Our third weekend out from race day needed to be big. We had a couple of decent long runs so far in May, 7-8 hour paddles at a moderate pace, enough to keep me sore for a day or two. Now, we needed to squeeze in another good weekend before our Memorial weekend trip to Wimberley and the San Marcos River. Problem was, I'd just about had my fill of the local bayous. They're scenic enough and convenient, but the lack of current and that same slog of a pace gets old. Where to paddle then?
We already had some training paddles on the Brazos River, launching at highway 59, so this was my first idea. I didn't want to do the usual up river and back run, because even though it's more entertaining and a better work out than doing the same on a bayou, it's still not all that thrilling. This left only one option, down river on the Brazos. I quick scan on Google Earth shows that south of 59, the Brazos is surprisingly remote. Not many options for a take out. The “launch” at Brazos Bend State Park is a nice little sandy beach...with a huge, steep bank to climb (they've even installed a rope) and a quarter mile portage. Also, it's only 24 miles downstream. The next spot is a bridge crossing on FM 1462. Not bad, but only 30 miles in. After this, there was absolutely nothing. I'd crossed the river recently on my way south and noticed a nice spot along FM 2004. This was way too far. Not even sure what the mileage is on that one. The best option seemed to be highway 35. There was obviously no boat ramp there and I couldn't tell how tall the banks were, but it looked accessible. The mileage plotted out around 53.6, so I just assumed 55, knowing how this usually works.
Ok then, lets do this. I had two plans in mind here: launch late Friday night (probably midnight) and paddle through to about noon, or launch early Saturday morning and paddle through the day. As it turned out, Matt's son had a school function Friday evening and Saturday evening. Midnight it is. Our team captain, Ed the Italian Stallion Cafarella, would drop us off at the 59 launch and Matt's wife would scoop us up at 35, hopefully just 12 hours later.
Thursday, we hauled the canoe over to my dads place to catch up on some much needed rigging. We glued in big blocks of closed cell foam and hacked out (literally) holes to hold our new ½ gallon and 1 gallon drinking jugs, bike bottles, and pill bottles. We also installed some mesh bags to hold food packets for quick access and tied a 20 foot line on the stern. There's still a bit more to do, but the tank is slowly starting to look race ready.
Friday wasn't ideal for either of us. Matt didn't get much sleep Thursday night, then went to work, then picked the canoe up and went to his son's school function, then came home to prep for the paddle. I was up early and spent my work day helping to clean our warehouse. We've been putting that off for a long time and the place was a disaster zone. The cumulative crap and equipment from one research project after another was piled up and crammed in there and I'm pretty sure we were violating at least a few school fire codes. Of course, after our triumphant cleaning of the warehouse, we had to head straight over to the new Brickhouse Tavern on the island for some pints. Again, not the ideal prep day for a long paddle, though the 20 oz pints of Elissa on cask were worth it. By the time we got to the launch it was midnight and we both felt like sleeping. In other words, perfect Safari training.
I'd be lying if I said we weren't concerned about what we might run into at the launch site. It's a nice spot, but let's be real: it's public river access, under a bridge, at midnight, on Friday. This sounded like the most potentially dangerous part of the paddle. Fortunately, and to our surprise, the place was empty. We didn't waste much time loading the canoe and dragging it down that long, sandy bank. We knew how many miles were ahead of us and we were ready to get to it. Not to mention, there's just some thing different about paddling at night. More of an adventure, I guess.
As far behind as we were with rigging, our light set up was one item that didn't make the cut. We had Matt's light rig from the CR100, which is basically a couple of water proof Pelican flashlights and a mount. These lights are reasonably bright...assuming of course, that the batteries are fresh...they weren't. Also, we forgot to pick up new batteries on the way out. Lucky for us, light pollution from cities is ridiculous. You don't realize this until you're out some where at midnight that should be pitch black, but instead, it's so bright you don't even need those headlights.
Paddling at night is nice. No heat, no noise, no 30 mph coastal winds, just a nice, cool breeze. Stretches of river that might bore the hell out of you in the daylight are much more interesting and mysterious at night, especially with all of the wildlife. There's always gar out there, just waiting for you to zone out before they explode out of the water, right next to your paddle. Alligators, plenty of alligators on the lower Brazos, apparently. Matt had his head lamp on and was spotting them all night. I rarely noticed them. Also, what I can only assume were deer and hogs. Any time we paddled along a steep, wooded bank we heard them scrambling through the brush.
We cruised along pretty easily for the first three hours, enjoying the cool night and the easy pace. Some time after 3:00 am though, we were both ready to nod off. I knew I was dropping off fast, because I was starting to get a little jumpy every time I heard some thing. A gar exploded next to the canoe and I popped out of my seat. Thought I was use to those by now, haha. You're not physically tired after three hours of easy paddling, but mentally, you know you should be sleeping. I think Matt was the first to admit how tired he was, I agreed. We decided to hold off until 4:00 am, then mix up a couple of the Starbucks Instant Iced Coffees we brought. Matt was skeptical when we bought them. I wasn't too sure about it, but was interested to find some sort of coffee substitute for the race. I'm not a fan of instant coffee or iced coffee, but at 4:00 am on the river, these things are as good as it gets. Strong, tasty, and plenty of caffeine.
What a difference. We went from nap time to wide awake and having a blast. The last couple of hours before dawn peeled off quickly. We developed a better system for navigating through the stump field out there. The Brazos is fairly wide, but it's also really shallow right now. To stay in the current you usually have to hug the bank, where the deeper channel is. This is also where all of the trees and stumps accumulate. When ever we got near some thing, Matt would flip on his head lamp and call out the directions. We had no problems...well, except for that mine field of jagged metal. Matt flipped on his light and called for us to go right, all the way around. I wanted to steer through the middle, just for the hell of it. It wasn't until we closed in that we noticed that this wasn't wood. We made it through alright, but we ran over a submerged piece of metal. Once again, lucky we're in an aluminum tank. I expected some kind of damage, but no problem.
We passed Brazos Bend State Park right around dawn. This was easy to spot because of the wide, sand bar beach on the inside of the turn and the steep cliff on the outside. Just past this, the river straightens out and is surprisingly beautiful, very lush and very green. Plus, we were still pumped up on caffeine and still cruising in a bit of current, so we were having a good time. We each ate one of our Denti Moore's, paddled past FM1462, noticed the odd house or alligator here and there, and commented on how nice the river was. Seriously, the remoteness of this stretch must be the only reason more paddlers don't run here.
Still mostly cruising, we nailed the 40 mile mark under 9 hours. It was about this time that the paddle started shifting from “fun” to “grind”. Coffee buzz gone, day getting hotter, current gone, freakin headwind picking up, scenery gradually getting less interesting as we move south towards the coast, and 15 miles still to go. Time to put the long sleeve compression top and full length safari cap back on and get ready to grind. And grind it was. Aluminum canoes (well, ours at least) has no glide in flat water and hates headwinds. Earlier in paddle, one of us could keep the boat in the current and moving at a reasonable pace. Now, when one of us stopped quickly to eat, the canoe slowed noticeably. Our average mph dropped and dropped. We started calculating the time left. Not going to make it by noon, more likely 1:00 PM. This was also when I said, more than once, that I was glad there were no stretches on the race course this long. It doesn't sound like much, but running through a check point is enough to break up the monotony and give you at least a little bit of a charge.
I really don't remember much from this last stretch. At the least, we learned some thing about efficiency and that we need to be faster on our hourly food/bio breaks. This is a loooong race and efficiency is hugely important. If you waste 5 minutes every hour for 70-80 hours, that adds up to a significant difference. I don't think I bitched too much from boredom, but I probably did. Matt has less of an issue than me on these long, grindy stretches. That will be important on day 2 and 3 of the race.
As we got closer to the take out a potential problem came up. What is the take out going to look like? We know there's a bridge, with access, but no boat ramp. Looking around us, we noticed relatively steep banks on both sides, hmm...We would manage the boat up what ever bank was there, but it's not like our legs were fresh at this point. We stood up exactly once during the entire paddle. Near the beginning, we ran shallow and had to hop out to drag back into the channel. Since then, we stayed seated in the canoe. Fortunately, Matt got ahold of his wife, who was at the take out,which was supposedly not bad. Well, that's one less thing to worry about.
Now, we just had to get there. Even though I said from the start that it would probably be 55 miles, we kept hoping that the distance would come out short. It didn't. We paddled around one turn after another after another, always expecting to see the bridge. I bitched a little more about being bored. Finally, there was the damn bridge. Exactly 55 miles and 13 hours. Standing up was tough. Dragging the canoe up the bank (which was not bad at all) was tough. The paddle over all, not so bad.
Even though the end sucked, there were several positives from this paddle. We know that an easy pace is, well, easy. Neither of us felt drained or sore. Even the next day, we were both slightly stiff, but did not feel like we logged 55 miles. All of those shorter, faster paddles paid off. Also, we know our food/hydration rigging is reasonably efficient. We need to improve a little, but not bad. We know now that, with coffee, we can paddle through the night, past dawn. There's a question of whether we can do this in the race, but we do know that it's possible now. Ideally, we'd like to paddle 40 hours of the race before stopping to sleep. No guarantee there though. Staying in the canoe for many hours is not so bad. We'll need a stretch here and there, but shouldn't need to get out of the boat at every check point. Finally, we did well at night. It's cooler at night and more entertaining. We'll have to make use of this, when possible.
This weekend, we'll be out in Wimberley and we'll make a couple of runs on the San Marcos. Saturday will be our last long run of training, City Park to Zedler Dam, the first 46 miles of the race course. We'll get to scout the majority of the dam portages and we'll get to run through some of the more technical sections of river, hopefully displaying our superior steering abilities..haha. Also, we'll run all the way through the tightest cut off on the course, Luling 90 at mile 40. Our split times from this run should give us a better idea of how to pace ourselves on race day. Stay tuned...
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Highlight Reel
Wow. Hard to believe that it's been over a month since my last post. I guess things get busy at times. We're only a few weeks out from race day now and reality is starting to settle in. Almost no rain the last few months, drought conditions, very low river levels, and a serious possibility of a long brutal race. Also...we're behind on training and boat rigging. We've had a couple of decent paddles the last two weekends and we're planning on some serious paddling over these next couple of weeks. Now that my semester is over, boat rigging and preparation get some attention.
Back to business. Over the last 4 months, we've had some “entertaining” encounters and happenings on the water. Nothing remotely close to what we're likely to experience during the Safari, but blog worthy nonetheless.
The Enraged Brown Pelican
Well, he wasn't so much enraged, more likely just freaked out and injured. We were paddling intervals on the Highland Bayou Diversionary Canal (one of the most boring places to paddle...ever) and had just stopped to recover about 20 minutes upstream from the launch. I'm not sure which one of us noticed it or why it caught our attention, but there was a brown pelican standing on the shore. As we paddled closer, we noticed that he was hooked, one end of the rig hooked through his foot and the other end hooked through his neck. The way he was hooked, he couldn't fully stand or stretch out without hurting himself. We were trying to figure out what we could do to help, but we had no tools or any thing useful. There wasn't even a bank to climb out on, just mud and bushes. Matt made a grab for him and got snapped by his beak.
Nothing we could do but paddle back to the launch, make some calls, and grab some tools. So, 20 minutes back to the launch. We both jumped on the phone and called who ever we could think of. Matt had some luck with Parks and Wildlife, who gave him the number a local woman that rehabilitates animals. Their suggestion was, go back and get it, then bring it back to the launch. Haha. We weren't too optimistic about that one. I grabbed a pile of towels and a heavy rain coat, then 20 minutes back up the bayou. This time, we found him a bit further up the bayou on the opposite bank. We paddled up to him and when he turned away, I tossed the coat over him, put him in the boat, then tucked some towels around him to keep him still. Turned out, it wasn't even necessary, he was dead calm the whole way back. I had to poke him to make sure I didn't suffocate him. We met with the woman and her son at the launch. After seeing how bad he was hooked, they didn't even try to pull it out, they just took him.
What were the odds that we just happened to paddle past that guy? I doubt many people ever paddle that section of water. While knocking out a couple of intervals after this, we found another cork and hook floating down the bayou. I guess people have no problem just tossing their shit where ever they feel like. Sure, they have a good excuse. Getting up off your gigantic, flabby ass to waddle over to a trash can is pretty taxing...especially if you have to set down that can of watery “beer” you were pounding.
What Happens When You Have a Hole In Your Canoe
In our case, you get a high pressure jet of water spraying 6 feet into the air. For a number of reasons, we were WAY behind with getting our canoe rigged up for paddling. The big pile of aluminum was suppose to be ready to paddle before winter. When we finally did finish rigging, near the end of January, we couldn't wait to paddle it. So, we loaded her up and headed to the Chocolate Bayou launch. I could make a whole post about this launch site, but I'll save that for some other time.
Water levels were low at the time and the boat ramp was caked in mud, so we opted for the dock launch, which meant lowering the boat about 5 feet down to the water. Matt climbed into the bow, ready for the maiden voyage, when a high pressure jet of water starts spraying up through the canoe. Apparently, we were missing a rivet. The head of the rivet was still visible, when we flipped the canoe over, but the rest of it was gone. Damnit...
Of course, a bit of 2-part epoxy solution sealed it up pretty well, and we still got a paddle in, but it was a little frustrating at the time. We haven't had a single leak since then. We've tried really hard to destroy the canoe; dropping it off the truck (Matt's fault), dropping it ONTO my car (Matt's fault), running head-on into logs on the river (Matt's fault), running into chunks of concrete on the Brazos River (Matt's fault), but she's held together pretty well.
How Matt's Big Ass Broke the Canoe
When we removed the crappy, factory bench seats from our canoe, we installed the new sliding seats with the lightest weight aluminum tubing we could find. We were a little unsure of how well this would hold up, seeing how much the cross bracing was flexing when Matt sat up in the bow, but we figured our question would be answered sooner or later. Well, at least it happened BEFORE the Safari.
The closest river we have for training is the Brazos. It's not the nicest or most exciting river, but it does have plenty of unobstructed (relatively...), boat-traffic-free miles to paddle. We made the trek to the Brazos in late March, with a plan to launch at highway 59, paddle 4 hours upstream, then back. This was our first long paddle in the canoe and we were both a bit under-packed. I ran out of food, Matt almost ran out of water, and we didn't bring any electrolytes or repair tools (i.e. NO duct tape).
Paddling upstream was a tough workout. The river was low, but not as bas as it would be for our next paddle, so there was a constant current to fight. In some spots, the river was really shallow and channelized, so we REALLY had to dig in. If one of us stopped paddling, the canoe stopped moving. On top of that was a fairly stiff south east wind. It was at our back most of the time, pushing the canoe around, making us work even harder. By the time we got 4 hours in, to our turn around point, we were feeling it. Not enough water, not enough electrolytes, just when you think you've learned your lesson...
The paddle back down stream was rough. Cruising, like we'd hoped, was out of the question. We had some current with us, but the head wind was stiff. At some point, we decided to pull over on a gravel bar and take a break. Just before we got there, we ran through a shallow section full of concrete, almost like a mine field. Our path looked clear, until we slammed into a submerged chunk of concrete. BAM! Right in the middle of the canoe. Next thing I know, the cross brace to Matt's seat is snapped in half. We hit that chunk of concrete so hard, that Matt got tossed to his left, out of his seat, then slammed back down.
We quickly pulled over on the gravel to assess the damage. Broken seat brace, no duct tape, no tools, no zip ties. The only thing we had was the epoxy, but neither of us wanted to wait long enough for that stuff to dry. We scrounged around the gravel bar and found a short 2x4. We jammed one of our gallon water jugs and the board under the brace, where it split. It was close enough to the correct height and seemed strong enough to hold Matt up. Lucky for us. A couple hours and several fat jokes later, we limped all the way back to the launch with that shitty rigging. The next day, we replaced that cross brace with a 100 lb, 6 inch thick piece of aluminum tubing. Let's see you snap this time...
Next up, probably an entertaining tale from our upcoming paddle this weekend. Details aren't set, but we're planning on a 55 mile all-night paddle down the Brazos. We'll follow this up with another paddle on Sunday, just to add that extra bit of Safari pain. We're getting down to it now. Almost 3 weeks out.
Back to business. Over the last 4 months, we've had some “entertaining” encounters and happenings on the water. Nothing remotely close to what we're likely to experience during the Safari, but blog worthy nonetheless.
The Enraged Brown Pelican
Well, he wasn't so much enraged, more likely just freaked out and injured. We were paddling intervals on the Highland Bayou Diversionary Canal (one of the most boring places to paddle...ever) and had just stopped to recover about 20 minutes upstream from the launch. I'm not sure which one of us noticed it or why it caught our attention, but there was a brown pelican standing on the shore. As we paddled closer, we noticed that he was hooked, one end of the rig hooked through his foot and the other end hooked through his neck. The way he was hooked, he couldn't fully stand or stretch out without hurting himself. We were trying to figure out what we could do to help, but we had no tools or any thing useful. There wasn't even a bank to climb out on, just mud and bushes. Matt made a grab for him and got snapped by his beak.
Nothing we could do but paddle back to the launch, make some calls, and grab some tools. So, 20 minutes back to the launch. We both jumped on the phone and called who ever we could think of. Matt had some luck with Parks and Wildlife, who gave him the number a local woman that rehabilitates animals. Their suggestion was, go back and get it, then bring it back to the launch. Haha. We weren't too optimistic about that one. I grabbed a pile of towels and a heavy rain coat, then 20 minutes back up the bayou. This time, we found him a bit further up the bayou on the opposite bank. We paddled up to him and when he turned away, I tossed the coat over him, put him in the boat, then tucked some towels around him to keep him still. Turned out, it wasn't even necessary, he was dead calm the whole way back. I had to poke him to make sure I didn't suffocate him. We met with the woman and her son at the launch. After seeing how bad he was hooked, they didn't even try to pull it out, they just took him.
What were the odds that we just happened to paddle past that guy? I doubt many people ever paddle that section of water. While knocking out a couple of intervals after this, we found another cork and hook floating down the bayou. I guess people have no problem just tossing their shit where ever they feel like. Sure, they have a good excuse. Getting up off your gigantic, flabby ass to waddle over to a trash can is pretty taxing...especially if you have to set down that can of watery “beer” you were pounding.
What Happens When You Have a Hole In Your Canoe
In our case, you get a high pressure jet of water spraying 6 feet into the air. For a number of reasons, we were WAY behind with getting our canoe rigged up for paddling. The big pile of aluminum was suppose to be ready to paddle before winter. When we finally did finish rigging, near the end of January, we couldn't wait to paddle it. So, we loaded her up and headed to the Chocolate Bayou launch. I could make a whole post about this launch site, but I'll save that for some other time.
Water levels were low at the time and the boat ramp was caked in mud, so we opted for the dock launch, which meant lowering the boat about 5 feet down to the water. Matt climbed into the bow, ready for the maiden voyage, when a high pressure jet of water starts spraying up through the canoe. Apparently, we were missing a rivet. The head of the rivet was still visible, when we flipped the canoe over, but the rest of it was gone. Damnit...
Of course, a bit of 2-part epoxy solution sealed it up pretty well, and we still got a paddle in, but it was a little frustrating at the time. We haven't had a single leak since then. We've tried really hard to destroy the canoe; dropping it off the truck (Matt's fault), dropping it ONTO my car (Matt's fault), running head-on into logs on the river (Matt's fault), running into chunks of concrete on the Brazos River (Matt's fault), but she's held together pretty well.
How Matt's Big Ass Broke the Canoe
When we removed the crappy, factory bench seats from our canoe, we installed the new sliding seats with the lightest weight aluminum tubing we could find. We were a little unsure of how well this would hold up, seeing how much the cross bracing was flexing when Matt sat up in the bow, but we figured our question would be answered sooner or later. Well, at least it happened BEFORE the Safari.
The closest river we have for training is the Brazos. It's not the nicest or most exciting river, but it does have plenty of unobstructed (relatively...), boat-traffic-free miles to paddle. We made the trek to the Brazos in late March, with a plan to launch at highway 59, paddle 4 hours upstream, then back. This was our first long paddle in the canoe and we were both a bit under-packed. I ran out of food, Matt almost ran out of water, and we didn't bring any electrolytes or repair tools (i.e. NO duct tape).
Paddling upstream was a tough workout. The river was low, but not as bas as it would be for our next paddle, so there was a constant current to fight. In some spots, the river was really shallow and channelized, so we REALLY had to dig in. If one of us stopped paddling, the canoe stopped moving. On top of that was a fairly stiff south east wind. It was at our back most of the time, pushing the canoe around, making us work even harder. By the time we got 4 hours in, to our turn around point, we were feeling it. Not enough water, not enough electrolytes, just when you think you've learned your lesson...
The paddle back down stream was rough. Cruising, like we'd hoped, was out of the question. We had some current with us, but the head wind was stiff. At some point, we decided to pull over on a gravel bar and take a break. Just before we got there, we ran through a shallow section full of concrete, almost like a mine field. Our path looked clear, until we slammed into a submerged chunk of concrete. BAM! Right in the middle of the canoe. Next thing I know, the cross brace to Matt's seat is snapped in half. We hit that chunk of concrete so hard, that Matt got tossed to his left, out of his seat, then slammed back down.
We quickly pulled over on the gravel to assess the damage. Broken seat brace, no duct tape, no tools, no zip ties. The only thing we had was the epoxy, but neither of us wanted to wait long enough for that stuff to dry. We scrounged around the gravel bar and found a short 2x4. We jammed one of our gallon water jugs and the board under the brace, where it split. It was close enough to the correct height and seemed strong enough to hold Matt up. Lucky for us. A couple hours and several fat jokes later, we limped all the way back to the launch with that shitty rigging. The next day, we replaced that cross brace with a 100 lb, 6 inch thick piece of aluminum tubing. Let's see you snap this time...
Next up, probably an entertaining tale from our upcoming paddle this weekend. Details aren't set, but we're planning on a 55 mile all-night paddle down the Brazos. We'll follow this up with another paddle on Sunday, just to add that extra bit of Safari pain. We're getting down to it now. Almost 3 weeks out.
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