sarasota and get your first taste of the
beautiful aquamarine waters, they are so beautiful they take your mind off
of all else. Add in a few dolphin sightings and things are all good. Later
that night we hit CP1 45 minutes behind Artie-0 the course record holder who
is cranking it out in his Rauhine Ocean-X. We say to ourselves, he’s in
catching distance. We paddle on through the night (fortunately, the winds
peter out for a few hours) and fall a little short of our first bivy,
paddling into the headwinds for 14 hours put a slight hurting on us (and I
would say the whole field). We catch 3 hours of shut eye.
DAY 2/3/4: We wake up to find the winds have come back with a vengeance. We
must alter our plans for going around Sanibel island and head for Point
Yanel, trying to get a better angle on the wind. We arrive at Point Yanel
and its time for the big crossing. To our luck the winds shift to westerly
and give us a slight aid as we head to Big Marco Island, once again we are
in the middle of the most beautiful imaginable waters. Mesmerizingly
beautiful. We get to Big Marco around midnight and have about 40 miles to
finish off leg 2, so we decide to push for it. I can’t quite make it without
a little rest, so we stop on an unnamed key in the 10,000 island area and
rest for 45 minutes, we also put on warmer gear. We get up and finish leg 2
to Chokoloskee around 10 am on day 3. We are dead tired, but extremely
excited to find we’ve put 25 miles on Artie-0, the thrill of a potential
victory is upon us and we can’t sleep, so we jump back into Sunshine (our
boat) and start paddling.
All adventure racers should recognize how we feel at this point, our
spirits are soaring and the combination of that and sleep deprivation has
left us in one of those really, really good moods. We are laughing and
talking and enjoying the view, the waters along the Everglades coast are
lime green (a color I haven’t seen until now!) and it seems like things just
can’t get any better and then what happens, we see a full grown pair of sea
turtles getting some air, no more than 3 meters away, so we hit the brakes
and enjoy the moment. Oh yeah, the winds have shifted and are now at our
right rear!! We decide to bank an hour and a half of sleep while it is
daytime and warmer. We get up and paddle through the night heading to the
Little Shark River and the next amazing thing happens. We find ourselves in
seemingly magic waters, the stream line of our boat and all paddle strokes
are glowing an Indigo Blue like something off of the movie Avatar, for 4
HOURS!! How Cool!! Apparently there is a plankton that glows when physically
interacted with. Sometimes your in the right place at the right time!!
Things continue to line up for us, we hit Little Shark River 2.5 hours into
the flood and gain some tidal love. We make our goal of paddling all night
to a chickee and do some ninja or stealth camping. We sleep an hour and
finish off leg 3 to Flamingo, the southern most point of the Everglades
National Park. Computers are down and we have no way of knowing where
Artie-0 or the other bad ass paddlers are, so we have to do the unthinkable,
we have to jump back in our boat and paddle across Florida bay against a 16
hour ebb (tide not in your favor) and 25 knot sustained headwinds. It takes
us 27 hours to paddle 35 fucking miles and its probably the hardest thing
I’ve ever done and the angriest I’ve ever been. That being said the waters
in Florida Bay must rank top 5 in the world for beauty, Ican’t even describe
the color, you simply must see it.
This is one of the best races in the world in terms of difficulty and
beauty, its cheap at $350 per person and for anyone afraid of sitting in a
kayak for that long, thats not an issue the body adapts!! Hope to see you
there!!
Druce Finlay
Kayak Lake Mead
hope to see you there WaterTribe.com
Dear Thule,
We’ve compiled a list of adventure racing resources and information and thought you’d like to know that we’ve included your website on our page. You can view the article at http://www.personaltrainercertification.net/adventure-racing/.
Please let us know if you have any questions! We hope you enjoy!
Cheers!
Cassi, Writer
cassi@personaltrainercertification.net
Tack och bra kört av er med, Wet Rock Race är in vårt huvud fokus utan bara en kul tävling som passade in mellan allt annat, vi får se hur det passar in nästa år. Vi kan crawla men med skor så går det lika fort för mig att simma bröstsim, då man inte har nytta av frisimsbensparken vid crawl med skor. I Ö-Ö och Ö-loppet är Dolme och paddlar tillåtet, där har man större nytta av att kunna crawla. Lycka till vad ni än förtar er!