Friday, 2:30 PM. We pulled in to Aquarena Springs later than we'd originally hoped...of course. The main area for check in was packed, so we parked next to the big tent and began unloading. Matt needed to grab our SPOT tracker from Tom Goynes and make a supply run for a few small things that we had neglected, while I needed to unload the gear and make a list of every single item for the check in officials. This took a while. Once all of our food packets were unloaded, it made for an impressive spread. Several people stopped to gawk, admire, or comment. I realized the obvious, we had too much food. Being our first go at the Safari thing, I preferred to have too much, rather than not enough. I felt like we needed to plan for a 90-100 hour finish, even if we were likely to get off the river before that.
Our food was portioned into big ziploc bags and labeled based on the section of river that we planned on eating the food: Eric Mile 0-60. If I had extra food at mile 60, for example, I'd throw the bag out as trash, unless there was some thing in there I still wanted. All of the ziploc bags were stored in a big dry sack back pack. Most of the race, this would be clipped to the canoe. On long or tough portages, the plan was to unclip the bag and put it on my back to get those 25-30 lbs out of the boat.
Once I was satisfied with the list, I grabbed a check in official. Unfortunately, we didn't make it very far. Turns out, we actually did need a snake bite kit, not just some disinfectant and tape. Matt had one, but forgot it at home. Yes, snake bite kits are bull shit, but they are required for some oddball reason. Just as I was about to call Matt, they pulled up. Back to the store for those guys. After tooling around with the boat for a while, Matt arrives with the snake bite kit and we grab another check in official. Yet again, we don't make it very far. Our flares are hand held flares, not aerial flares. SHIT! Back to the store for Matt. This time, I went through the rest of the list with the official to get it out of the way.
On to the safety briefing. Mostly expected: rules, course description, portages, big logjam down south. I paid special attention to the part about the big logjam, but didn't hear any who info. We'd just have to see it for ourselves. Eventually, Matt makes it back and clears up the flare issue with the official. FINALLY. Almost every one cleared out after the safety briefing. The place went from amped up and bustling, to lonely and slightly depressing. Only us unprepared fools are left to make final adjustments to our boats.
With all of the check in craziness, we didn't get the time to wonder around and mingle with the crowd, which is some thing we were looking forward to. I made a couple of long hikes to the bathroom, passing through the main check in area, and scoping things out along the way. There's a pretty awesome variety of boats running the TWS. Every thing from little, plastic kayaks and 17 foot aluminum canoes to 40+ foot, 6-man, kevlar canoes. If you're serious about competing for a class win, you're only concern is the boats and teams in your class. Being in the Novice class, we were matched up with 22 other teams in aluminum canoes. Of course, we weren't exactly gunning for a class win. Nothing in our training had lead me to believe that we were a fast team. Quite the opposite actually. We'd realized that we were not well matched up and that we were paddling a slow (even by aluminum standards) canoe. Our main goal was to finish and, hopefully, at least be in the front half of our class.
Next to us at check in was Nancy, who was attempting to be the first person to finish the Safari in a PRS (a plastic surfski). This boat has done well in shorter distance races, but most probably consider it too uncomfortable for ultra distance. Nancy seemed confident. We chatted with her a bit and really hoped she'd survive. Plastic boats are not light, even a ski, so for a woman to race the TWS in low water with all the portages would certainly be a challenge.
After check in, we went out for our “last meal”, then called it an early night at the hotel. The plan was to get up at 5 am, track down a Cracker Barrel, stuff our faces, then make it back to Aquarena Springs with plenty of time to prepare for the 9 am race start. As always, we would find a way to show up with just enough time to rush...
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