Salt Water Barrier to Seadrift: Miles 247 to Finish

The stiff winds that I'd tried to ignore for the past couple of days were making their presence known. We were now practically on the coast, heading directly south-east, with an increasing amount of long, straight stretches of river. Still, under different circumstances this section of river would have been nice. As you near the coast and the Guadalupe River delta, the river takes on a whole new appearance. The environment is much more green and tropical, with palms and low, grassy banks. I'd heard that some racers really enjoy this section because it's such a new world compared with the rest of the Guad. I agree, it was a beautiful section.

The long hours of lonely, empty river were behind us. After Salt Water Barrier there's a row of houses along the East side of the river that stretches for 3 or 4 miles. I was steering us very near to this shoreline, dodging docks and over-hanging branches in a desperate attempt to escape the wind. This was mostly unsuccessful. We continued to slog along, into the wind, with neither of us being very thrilled about having to cover 10 miles before the bay. At some point, the tandem unlimited boat that we'd seen on day 3 passed us. I think they said some thing encouraging. We made no attempt at speeding up.

Before too long, we heard Ed and Dan yelling from the bank on river right. They had found a spot to pull over on the way to Wooden Bridge and had stopped to yell and snap photos. Ed cracked some jokes and told us “one more mile”, or some thing like that. Matt was getting annoyed. Further along, a woman cheered us on from her porch. “You guys look pretty good.” “Really? We feel like shit.” “Most of the other paddlers I've seen look exhausted.” This was not the first time we'd heard this. Crews and race officials know that their suppose to tell racers how good they look, regardless of how much of a lie this might be. It's encouraging. More than once along the course I'd had this similar conversation with people. Looking back, I know that some of it was encouragement, but I suspect some of it was due to our pace. Sure, we were paddling a slow, heavy, bitch of a canoe. However, we were rarely ever pushing ourselves. We had likely prepared ourselves much more than the paddlers that struggle just to come in under the cut-off and we weren't pushing the type of pace that the more competitive boats are holding. True or not, I do believe that we both had plenty left in us as we slogged towards the bay.

Soon enough, we'd left the houses behind and were back to empty river...and wind...and Ed. The guys were popping up often now, at every single accessible clearing. “One more mile”, followed by more jokes from Ed. Matt was getting increasingly annoyed, at both Ed and the miles we had left to cover. I began to suspect that Zoltan's crew captain had instructed Ed and Dan to show up at all of these stops and spur us on. I don't think I was bothered by it, but I wanted to get to Wooden Bridge just as bad as Matt. I believe the distance from Salt Water Barrier to Wooden Bridge is about 8 miles. At our slog, we probably took 2 hours to cover this. It certainly felt like it at the time.

The wind was really blasting into us now. The closer we got to Wooden Bridge, the straighter the river got, resulting in an unobstructed wind tunnel. I do NOT like paddling aluminum canoes into the wind and was becoming more pissed about the situation. Seeing Traylor Cut (an optional cut that diverges from the main river and enters the northern end of the bay) and our last little stretch of river before Wooden Bridge did nothing to lighten my mood. I had been hallucinating a bit along this last stretch as I was always looking ahead for the “check point”. Several times I thought that I could see a bridge (or some thing) in the distance, only to find out that it was just an optical illusion. A quick scan on Google Earth in fact shows a bridge just before that last unofficial check point. I have absolutely no memory of this.

Bridge or no bridge, we had arrived. There was a very small boat ramp on the river and some sort of house or garage or some thing. We pulled up and started rummaging through gear. Over the last couple of hours I encouraged Matt to eat lots of food. I had heard racers say that you really want to fuel up before the bay. It makes sense, as most teams will cross fast enough to not bother with food. We would not be crossing so fast, but with a full spray skirt on we wouldn't have much chance to access food even if we brought it. Unfortunately for me, I had run out of food. As I mentioned WAY back in my earlier posts, I had all of our food organized into freezer bags and labeled based on mileage, such as “Eric: 0-60”. We had way too much food and we knew this. With no real idea of how long it would take to finish the race, we preferred to be prepared. To dump weight, I had been throwing out food along the way at checkpoints. At 60 miles, if there was nothing in that bag that looked absolutely delicious, I tossed the bag to Ed and told him it was trash. I continued with this process all the way down the course and I think it worked well, except that I'd made a mistake some where. My last bag of food ran empty and I had to pinch some of Matt's supply. I did make an attempt at fueling up for the bay, but there wasn't much to fuel up with. Matt ate very little, if any thing.

Our stop at Wooden Bridge was a frustrating experience. The plan was to pull up, toss every thing out except for safety gear and water, then strap on our home made spray skirt. I don't know how this took so long. The canoe was a mess and was holding a good bit of water that we should have dumped, but didn't. Ed and Dan were arguing, Matt was bitching at them and playing with gear. I was getting more and more anxious and annoyed. I shoveled down as much food as I could, but was not hungry enough to fill up on peanuts.

Finally, we started attaching the spray skirt...and hit a snag. When we made the skirt we hadn't considered the GoPro camera that was mounted up on the bow. Matt wanted to unbolt it to re-arrange things...which would have taken a good amount of time. I almost blew up at this suggestion. “Fuck the camera! Get rid of that damn thing!” I was way over-anxious about wasting more time and was fixated on finishing before dark. Matt was very attached to the camera, but was calm enough to not fuel the argument. Every one tried to calm me down and Matt offered to toss the camera. I closed my mouth and we took a minute to assess things. Finally, one of us had the idea to cut a slot in the spray skirt so the camera could fit through, then duct tape around it to seal. This was a good idea that took very little time. After the fact, I was very thankful that Matt and the crew stayed calm during my episode. Many teams have huge fights some where along the course over one issue or another. Until that point, we hadn't even come close to a real fight. The guys were right, this close to the bay and the finish we needed to stay calm. It was almost over.

Unfortunately, the rest of the process was not entirely smooth either. When we made the skirt, my dad got into a rush and cut too much off of the starboard side. It still fit, but you really had to stretch it tight to get that side attached to the velcro. The other hassle was strapping Matt in. Spray skirts are designed to completely cover the canoe, meaning there can be NO openings. Paddlers are basically sealed in by a section of skirt that comes up and wraps around your chest. The nice, high quality skirts have a draw string, so you can open and close this piece. Our skirt did not. Matt climbed into his seat, through the hole, pulled the skirt up around his chest, then put his life jacket on over it. Mostly, this was just uncomfortable for him, but it also meant that he was locked in until the finish. The skirt ran all the way back to the stern and stopped about 1 foot from my seat. After strapping Matt in, I'd have to take care of any thing that involved getting out. My first task was launching the canoe. We had pulled up pretty far onto the ramp and did not think about pushing the canoe back BEFORE strapping on the skirt. I have no memory of how I launched that tank. I'm sure it was a rough, time consuming, frustrating procedure.

Back on the river for one last paddle. Maybe I should have recognized nostalgia in the making and savored the moment. Instead, I mostly wallowed in thoughts about how tired and annoyed I was...maybe even pissed off. This was a very depressing realization. Only 1 day earlier I couldn't have been more ecstatic about where I was and what I was doing. The idea of finishing this race had me riding a huge high all the way through the Prelim section. THAT is one part of the race I will never forget. It was amazing. Now, maybe 7miles from the finish,was I in such a shitty low that I wouldn't even enjoy a finish that we had been obsessing over for months? Wow, I really hoped not.

“Oh shit! We don't have a light!” Not 5 or 10 minutes from Wooden Bridge we clicked on to the fact that, once again, we had forgotten some thing important. This time, it was a light. Obviously, we had ditched our heavy, bow mounted Maglite at Wooden Bridge. The problem, however, was that we were suppose to bring a head lamp. TWS rules require a white light for the bay crossing. Now, we didn't have one...and we were NOT turning around. We quickly developed a strategy: if we could finish before dark, no one would notice the lack of light. If anyone asked, we tell them we lost the head lamp in the bay. That was our improvised plan. Back to the river.

This 1-2 mile stretch of the Guad is very narrow and very odd. It has that same green, lush, tropical look, but it's so small you feel like you're paddling down the bayou. I don't remember saying much here. I think Matt knew I was in a shitty mood and tried to encourage me a bit. Nothing was going to bring me out of that funk. I was a bit like a sleepy, cranky child. I needed a nap and I wasn't going to get one any time soon. Mean while, paddling along the last mile of river, I was trying to look over the southern bank or any where I could to get some glimpse of the bay. It was windy and I was now thinking about the reality of what would be out there. Despite our rough paddle in Copano Bay, I don't think that Matt knew what to expect from this bay crossing. He seemed ready to cruise through this last leg.

The mouth of the Guadalupe River: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/12264308

I'd read Safari stories about rough bays, where paddlers were hit by big waves before even exiting the river mouth. As we paddled up, there were no big rollers...which initially gave me hope. The Guadalupe empties into what I would call the north-east arm of San Antonio bay. This section of the bay runs north-west to south-east and is any where from 0.5 to 1 mile wide. East from the river mouth is a dredge spoil island that protects the Victoria barge canal. If you were to paddle directly east from the river mouth (about 0.5 miles) you'd hit the dredge spoil island, then paddle roughly 3.5 miles along this, south-east, before coming to the end. At this point you basically enter the open waters of San Antonio Bay. Seadrift is on the northern shore though, so you would then turn east around the point, paddle across the barge canal (which is deep, with larger waves) and follow the northern shoreline until you see the finish. Paddling directly across to the dredge spoil island is known as taking the “chicken route”, because you're essentially making a mad dash through the waves to shallow, protected water. It's slower, but safer. Being the awesomely experienced salt water guy that I knew I was (haha), I had determined to paddle directly to the deepest water and stay there. No chicken route for us.

The first word that comes to mind in trying to describe my initial bay impression is “surreal”. Imagine this: you've been on a river for 80 hours. Yes, the majority of that time has been spent in isolation, paddling through the middle of no where. However, it's a river. It's relatively narrow, it flows in one direction, there's rarely ever a question of where to go, there are check points, with officials and people. Up to this instant, the race feels very guided, in a way. Now, you're cut loose in open water that you've never seen. It would be similar to hiking through a dense, wooded trail for 3.5 days, when suddenly the woods and trail end and you stumble out into an open, rolling prairie. “Now where the hell do I go!?” Surreal. Of course, I knew roughly where we were suppose to go, but in my sleep-deprived state, the surreal feeling of this was almost over-whelming. Were we still in a race? Is this still the Safari? I'm almost not sure any more.

So, back to that plan of NOT taking the chicken route. This plan held for maybe the first 10-15 minutes. I steered us out into the middle of the arm and then turned south-east. The wind was blasting. Weather data says 18 mph with 24 mph gusts. This sounds about right. In Safari terms, this is probably considered a “moderate” to possibly “bad” bay. It can get worse (30+ mph winds), but these conditions are already beyond the fun point for an aluminum. It didn't take me long to figure out that this was not working. We were paddling into a wall of wind and it felt like we weren't even moving. “You have to paddle harder!” Matt was still locked into his Safari cruise stroke, which is not nearly hard enough to move an aluminum through those conditions. He was not happy about me cracking the whip and I was not happy about having to deal with this shit at the end of the race. “Fuck it”, I thought to myself, “I've had enough”. I'm not sure what that meant, even in my head, because there was no where to “quit”, unless we paddled back to Wooden Bridge. Never the less, in my head, I was done. Too tired. This was suppose to be an easy 12 hours to the finish. This is bull shit. We're not even moving. This is not possible. Do I even care any more?

I'm not sure how long I went back and forth with myself. I never said any thing to Matt. I was still pissed off, and tired, and beaten. And then, some thing clicked. We had paddled maybe 0.5 miles and were next to a tiny little island. Maybe I saw the island and could see that we were actually moving...slowly. “We need to turn right and head back to the western shoreline. It will be shallow there, but it should be at least a little protected from the wind.” Before the race, I spent some time studying charts of San Antonio Bay and Google Earth. There wasn't much to study, but I did have a good mental image of the bay. A few weeks before the race we had also sat down with Roy and gone over some routes. Now, I was running these images through my head, thinking about where we could get the most wind protection and where we could cross over to the eastern shore. There was a small point that projected out, about 1.25 miles from where we were. We could paddle along the shoreline, partially protected from the wind, and then cross over at this point.

I was getting excited now. We hit the western shore and it was immediately obvious that conditions were calmer here. Yes, we were moving very slowly, but we were moving. “You have to paddle harder!” This is some thing I would repeatedly yell through the wind over the next 3 hours. Matt was not happy with me, but there was nothing to be done about it. We had spent the entire Safari paddling at a cruise, and now, we absolutely had to paddle at a strong pace. It was a struggle for Matt, I know, this late into the race to paddle this hard, but there are no other options. In a rough bay, some teams will pull over and camp out some where, waiting for calmer conditions. This was not going to happen.

We continued south-east along the shoreline, occasionally arguing about the pace I was driving for. It didn't matter though, because I was waking up again. Being out in the open salt water, with a new challenge, and a solid idea of how to get us to the finish, I was getting pumped. I remember going a little nuts and yelling into the wind, trying to charge both of us up. Remember the scene from Forest Gump, where they're on the shrimp boat in the middle of a hurricane and Lt. Dan is screaming into the storm? That was me. I'm really happy that the GoPro did not record clean audio for this portion...

Eventually, we reached the point and had to turn east to cross over to the dredge spoil island. I remember looking around the point, along the shoreline, wishing there was some way we could keep following it and stay out of the wind. There wasn't. We had to turn east sooner or later and the western shoreline would offer us no more protection. Now, the winds would be blasting us on the starboard side and my main concern was capsizing. Matt was not very experienced or comfortable in waves and open water. I imagined that this would be compounded by the fact that he was skirted in, with very little mobility. I was still driving us to paddle hard, but I was shifting more towards safety. Waves were still not very big in this section of the bay, but I didn't want to risk it. When ever I saw a bigger set approaching, I'd steer us into the waves and tell Matt to stay loose. It worked well to keep us stable, but it required that I focus a portion of my paddling towards steering. Matt noticed. “It feels like you're not paddling!” I tried to explain, what I was doing, but Matt was too focused and to strained to respond. “Why aren't we paddling towards the shoreline?” “We have to aim a bit towards the south, otherwise the wind will push us north.” Matt was winded and tired and struggling. In that condition, every thing seems like an unnecessary burden.

I was trying my best to tack our way across the bay. There was a buoy slightly to our north, in the middle of the arm of the bay. I was using this to judge our location and to judge our progress. This information was not encouraging, but we were moving. Actually, I believe the wind still pushed us a little north of my target. As we neared the shoreline I told Matt that we could have a short break. I needed to stop to pee and to get a quick look at the GPS. I had been paddling with the GPS in front of me, but it was almost impossible to see in these conditions. Matt was relieved at the mention of a break and I was genuinely sorry that I'd have to break my promise on that one...

We hit the dredge island and I hoped out. Checking the GPS I could see where the island ended and, looking south, I thought I could see where that point was. “OK, we're pushing off.” “I thought we were taking a break!?” “No, the end of the island is right there. We're not far from the finish.” I'm sure Matt was not happy, but we needed to keep moving. I knew he was exhausted and that the tough pace was pushing him to the limit. I had to keep us moving if we wanted to finish before dark. Hell, I had to keep us moving if we wanted to avoid camping out for the night. I'm sure many Safari teams have stopped at almost this exact spot, contemplating another hour or two of fighting their way through the wind and waves. “It's not possible. I'm too tired. Let's camp out until it calms...” I did NOT want to consider that. We were moving. We were making progress. We were almost there. (In fact, many teams did camp out at Wooden Bridge that night. A couple of Novice teams entered the bay after us. One of them finished 2 hours behind us and the other DNF'd in the bay. The rest of the paddlers waited at Wooden Bridge until the early morning hours, holding out for calmer conditions. We heard that Zoltan, at 71 years old, lead the charge into the bay. That was one of my favorite Safari stories.)

We continued along the island, with a little protection from the wind. Soon, we approached the point where I expected to see the end of the dredge islands. I was wrong. The island simply curved in to the east here, giving the illusion that it was ending. We had to paddle further. Matt was really not happy now. He even started sprinting when I tried to crack the pace whip on him. This was nice, while it lasted, then we slowed and the wind pushed us back. I quickly steered us east so we could hug the shoreline again and escape some of the wind. Slowly, painfully slowly, we progressed south-east towards the open bay. I was pushing hard for the point. When we got there, we would be rewarded.

Wind. A full blast of wind from the open bay. We thought it was tough before. We had reached the end of the dredge island. Rounding the point and turning east, there was the barge canal. Deep water, bigger waves. Beyond that was the northern shoreline, running east to the finish. Right now, we were getting pummeled. The wind was hammering us on the starboard side and literally pushing us back into the island. It was extremely jarring and discouraging. “You have to paddle hard!” If we were struggling before, how were we going to fight through this? Digging and digging, we crawled past the island and entered the barge canal. The wind was pushing hard. I felt like we were getting shoved north up into the canal. To make matters worse, I knew that we needed to angle a bit to the south...into the wind. In these winds, if you try to paddle directly east, you'll end up in the shallows of the northern shoreline. This is not where you want to be. Aside from the obvious fact that it is very shallow, it's also a rough, sloshed up mess. Waves coming across the bay will hit the seawall and rebound, resulting in a mixed up, multi-directional mess of bumps. As impossible as it seemed, I needed to steer us away from the shoreline, into the wind.

For the first time, I was seriously questioning whether we could make it. As far as I could tell, we weren't moving. The aluminum canoe was very stable in these conditions, but also very much out of it's element. The tall sides catch wind like a sail and the flat bottom just does not respond to waves. You really REALLY have to power this boat forward through the wind and waves. In all honesty, I am completely comfortable in a rough open bay, but I was starting to question how safe it was for us to be out there in an 80 lb, sinkable, brick of a canoe. If we capsized and were blown up the barge canal we'd have a hell of a time getting to shore. What the fuck were we doing out here in this canoe!?

We inched our way past a big buoy marking the barge canal channel. Hmm, at least we're moving forward. Once again, I don't remember what compelled me to keep pushing on. Sure, we were moving, but at a ridiculously slow pace. At that time, I felt like the pace was even slower than it actually was. I don't know. It was a battle and it took a strong effort just to keep the canoe moving at what was probably 2 mph. If you EVER slacked, even a little, the wind would start pushing you backwards. Both paddlers have to hammer. Matt was feeling it.

You can finish a Safari, under the 100 hour cut-off, with out ever having to push beyond a cruise, much less any where near a sprint pace. That sort of fitness is not required for any one except the top competitors. However...when you find yourself out in the open bay, in those conditions, in a boat that is not truly seaworthy, you have to push and push and push some more. If you have the fitness for it, then you really only have to overcome the accumulated exhaustion from the 260 miles you've already paddled. Pumped full of adrenaline, I was on the edge on my seat (literally). All thoughts of exhaustion were gone. While I had not paddled any where near the type of mileage I wanted to in training, I had spent a significant amount of time on strength training and cardio. I was in shape. I had a big reserve of energy left over from the easy cruise we had maintained through out the race. I was prepared to hammer as long as it took to get there.

Matt was digging deep. He didn't have the training behind him for this kind of effort, but he was trying. As soon as we made it across the barge canal, Matt was begging for shoreline. I can't blame him. In a rough bay, many teams bolt straight for that shore and either walk the canoe in through the mud, or heave it onto the seawall and drag it to the finish. Many teams finished this Safari in that fashion. Hell, some teams exit the river mouth, bolt straight for the dredge island, and walk the canoe. While I understood how much Matt was struggling, I was not going to acknowledge this option. Walking/dragging the canoe in is a pain in itself. It's deceptive in that it takes significantly longer than you'd think. I'd read plenty of Safari stories warning of this fact. And besides...I was absolutely set on paddling to that finish.

So, we struggled on, still heading east, but also slightly to the south to keep us out in deeper water. By this point, we had fallen into a routine. Matt was cranking away with his head down. When a big set of waves approached, I'd yell “stay loose!” and Matt would stop paddling and keep his hips loose. As soon as the set passed, I'd yell “dig!” and we would hammer, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the next set. All the while, I was also trying to manage the steering, which is no small task in those conditions. In a canoe, you paddle on opposite sides. The canoe will slowly turn towards the side that the bow paddler is paddling on. In marathon racing, you switch sides like this to steer the canoe, rather than using steering strokes that would take away from forward speed. If both paddlers switch to paddling on the same side, on the right for instance, the canoe will turn left, very quickly. In open water, where the wind is hitting you on the right side, the canoe will constantly try to turn right, into the wind. This complicates the steering, as you have to occasionally “hut” both paddlers to the right side to steer out of the wind, then “hut” again so you both aren't worn out from paddling too long on one side. It's a tricky skill to “hut” often enough to keep the muscles fresh with out letting the canoe steer itself straight into the wind.

It was getting late. The sun would be setting within the next hour or so. We were still inching our way along the northern shoreline, maybe 150 yards out from the shore. The question “can we actually do this” was long gone. We were making progress, driving this heavy, aluminum brick through the waves. Every time we sprinted over a bigger wave, the bow of the canoe would raise up, then smash down, killing all forward momentum. It didn't matter though, because I knew we were moving forward. Once again, Matt suggested we hit the shore. I didn't acknowledge. Our conversation shifted to “where is the finish line”? We really were not sure. Neither of us had ever been here. Obviously, it would be on this northern shoreline, but beyond that, we couldn't tell. For me, there was still that slight feeling of this being surreal. Was there a finish line...?

We spotted Matt's car on the seawall. There were Ed and Dan. Apparently, they'd found some where to park and were watching our progress. “I think that's the finish.” Matt pointed to a pavilion in the distance. I squinted, trying to make out the details or any thing that would signify the finish line. It looked right. Were those people standing on the edge of the seawall? Once more, Matt asked for shoreline. This time, I agreed. We were getting close. Now, we could angle slightly towards the shore and catch a boost from the waves. It was amazing. After all of this time, fighting our way through the wind, we were rocketing towards the shore and the steps at the finish. The wind waves, combined with the rebounding waves from the seawall were colliding and really tossing the canoe into the air. It didn't matter. People were lining the seawall and a few were at the steps, ready to help us out. I started sprinting like I was actually in a race, calling “huts” and hammering a fast stroke rate.

We rammed the bow of our canoe onto the steps. People were cheering. A few Safari veterans grabbed hold of the canoe. They tried to take Matt's paddle, but he was locked into a kung-fu grip. “It's OK! You've finished, it's over!” Matt relinquished his ZRE. I raised up out of my seat and decided it would be better to just fall out. People laughed. The water felt great. They carried our canoe up the steps and helped us out. I walked to the side of the canoe, intent on sitting down for a minute. When I got there, I just collapsed. Maybe it was a bit dramatic, but I was exhausted. The adrenaline was gone. I left more in the bay than I realized. Those were easily the most brutal 3 hours of the race. All at the end. How cruel. But, you know what? I was happy.

Invista to Salt Water Barrier: Miles 227 to 247

Recently, I realized that I've barely mentioned “pain” in this story. That's surprising, because pain and discomfort are a big part of the Safari. It's possible that, this long after the race, I've just forgotten how painful it is? I suppose that's true, but I think that a better answer would be “pain and discomfort were not a dominating element for me”. I considered writing a long section here about pain and discomfort during the race, to make up for all that I missed, but I've dragged this out long enough already. When this is over, I'll talk about my race recovery and I'll male sure to include a long bit about the pains I discomforts I went through and what I saw Matt going through. Of course, I could never know all of his experiences there, but I did hear some complaining along the way...haha, sorry Matt.

For now, I'll mention that the knots in my upper traps weren't going any where. It was a sharp pain that only ice packs could relieve, temporarily of course, because ice does not last long in June...in Texas. Another concern were the two injuries I'd picked up during the months leading up to the Safari. My elbow and shoulder both started bothering me on day 2. Fortunately, neither of them progressed into an issue. I seemed to settle on the idea that, if I didn't paddle very hard they would be OK.

As we're leaving Invista, I should also mention that I'd made my second major mistake of the race. Really, I'd made numerous major mistakes leading up to the Safari, but in the context of our goal out there, which was to finish our first TWS, I made two major mistakes during the race. The first was forgetting that extra gallon of water at Gonzales. The second was mentally writing off the last 35 miles of the race as being “in the bag”. Even with a log jam and a potentially bad bay ahead, I had some how convinced myself, on day 3, that those last 12 hours on Tuesday would be cruise control time. Fuck, that was a bad move, and the Safari would make me pay for it.

Regardless of how easy we thought the miles would be, we were actually a bit intimidated by this section, mostly because we'd never seen it. For the next few hours, we were running purely off of information passed on by other racers. We knew there was a smaller log jam at the railroad bridge and that it was runnable. It sounded a little hairy. We also knew, of course, that there was a bigger log jam (IE. The Log Jam) further into the section. That area of the river forms a really big horseshoe. Log jams tend to start at the beginning of the horseshoe, where the river turns sharply to the left. I believe the current jam made it's first appearance in 2009.

When log jams get too big, the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority comes in to blast them open. I have no idea how far things have to progress before that happens. In the mean time however, the log jam grows and produces some hilarious, entertaining, and horrific Safari stories. 2009 is widely considered to be one of the toughest Safari years ever: ridiculous heat, low water, and log jams. I've heard of teams losing hours portaging around the big log jam in 2009. In 2010, a 6 man team lost several hours trying to portage through the swamps into the infamous “Alligator Lake” short cut. A few other teams took the easier cut around the jam at night and got lost and confused along the way.

This year, rumor was that one of the top teams had spray painted trees, marking the take out on river right, about 50 yards before the jam, and the 200 yard portage route through the woods and into the cut. The other option was to portage river left, up an even taller, steeper bank, then drag the canoe 400-500 yards along a jeep path. Even with the navigation risk involved, I was set on taking the shorter portage. It was daylight, for one, and I'd spent a good amount of time looking over Google Earth and charts to get an idea of the cuts and alligator lake. The Google Earth image for this location was from 2008 (shortly after the race, Google Earth updated to a 2011 image, providing an awesome view of the log jam...bastards), so the current log jam was not there, but I felt confident that I understand the area. I even noticed that, after the cut flows back into the main river channel, we would pass a power line clearing before too long. This should be a good marker, in case we were not sure of our navigation once we hit the river.

Much sooner than I expected, we hit the first log jam. At the time, we weren't sure if this was it. There was a small ledge, with a ton of junk piled on top, more junk, then a bridge just beyond it. From descriptions I'd heard, I was expecting a really tricky sweeper with only a tiny, critical slot. Like most descriptions of river hazards AFTER Luling, this was at least a little exaggerated. There's no longer a current to push you into trouble and the water is deeper, so you don't have that upper San Marcos River experience of being pushed into a sweeper in water too shallow to steer. We slowed up a bit, hit the slot, and cruised through the rest of the junk.

My memory is cloudy after this. There were miles of middle-of-no-where river with our thoughts locked onto The Log Jam and wondering when we would get to The Log Jam. That is, of course, when my thoughts were actually locked onto some thing. With the lack of sleep, 72+ hours into the race, my brain was drifting. I started thinking about the log jam area, with the cuts through the forest and Alligator Lake. Exciting! Finally, I would get to explore all of the cuts, maybe find Alligator Lake. I'd spent enough time looking at charts and images, even with no water in it, I should have a decent chance at poking around and finding the Lake. At the least, I'd actually get to see the cuts in person now. Wait. We're in the middle of a race. This isn't a training run. We're on the last stretch of the Safari. Holy shit!. Was I that out of it just now? I really thought we were on a training run, about to explore the swamps. The lack of sleep and isolation had me convinced. This realization sobered me up pretty quickly. I was slipping, at a time when I needed to be sharp.

I didn't voice any of this to Matt. Our conversation now was focused on navigation. The GPS showed our location and the location of the big horse shoe bend, but we didn't know the mileage and I'd never seen exactly where the jam was, due to the outdated satellite image. At first, we were both content with being patient and waiting. Then, things got confusing for me. We were paddling through a debris field that looked like a log jam. Clearly, this was not a log jam, because it wasn't obstructing our path, but I was not thinking clearly. These little bits of log jam had vegetation growing on them and, I suppose, might be the nucleus for a future log jam. To me, at that time, it seemed like we were there. Now, on river right, I was starting to see cuts going into the woods. “Matt, I think that's it right there!” “I don't think so, we're not close enough yet.” “Are you sure we shouldn't pull over and check it out?” “No, we're not close enough to the bend yet.”

After slowing our pace to a crawl and going back and forth with this conversation, I think I finally realized that Matt was right and that I almost caused us to make a huge mistake. We could have easily wasted a hour, maybe several hours, stumbling around those cuts in the woods. This late in the game, that was a horrible thought. I was a little scared now and sort of angry that we had to deal with this near the end of the race with no real guidance or information. That's ridiculous. This kind of shit is what makes the Safari special, but again, I was not at all clear headed. “You're right. Let's agree to paddle all of the way up to the jam before we do any thing.” That may have been the only smart thing I'd said all day.

We continued on, at a slow pace, with me checking the GPS now and then. I have absolutely no idea of the time this went on, but after a while of slogging down river, there it was, The Log Jam. Seeing it, you definitely cannot mistake this for a debris field. It's solid. The Novice team that left Invista before us was all the way on the jam, preparing to portage their canoe up the big bank on river left. We slowed down and I started scanning the bank on river right. Matt was still set on paddling to the jam and was, I'm assuming, planning on catching up to these guys to see what they knew. “Wait! There it is!” I'd spotted the tree marking the take out and I absolutely knew that was it. Maybe 100 yards up river from the jam was a tree, with spray paint marking, and a muddy bank with a slick spot from racers dragging their canoe. Matt was understandably unsure, but agreed when I guaranteed that this was it. We paddled over and beached the canoe in the thick mud. I told Matt to hang tight, then hopped out and scaled the bank. I was starting to amp up again now with another major task at hand. I yelled to the other Novice team and waved them over. They just about had their canoe onto the bank.

Sprinting down the “trail”, I spotted spray paint markings often enough that, even at night, there would be little chance of wondering off. I believe the trail went on for 100-200 yard before hitting the cut. There were two different put-ins, with one being a little further into the woods along the cut. The put-in was very steep, with a fair bit of current flowing through. The log jam in the main river channel forms just before this cut. You might think then, that the best route would be to portage or ram your way into the jam, then paddle into the cut. Unfortunately, this is not possible, as a small log jam has formed about 50 yards into the cut. So, your best option is this portage through the woods that ends just beyond the small log jam. After launching here, it's clear sailing, as long as you can navigate through the cuts...

Sprinting back down the trail and to the river, I saw the other Novice team pulling up to the bank. I quickly explained that this was the shorter, more popular portage. They were surprised that we knew about this portage, being that we'd never done that race before. “We've heard from other racers.” I was in too much of an amped up hurry to explain beyond that. I'd already climbed back down the bank and was throwing all of the gear I could out of the canoe, up onto the bank to lighten the load. Every thing, including us, was now covered in mud, and we'd be even more muddy by the end of the portage. Matt scaled his way up the bank and with a little help from me, heaved that heavy canoe up. I do mean a “little” help, because Matt jerked the canoe up there very fast. I expected much worse. Before I climbed back up the bank, I shot off a quick explanation of navigation to the other Novice team. “Portage down the trail, then launch into the cut. After that, keep taking lefts and you'll hit the river.” That was all they got. We were off.

Time for the dragging straps again. With the canoe on the trail, we each took a strap and muscled up as fast of a pace as we could, which probably wasn't much. A 100-200 yard portage through the woods may not sound too rough, but with a heavy canoe and a hot summer afternoon, it's not fun. At some point during the portage, Matt noticed that one of our paddles had fallen out. I sprinted back down the trail to retrieve it, then sprinted back to help Matt get the canoe moving again. Towards the end, I think we gave up on dragging and tried to carry the canoe, which turned out to be even more uncomfortable. After what was probably a relatively short amount of time, we arrived at the put-in. I honestly don't remember much of the details here: another steep, muddy bank, slowly and carefully lowering that bitch of a canoe into the water, both of us jumping/falling down the bank, mud, a swift current at the bottom, more mud, trying to help Matt back into the canoe, mud all over every thing...

Never the less, we were excited. We had finished the portage and now it was time for our jungle adventure. The cut is a very narrow (10-20 feet wide), swift flowing, river, if you will, through the woods. We were running purely off of my mental image of the route, so the “swift flowing” part made things interesting, and probably saved us from any urges to explore. I told Matt roughly the same thing I'd told the other team, “we need to take left turns”. That was a left turn, almost right away. Clearly not the correct route though, as that turn was heading back. I was not 100% confident now and Matt was even less confident, which is understandable, since at the least I had a decent mental image of where we were going. “This. This is it!” We'd come to a “T” in the cut, left or right, with the main current flowing to the left. We turned left and kept pace in the fast current. Now, we were in a very narrow, very long straight section. There was no doubt we were headed the right way, but we weren't there yet.

The entire cut is only 1 mile long before you merge back onto the Guadalupe and a large portion of this is the straight section, so we were finally able to ease back a bit...until we saw another left turn. Had the current been slack, we might have stopped to contemplate the situation. As it was, with a swift current pushing us and our instincts telling us to stay our course, we quickly cruised past. For one, it just didn't look right. We were clearly in the main channel, with the main flow. Also, we were headed roughly east, which was where we wanted to go. Finally, with my mental image from Google Earth I remembered seeing a left turn that WOULD take us back to the river, only it would merge further up river, possibly into the log jam. I explained this to Matt with all of the confidence I could muster, which was genuine, because I was confident now.

Before I could settle back into the ride, a thought occurred to me. “Oh shit! We should have waited for those guys. There's no way they'll get out of here cleanly with the directions I gave them. I just told them to keep turning left.” I think Matt's response was that they would be alright and there was nothing we could do about it now. He was correct on that point. I briefly considered paddling back upstream, but in this current, that would be a really idiotic waste of energy. I suppose we could have pulled over immediately and waited, but that thought never occurred to me. Even if it had, who knows how far back they might have been. Our portage went quickly, because Matt's a big guy and he muscled the canoe up the bank in short order. Two guys about my size may have taken a while. Worrying about what may have happened was pointless, we were headed down river. I felt a bit guilty about that for the rest of the race though.

Less than ½ of a mile from that turn, we came to another “T”. “This is the river. We're going right.” Neither of us was completely confident, because the river at this point looks disturbingly similar to the cut: small and narrow. I do remember some markings and signs at this intersection, which I thought was very odd. “Who the hell comes to this part of the river?” It feels so remote that it's hard to imagine who might pass through. Of course, there's not always a log jam. In other years, I'm sure boats travel along the southern miles of the river.

Paddling south on what we assumed was now the Guadalupe, Matt was still uneasy about the navigation. “If we're on the Guadalupe, we'll pass a power line clearing very soon.” I was banking on this marker, knowing that teams have hit the Guad, become confused, and turned left, going back upriver towards the jam. Similarly, if this was another portion of the cut, we would be heading back into the woods and would not cross the clearing. The debate was avoided entirely as we quickly made it to the clearing. I was 100% confident of our course, even if Matt was a bit uncomfortable. Unfortunately though, now that we'd cleared our second to last major obstacle, my body let go. I suppose that adrenaline was temporarily carrying me through sleep deprivation and that tough, fast, sweltering portage.

I felt terrible and I wasn't sure if it was heat exhaustion or lack of electrolytes or lack of food or what. More likely, it was the cumulated effects of every thing. I asked Matt if we could pull over for a quick dip, so I could at least try to cool down my core. There were no sandy beaches this far south, so we pulled onto a muddy banked and took a dip. I explained the situation to Matt, “my energy is gone”. We agreed to push on and get to the check point. Matt put on his head phones and started cranking. Music would have been nice, but I'd ruined my MP3 player on the way to Victoria. I had forgotten that I was wearing it when I took a dip. No music for me. I tried to occupy myself by popping a bunch of Endurolytes, eating, and drinking plenty of water. I knew that I'd need to stay on top of all of those to recover.

This was another long stretch to the check point. There is about 6.5 miles of dead river and nothing, with only a vague idea that you'll eventually see people. We passed another cut to our right that I thought might be the exit from Alligator Lake. That was cool. Yet again, I don't remember much. We had long ago locked onto what our average pace was and I had resolved to looking at things in terms of “hours”. You realize there are 2 or 3 or 8 hours ahead and you do the time. After a while, I started to come around and our conversation shifted to our usual topic of “where the hell is the checkpoint”. Matt was, I think, still questioning our navigation around the jam, but we had the GPS and we knew we'd hit the checkpoint before the I-35 bridge in Tivoli. Zooming in and estimating the distance was not comforting...we'd have to slog it our for a little while.

If my memory is correct, we spotted the Salt Water Barrier checkpoint just as Matt was starting to get antsy. Again, we were VERY happy to see the crew. We pulled up and gave Ed some instructions on what we wanted. As we were climbing out of the canoe, a captain from one of the Novice teams walked over to ask if we'd seen her paddlers. I suppose she was the girlfriend of one of the guys that may or may not have been lost in the swamp. Feeling pretty guilty, I explained to her what happened and tried to reassure her that they might not be too far behind us. She looked a little worried.

Being that this was the last official checkpoint, I was surprised how empty the place was. A few crew members were sitting in the tent area and there was no TWS official. I don't know, it just felt weird at the time. Mean while, we were doing a good job of dragging things out. Me and Matt milled around as Ed slowly filled our water jugs and made a couple of ice socks. Ed and Dan were in a great mood at this point. They could smell the finish and were as eager to get it over with as we were. Still, they were taking their time with things and I was getting anxious again. We had one more stop ahead of us before the bay. Wooden Bridge is not an official checkpoint, but almost every team stops there. It's a small ramp, on private property (the owners allow access during the Safari), and it's 1 or 2 miles from the bay. This is the absolute last chance for crew access. Teams stop here and dump every piece of gear and food except a bit of water, paddles, and safety gear. Also, with the afternoon heat you much prefer to strap your spray skirt on here, rather than further up river at Salt Water Barrier.

Ed agreed to meet us at Wooden Bridge. Once again, he'd hooked up with Zoltan's crew captain, so we knew he'd find the way. Before pushing off, we noticed the TWS mileage sign posted up on Salt Water Barrier: GO TWS MILE 244. This was crushing. Some how, we'd convinced ourselves that we were much closer to the bay. Having to cover another 10-12 miles before the bay seemed horrible and honestly, in our state of mind, I think we had added the math up wrong and thought it was even further. Neither of us was in a good mood now, but I think we'd flipped again and now Matt was the one dragging. Even more annoying, you paddle maybe 100 yards from the checkpoint before hitting Salt Water Barrier. With a drought and stiff onshore winds, the barrier is inflated to prevent salt water from pushing up river. Almost as soon as we started paddling we had to get out and portage. Ed was snapping photos and making jokes, Matt was not laughing, he was ready to get to Wooden Bridge and the bay.

Victoria to Invista: Miles 200-227

Leaving Victoria, I could see a couple of headlights down river and assumed there were at least a few more boats ahead of those. Earlier in the race I had joked with Matt about hammering a pace and racing for 5th place Novice Class. I knew we weren't in the running for hardware and never really saw the point in pushing. Now, for some reason, I was feeling competitive and determined to reel some boats in. I wasn't sprinting, not even close, but I was following Matt's pace and digging hard enough to get us moving. Matt caught on after a while and picked up the tempo. It wasn't long before we started catching boats.

As I remember it, this wasn't a fun section of river to run at night. There wasn't much flow and there weren't any rapids or treacherous sweepers, but there was a ton of junk in the first 10 miles or so. Within 20 minutes of leaving Victoria, we passed the first couple of boats. We'd try to follow them into the junk-filled turns, working off of their lines to avoid snags. When we hit a wider, straighter section, we'd pick up the pace long enough to pass and put on some distance. Most of the teams would speed up after we passed, then drop off pace and fall behind after a few minutes. No one wanted to pick up the pace at night, 200 miles into the race...but no one liked being passed at night, 200 miles into the race either.

Again, details (especially at night) tend to blur together and it's difficult to remember what happened and when. Many of the sweepers (if you can even call them that) clogged and tricky at night, but not difficult. On one particular left turn we ran into a pile of junk and got stuck. I jumped in the water, which was much deeper than expected (like always) and pushed the canoe. When we finally managed to get loose, I climbed back in. It was at this point that Matt asked “did you see that snake”. “No. What snake!?” “There was a snake coiled on that log right next to you when you were in the water.” “Oh. Awesome.” Matt really hates snakes and was really attentive about spotting snakes...and gators. I don't really mind snakes, but I'd rather not be floating next to one in black water in the middle of the night. Ah, the Safari...

In addition to snake wrangling, we were also still participating in a race. Through the first 10 miles of the Invista section, we continued passing canoes. Yet again, we bumped into a Novice team (I wish I could remember their names or team number) that we'd traded places with since Saturday night. I believe they paddled a faster pace than us on day 1, then stopped for sleep some time during the night. They passed us Sunday morning as Matt slept in the bow and we traded places through the next two sections on the way to Hochheim and Cheapside. Apparently, they'd slept even longer than we did at Cheapside, because they didn't catch us again until Victoria.

Paddling in the middle of the overall pack, I hadn't really considered it a race since day 1. We were mid pack, moving at a slow pace, and the top 3 Novice boats were way ahead of us. Still, I had the impression that this team was trying to stay ahead of us. Out of the big pack of Novice boats from days 1 and 2, they always remembered us and seemed to have some thought as to how far ahead we were. This time when we passed, they said “we thought you guys were some where ahead of us”. I was surprised they could even see who it was at night. “Yea, we stopped for sleep at Cheapside and Victoria.” They picked up their pace a bit to match ours and one of them, spotting my Texas A&M Galveston sticker asked me some thing about boat naming conventions. My brain was mushy, so I didn't reply. Maybe he though I was just a dick?

These guys stayed with us for a little while. I believe we passed at least one more canoe before they dropped off the pace. We never saw them again. Not much further into the section, we caught Zoltan. We probably exchanged a few words in passing and Zoltan picked up his pace to stay with us. Running solo, at night, this far into the race, I'm sure he was happy to have some one to follow. Unfortunately, he dropped off our pace before long.

One thing I should mention here is that, within the first 10 or 12 miles of this section, there are (apparently) 3 bridges. I vaguely remember 2 and mostly only remember the one at Victoria Power Plant. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/8782937 I found this photo on GoogleEarth and had to include it. Imagine pulling up to this in the night, barely awake, on a weird, dark river. It looks like some sort of bright, glowing temple in the middle of the jungle. I don't know if my brain ever clicked onto what it actually was, but I can only imagine what competitive Safari racers have thought, seeing this on their second, sleep deprived night after hammering away for nearly 2 days. I do believe that I remember the last bridge of the section (roughly 11 miles in?). If I'm correct, we were near Zoltan or ahead of him as we passed under the bridge. Some one (probably Zoltan's crew) yelled. It scared the shit out of Matt. Possibly I was too tired to care? More likely, I was still sort of lost in my own head, crunching numbers and trying to figure our pace vs miles remaining to determine if we could stop for more sleep and whether we could finish before sunset on Tuesday...

The next 18 miles of the Invista section are, literally, in the middle of no where. The river slows to absolutely nothing, there's a crazy boneyard of stumps and fallen trees, and your brain just dies. Well, ours did any way. Similar to our 55 mile all-nighter on the Brazos River, at about 2 or 3 AM we both bonked. It was like running face-first into a brick wall and I think it happened to both of us at nearly the exact same time. I don't think we were physically exhausted, our brains were just making an attempt to shut down for sleep. When you work and sleep on a “normal” schedule, your brain apparently thinks that 2 AM is power-off time. Our paced felt like a crawl, but I couldn't seem to muster up the energy to do any thing about it.

Time nearly stops in those hours. You slog down river, convinced that at any moment canoes are going to start passing you. They don't. That far back in the back, every one is having the same experience of trying to survive the night. The teams that haven't pulled over for sleep are likely crawling along at the same lethargic pace. Caffeine is a toss up at this point. Maybe it will be the miracle cure, maybe it won't. Nothing was working for us. You keep paddling along at what ever pace you can manage and you wait for dawn. We did make one stop to relieve ourselves in the river. The ridiculousness (ands awesomeness) of whole experience really hit me then. Here we are, floating in a potentially alligator infested river, at 3 AM, in the middle of no where. If that's not an adventure, I don't know what is.

About 4 miles from the checkpoint, we ran into our first navigational challenge. Had we paddled this section of river before the race we would have known exactly what we were seeing. As it was, we could only guess. We were looking at a log jam, with an opening, and three different waterways. The left route was before the jam, the center and right routes appeared after we took the opening, to the right, through the jam. We slowed to a drift and pulled out the gps, which unfortunately, does not show enough detail at this scale. It does, however, give you a good idea of which direction is down river. Matt decided on the “right” route and I agreed. We were correct. You almost have to see this location on Google Earth to appreciate the weirdness of discovering at night. There's an oxbow in the river here that's in the process of pinching off and disconnecting. The river swings left into a long, hairpin turn, but the river is actually open at the base, or it would be if there was no log jam. The left route would have been OK, just longer. The route we took is the shortest, as you're avoiding that whole bend. The center route would have gotten us into trouble, as that would have had us paddling back upstream. Who knows if we would have recognized the same jam, coming backwards at it from around the bend.

This section really surprised us. Neither of us expected much from those 27 miles, but that far into the race, paddling through the night, it was tough. Fortunately, the “hallucination alley” did not live up to it's name for us. No doubt, this section was a strange place at night, it just wasn't the out-of-my-mind experience I had on the run to Cheapside. One story did hold true: the last few miles are maddening. Not long after the log jam you start to hear the Invista plant. The sound gets closer, then further away as the river snakes back and forth. We even spotted it a couple of times, before the river veered off in another direction. At one point I actually suggested that we stop, so I could climb up onto one of the tall banks and have a look. Matt wisely shot that idea down. It was around dawn now and we were awake, although definitely looking forward to a nap at the checkpoint. I had run the numbers, again, and figured that we'd have enough time to nap at the checkpoint, leave before 9 AM, and finish the race before dark. All we had to do was get to the check point...

We weren't far off. After a few hundred more bends in the river we finally spotted Invista. Http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10267481 The joy of the moment was, however, cut short. We had no idea where the check point was or what it would look like. This check point isn't a bridge, like usual. All we knew was that it would be some where after Invista. Well, he we were and no check point. We continued down-river, but started to get a bit nervous. Logically, you know that it's unlikely you could ever miss a check point. But, after a long, tough night, with no solid idea of what you're looking for, things are bit more uneasy.

Matt pulled out the gps and we tried to get some idea of where the checkpoint might be. We noticed there was a bridge coming up and felt sure that we should hit the checkpoint BEFORE the bridge. We spotted a house or a boat or some thing on river left. Is that it? Nope. Now, we were really getting anxious, because we could see the bridge in the distance. Just before we could think about doing some thing stupid, there they were, on a tall, muddy bank on river left. I don't remember being so happy to see our crew at any point earlier in the race. It was a relief. We pulled up, explained to Ed our plans for sleep, and dragged the canoe as far as we could onto the bank. This bank was so muddy and steep there was actually a rope to haul yourself up. While we were negotiating this beast another racer paddled up...from the wrong direction...solo...in an aluminum canoe. Apparently, he and his partner had a big fight after the checkpoint. They pulled over and his partner got out and walked back to the checkpoint. He paddled back, got out, then had to chase the canoe, which had drifted off down-river. We never heard the full story, but we amazed that anyone would want to quit this close to Seadrift. I believe they had a long stop at Invista and eventually continued.

Once again, I was shoveling down a Denti Moore and wandering around looking for a suitable place to sleep. Lucky for us, there were still no mosquitoes and there was plenty of tree cover, but the fire ants were out in full force. While scouting for a spot, I bumped into Travis' parents. After dropping due to injury, Travis' dad had joined his mom for crewing duties. I remember him asking me how I heated up the Denti Moore. I didn't. It's cold. This far into the race, it's still awesome. A cold Denti Moore was the least of their concerns though. Travis had left Victoria about an hour before us and they expected him in by now. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember spotting him at all that night, and we had passed every one. They seemed worried and I wished I could offer more than “well, if he had the same kind of night we did, he probably pulled over for sleep”. Fortunately, Matt had spotted Travis' canoe up on a bank at some point in the night. I had absolutely no memory of this, but trusted Matt on this one, as he usually spotted every thing on the banks at night. As it turns out, Travis must have had a tough night. We probably spent a total of 1.5 hours at Invista and Travis still hadn't shown by the time we left.

Sleep...you elusive bitch. I found a spot for us to lie down and Matt was out immediately. When I wasn't tossing and turning I was getting chewed up by ants. Just to lie down and rest is nice, but it's not a replacement for sleep. It really sucks laying there, not sleeping, knowing that you could be on the river making progress. You couldn't have convinced me at the time, but the sleep stop might have been helpful, in the long run. Matt got some solid sleep and I think a good mental re-charge. This would save our ass later in the day when things started to fall apart for me.

I don't think Ed had to get us up. I rolled over, looked at the watch, and knew it was time to go. I kicked Matt a few times to wake him, then headed down to the canoe to get things together. Another of the Novice teams we had traded places with was on the bank. They were picking up water and getting ready to push on. I talked with them for a couple of minutes. One of them had been bitten by a spider. He had a nice red circle to show for it. Didn't look too bad, but not much fun either, I'm sure. As usual, these guys seemed a bit eager to get moving, knowing they were jumping ahead of another Novice team (us).

Escaping this check point took some time. Matt and Ed fumbled through gear while I waited, feeling more and more anxious. That clock in my head was ticking loudly now. I knew we were getting down to it: roughly 35 miles left, with a log jam portage, and a bay crossing, hopefully before dark. The log jam and the bay were definitely adding to my anxiety. I had a good idea of the log jam portage, although I'd never seen it in person and I'd heard plenty of stories of teams losing hours on this portion of the course. Similarly, I had a good idea of what to expect in the bay and how to navigate it, although I'd never seen it in person and I was dreading the conditions that I almost knew we would run into. Twenty mile per hour winds and 2-3 ft chop don't bother me...but those conditions are absolutely horrible to paddle through in a heavy aluminum canoe. I tried to put it out of my mind.

Finally, around 8:30 AM we pushed off. I was excited to see what was ahead, not knowing, of course, that the next 12 hours would be the toughest of the entire race.

Cheapside to Victoria: Miles 146-200

“Eric. It's been two hours and twenty minutes.” Shit! The “and twenty minutes” part snapped me awake quick. I was already worried about wasting too much time and now we'd slept for an extra twenty minutes. Seemed like a big deal. “Matt. Get up. Time to go.”

I scooped up the inflatable cushion and emergency blanket that I'd used as sleeping gear and waited for Matt to get up and moving. Taking that muscle relaxer before sleep probably wasn't the best idea. I felt a little heavy and lethargic, but at least I'd gotten a solid two hours of sleep. Eventually, we stumbled down the hill and started gearing up to push on. My shorts and compression top were still wet (obviously) from my midnight pleasure swim through the rapids. I hated the idea of putting those on in the cool, foggy, early hours, but the sooner they dried the better.

As we finished situating our food and hydration, we talked with one of the checkpoint officials. He mentioned some thing about us being right in the middle of the pack. Hmm. I guess we'd moved up a few positions, despite the slow pace, hallucinations, and lack of sleep. Not that we cared much at this point. Our main focus was getting to the next check point, and then the next, and the next...

We pushed off and began paddling into the early morning fog. I wasn't too thrilled about the lack of visibility (after our adventures earlier that night), but we'd only have a couples of hours or so before sunrise. Not to mention, this next section was the easiest we were going to see for the rest of the race: less than 15 miles of non-descript river between Cheapside and Cuero. I was starting to get a bit more excited and focused on the thought of running Cuero to Victoria. After Hocheim, Victoria was the next big milestone in my mind. Victoria is the end of the Texas River Marathon course (which I had never paddled) and the 200 mile mark. I knew there were rapids and sweepers on this section, so this seemed like our last big challenge before the log jam portage and the bay.

It's funny how little you remember some times. I recently paddled this section of the river in the Cuero Turkey Fest race. Aside from Cheapside, the rapids upstream, and the rock that knocked the paddle out of my hand, not one bit of the course looked familiar, haha. That's not surprising. Like I said, this section is mostly non-descript, with small sweepers and junk here and there. We did spot some wildlife on this section: a big vulture standing on a gravel bar with his wings spread, trying to intimidate us, and a couple of deer, maybe ten feet away on a grassy bank. Besides that, this section is nice, secluded, and a warm up for the prelim course.

Before long, we pulled up to the checkpoint and the 236 bridge in Cuero. It was still morning and I was starting to feel really good. This was mile 160, we had only 100 miles left (which seemed totally reasonable, at the time), an interesting and slightly challenging section of river ahead of us, and a relatively “short” section. Cuero to Victoria is 38 miles, BUT the Thomaston bridge is 18 miles in. So, you can have your crew meet you there, which basically gives you another checkpoint and, more importantly, a mental recharge. As far as I was concerned, today was going to be great.

Zoltan cruised past the checkpoint in his C-1, telling his team captain he was good for now. We exchanged our water jugs, took care of a couple of other things, and told Ed to meet us at Thomaston. Less than a mile from the checkpoint is one of the more technical obstacles on this section. The river swings left, with a shallow gravel bar on the inside and a nasty sweeper spanning the entire river. The water is pushy there, making that small slot through the tree a bit challenging. At night, things might have been interesting. As it was, we managed with out too much trouble.

This was another interesting example of the huge mental swings that go on during the race. As high as I was running the prelim course, Matt was hitting a low. Fatigue and pain are big factors after two days on the river, but I was starting to suspect the gps. At some point on day 2 (I think...?) Matt turned on the gps. I had been against it, only wanting use it for navigation later on. Matt was use to paddling with a gps and felt like he needed the reference to make sure we didn't slack. Sounds great, but what really happens (just like on long training runs) is you tend to focus WAY too much on the damn thing and the miles start to crawl by. “Man, turn that fucking gps off.” Not that I blamed him for the mood, but the hell with the gps. Matt flipped it over, so he couldn't see it...then got really annoyed any time I asked him what the mileage was...I asked several times.

Like the Hochheim section, I mostly remember Cuero to Victoria as one big blur, only punctuated with little events here and there to break up the monotony. Miles and miles of wide, slow river roll by with little to no signs of civilization. Although, when we finally did see a house, we got one of the biggest surprises of the race. Right there on the bank, down from one of the homes, was a big tent with a table full of water bottles and jugs, and of course, a “free water” sign for Safari racers. If the situation wasn't such a surprise, we might have been pissed at our horrible timing. As it was, we thought it was pretty damn hilarious.

Night number two had spread the pack a bit. Some teams likely pushed on, while others slept longer than we did. On the prelim course we only traded places with Travis and Zoltan. Travis started the race with his father, who dropped at Palmetto due to an injury. Travis pushed on solo and seemed determined to keep grinding away. Zoltan was making his attempt at being the oldest Safari finisher ever at 71 years. I tried to grill him for course information and mileage, but mostly he was just entertaining to listen to. Zoltan has run the Safari many times, with mixed results. As he put it, “I'm famous for breaking boats”.

Those 18 miles rolled off quickly. I was still feeling great as we pulled up to our unofficial checkpoint at the Thomaston bridge. Our crew was in the water, swimming with Zoltan's team captain. It seemed like a good time to tie the boat off and take a dip. We only spent a few minutes in the water, but it was amazing. Our crew seemed happy at the moment and Zoltan's captain told us to give him some thing to chase. Some where in there, Travis paddled in, grabbed his water, and paddled on. I managed to get a little info on where the rapids were and what to expect before the clock spurred us on. You'd be surprised what a short break like this will do. I was still high.

I'm not exactly clear on how many rapids there are on this section, I wasn't sure before the race and it's still not clear. I remember two. Neither of them was an issue. The first, we approached after swinging out wide to river right. We back paddled and slowed a bit to get a good look. It would have been easy enough to portage, if needed, but we ran them with no trouble. Later in the day, we paddled up to the second rapids with Travis. He slowed and had a good look before going in, as he was paddling a tandem boat solo, from the stern. He had no issues and neither did we. Another team in an unlimited tandem was pulled over in the rapids. They had some sort of accident. Some of their gear was in the river and I think they'd made repairs. We'd seen them making repairs earlier in the race. Obviously, the low water was causing issues. We managed to scoop up one of their water bottles down stream.

The more challenging features in this section were the sweepers. The shallow river and tight channels force you into narrow spots that are often clogged with junk. When we weren't alone, I tried to follow Travis or Zoltan into sweepers to pick up on their line, depending on how successful it was. Often, you have a choice of two routes, inside the junk or outside. If you choose wrong, you may run aground on the inside and have to portage over the gravel bar, or worse, get caught on the outside with no where to go other than straight into a pile of shit.

I know we had a few close calls and less than graceful lines, but only one stands out. There was a left turn with a shallow gravel bar on the inside. The river wants to swing you outside, however, there's a nice pile of junk right in the way, with a big log pointing back to the left. Zoltan took an inside line and slipped through. I tried to follow, but we weren't so successful. We approached from the inside and swept out further than I intended. Soon enough, we slammed sideways into the log. This is not a situation you want to be in. If the canoe tips upstream, the current rushed in, fills it with water, and either pins it to the log or sucks it under. Fortunately, we managed to push and pull until we slid past the log. Later, we'd find the damage.

Some where in that long stretch we noticed we were bailing water more often than we should be. There were no rapids since the last time we'd bailed and we hadn't been out of the canoe. We pulled over on a gravel bar and flipped that canoe. There it was, two missing rivets. More than likely, we'd knocked them out when we slammed into that sweeper. Matt wanted to dig the epoxy out and take care of it right there. I thought we'd be better off pushing on to Victoria, where we could sleep while the epoxy dried. Victoria it is.

Afternoon turned to evening and the miles started to add up. The heat was not fun. You get accustom to it after a while and only notice when your pace starts to slip and your energy evaporates. If you're really competing, you suck it up and keep paddling. In our position, you take a quick dip, just enough to cool your core down. Like the Hochheim stretch, we'd do this every time I noticed our pace dragging too much. Of course, we were always conscious of the clock and strict about limiting ourselves to a couple of minutes. At one point, we chose the wrong route, ran aground, and decided this was a good enough time to stop for a swim. Zoltan paddled up, taking the correct route, but decided to join us any way. We talked for a couple of minutes before climbing back in and pushing on.

Conditions in the evening were the first sign of what was to come in the bay, although I chose to ignore that thought at the time. The winds were picking up. Paddling into a stiff wind is never fun, especially 200 miles into a race, after a long day. We were paddling in a loose pack with Zoltan and Travis at this point. I did my best to steer us back and forth across the river, where ever there was a tall bank to shield us from the wind. It helped...slightly. Matt was not in a good mood. He was ready to get there. I had a hard time convincing him that 3 more hours wasn't that long. Hell, it was longer than I wanted to admit, but what options do you have at the time? None. You keep paddling.

As typical, those last few miles sucked. Just when you manage to convince yourself that you're almost there, you see a TWS mileage sign that shatters your hopes. “GO TWS! ONLY 1,435 miles to VICTORIA!!!” Ah, son of a bitch! It was getting close to dark at this point and I was really looking forward to slugging down a Denti Moore and taking a nap. Soon enough though, we pulled up to Victoria City Park. Seeing that “200 Miles” sign was awesome. For what ever reason, it was a big landmark for me. The remaining 60 miles seemed like a mere training run...except for the log jam and the bay, of course.

While we were trying to figure out how to haul our boat out, Zoltan pulled up, along with the tandem unlimited team. “He guys. Is this your water bottle?” They looked uneasy saying “yes”, which is understandable as, strictly speaking, assistance is not allowed. “I'm just going to set it on the bank over here.” Hey, I found a water bottle and chose to leave it on the bank. No harm, no foul.

Matt got a little impatient trying to pull the canoe onto the boat ramp...while I was still standing in it. Luckily, I fell backwards right into my seat. Probably looked more graceful than it was. We dragged the canoe up the boat ramp a bit, where we thought it would be out of the way, then flipped it over so Matt could work. I headed up the hill to check the time sheet and started shoveling down a Denti Moore. Cruising in the middle of the pack, we were always curious what was going on ahead of us in the race.

I've been told that Victoria is not a good checkpoint for sleep. I don't know about that, maybe the mosquitoes are usually bad there? We found a nice, grassy spot up the hill and laid down for a nap. I told Ed to wake us up in 1 hour. Unfortunately, I couldn't really sleep. When Ed came back after 1 hour, I told him to give us another 30 minutes. I might have slept a little that time.

It was dark now and and I felt a bit out of it. We walked back down the ramp to load our canoe up and noticed that several teams had made it in while we slept. Some were sleeping, some were hanging around the boat ramp, and some had pushed on without stopping. We hadn't really been in “race mode” up to this point...but I didn't like being passed by a pack of boats in the night. When we finally got every thing ready and back on the water, I set a hard enough pace to reel in every boat.

Gonzales to Cheapside: Miles 85-145

Dehydration, sleep deprivation, hallucinations, relieving yourself in the river, shitty, muddy check points, sweltering heat, impromptu night swims through rapids to chase down a $260 racing paddle, hypothermia in the Texas summer, the Safari has it all...some times within the span of 24 hours. Where else would you pay $125 for that kind of treatment?

I won't lie, realizing that we had forgotten our extra gallon of water had me seriously worried. 38 miles of paddling is some thing I can “manage” on just 1 gallon of water, especially at our easy pace, but I wasn't crazy about the idea of rationing water in the afternoon heat. An even bigger concern was how long Matt would survive. We started the Safari with a ½ gallon of water each to stay light for all the portages in the first 16 miles. By the time our crew surprised us, about 1.5 hours into the race, Matt was already through his ½ gallon. How the hell was he suppose to paddle 9-10 hours on just 1 gallon?

Nothing to do about it now. There's no where for the crew to meet us before Hochheim and no real options other than to keep paddling and see what happens. That didn't keep us from fantasizing or cooking up some “strategery” on how we might obtain extra water. I determined that at some point we'd have to see a house and they'd have to have some sort of faucet out back. Even better, maybe we'd just find a full water jug along the bank some where...

Despite our crisis, the race and the day proceeded along as usual. The Gonzales to Hochheim stretch is relentlessly monotonous. The river is wide, slow, shallow, and mostly uneventful. I expected this section to be horrible, but it actually wasn't too bad. OK, so maybe my expectations were so horrible that the reality was some what tolerable in comparison..? It really is a nice stretch of river, even if it is a bit boring. After some of my coastal bayou paddles, where the tallest thing around is a blade of grass, you won't hear me complain too much about paddling along tall, tree lined banks.

This is another case where the low water had it's benefits. As pissed off as I was running into logs and junk during the first night, we both agreed that all of that in and out of the boat stuff seemed good for conditioning. It kept the circulation going in your lower body. Similarly, on the Guadalupe, low water meant that there was usually a reason to pay attention and stay alert as you were looking for deeper channels and trying to avoid running aground. These little rapids were at least a little entertaining on an otherwise mundane stretch of river. Better circulation or not, it's hot, and long, and you really REALLY don't want to run shallow and have to hop out. We were always alert and searching for that deeper channel. After our argument on day 1, Matt had taken to being the spotter in the bow, and he usually did a better job than me on determining which route was deeper. I'm less patient and would rather pick a route and hit it.

At some point on the way to Hochheim we started catching up to other boats, mostly Novice class teams. Pretty much every one (except us) either goes hard on day 1 or tries to hit their pace as soon as possible. Most of these teams were probably dragging after a tough first day or they were already locked on to a pace. I felt like we had energy on reserve and I knew I could paddle significantly harder if I had a reason. Really though, I couldn't see a reason. I knew we were some where in the back half of the pack. I was still dead focused on finishing the race, but I couldn't see what was to gain by trying to race these guys.

We traded places with these teams over and over. One of us would stop to lay in the water and cool off or one of us would pick up or drop the pace. Some teams pulled over for a nap. I couldn't blame them, it was hot and the river to Hochheim just goes on and on and on. We weren't using the GPS at this point, so we had no idea of the mileage we'd covered. That was fine with me and was actually part of the plan. With a GPS, it's too easy to lock onto mileage and start waiting for an end, even if you're having a good time. I wanted a bit of mystery, with only a watch and the time to give any clue of where you might be. At least then you can tell yourself that it's just a couple more hours to the check point...

Some where along this stretch we passed Brian, who was paddling an aluminum canoe, from the bow, by himself, with a big pile of rocks in the stern to trim the boat. His partner had dropped out at Gonzales and like most other Safari racers, Brian refused to let that stop him. He'd run the Safari in 2010 and agreed with us as to our assessment of the suckiness of this section. Brian thought we were about 10 miles from the check point. Now armed with a “must be correct” estimate of mileage, Matt picked up the pace, desperate to get to Hochheim.

I didn't like the increased pace. We were spending a lot of energy in the heat and were probably not moving all that much faster. Over that type of distance (especially in our slow as shit, heavy canoe) a slight increase in pace is better than a more intense pace that you can't hold, especially in the day time. Of course, it wasn't long before we started passing teams, one of which told us the mileage. The news was not good. We had hammered the pace for I don't remember how long and still had 10 miles to go. Matt was slightly pissed defeated...I though that was funny.

Shortly after this, Matt ran out of water and I passed him what was left of one of my jugs. We had both been trying hard to ration all day. Holy shit do those cooler jugs work! We couldn't even get the rest of the water, because it was still ice. That was almost unbelievable to us. I guess we've both spent too much time hiking or paddling with uninsulated hydration bladders that melt with 10 seconds. I knew we were both dehydrated, but again, nothing to do about it until we hit the check point...when ever the F**K that was going to be. And speaking of the check point, I swear that river was taking it's sweat ass time in getting there. It felt like we were swerving back and forth, towards, then away from the check point. Google Earth does not confirm this, but possibly some one has altered those satellite images.

Two weeks after leaving Gonzales (or maybe it was 10 hours?) we arrived at Hochheim, dehydrated and ready for sleep. We had jumped from 55th place to 49th place. As much as any thing else, this felt like a TWS rite of passage, not just surviving the stretch to Hochheim, but surviving and arriving there to proclaim to any one within earshot that yes, in fact, “this check point sucks!!!”. I probably looked lost and delirious, but I walked back and forth determined that there had to be some where suitable for sleep. There was not. Hochheim is just a steep, muddy slope under a bridge. A couple of teams pulled up and blasted off as we were standing there, but I didn't care, we were SUPPOSE to get some sleep. Screw it then, we told our crew that we'd pull over up the river and grab a nap. Another team's captain at the check point suggested that we just push on to Cheapside, “it's only 24 miles”. Hah! That sounded like an eternity at this point. No way we'd make it that long...right?

Or maybe we would. We pulled over on the bank about 5 minutes down river. We both climbed up and found reasonably flat spots to lie down. For what ever reason, neither of us could sleep. After 5 or 10 minutes we said F**k it and pushed on. Not long after, we both popped some caffeine and decided to just keep plugging along until we hit Cheapside. “It's only 5 hours” I said. At the time, that seemed perfectly easy for some reason. Funny thing though, as soon as the sun set, my brain *clicked* and I knew it was going to be an interesting night. I think I told Matt some thing along the lines of “I'm going to start saying some weird shit later, just ignore it”. I can't describe the feeling, but the sense that “things are going to get weird” was undeniable.

Fortunately for both of us, I didn't completely lose my mind that night, but shit most definitely got weird. The caffeine pill probably kept me charged for 2 hours or so (damn the caffeine tolerance of a coffee junky...). After that, I started hallucinating. I was never confused about what was going on. I knew I was hallucinating, I knew some of what I was seeing was not what it appeared to be, and I knew some of what I was seeing just wasn't there. I wasn't really worried about it, but steering the canoe was a hell of a lot more interesting all of the sudden. I had enough awareness of the situation to tell Matt that he'd have to tell me where the hell we were going.

OK, so maybe I lied about not being confused, because there were a few odd thoughts running through my head during those miles. For one, I couldn't tell what was in the bow of my canoe. Had I not already spent 40 hours paddling with Matt, you might have convinced me that there was some sort of amorphous, alien blob paddling bow. I don't wear my glasses when paddling, so squinting up towards the bow just made things more confusing, “yep, a brown blob with light radiating from him, definitely NOT shaped like a human, but he keeps burping and trying to communicate with me, so it MUST be Matt”. Even more odd was the thought that we were missing some one. Who it was or why we would have had a third person with us, I couldn't say. But, there had been some one else in the canoe, I was almost sure of that. Was it Ed? No, that's our team captain, he's at the check point. Well, who the hell was it then!? I know we had some one else with us, when and why did they get out of the canoe..? And who was it, damnit?

Even weirder still, I was now questioning whether I had even paddled with Matt today. I could distinctly remember paddling the Hochheim stretch with my brother. Yep, I could clearly remember navigating the little rapids and channels with my brother in the bow. Over and over we had discussed which channel would be deeper and whether we should steer left or right. When the hell did Matt replace him? That daytime stretch seemed like an eternity apart from what we were currently doing and where we were. At least I didn't voice any of these mental debates. I was feeling a little sick and was probably fairly quiet. Had I actually said any of this, Matt surely would have thought I was out of my mind.

In the midst of this, the free entertainment, I mean the hallucinations, continued. Often, it was as simple as seeing a stump that wasn't there or seeing a stump that WAS there, but not being sure exactly how far away it was. I had almost no spacial awareness, I couldn't have told you whether the stump was 50 yards away or 5 feet. During the day time, I'd see a sun bleached log on the distant bank and think it was a canoe. This was more severe at night. EVERY log on the bank was a canoe, at least until we were nearly right next to it. That thought alone had me seeing people on the banks and in the woods. The most convincing one was wearing a green headlamp and peeking out from behind the trees. Why was he hiding? Was this one real? When Matt looked in that direction I was sure that this one had to be real! After discussing this with Matt later on (NOT while it was happening) he told me there was a green reflector on one of the trees. I could have swore it was moving...

Steering was not getting any easier. Matt was telling me “left, right, 20 yards ahead”, but I was still hallucinating and having trouble focusing. At one point, we ran into a small patch of fog and I suddenly saw a gravel bar with a tent on it right in front of us. I jammed my paddle in the water to steer around it, then it vanished. Hmm. I could see more gravel bars and tents up ahead, were any of them real? My paddling and steering slowed as I had NO idea any more which objects were actually there.

Not long after this, we started on the “endless river” to Cheapside. We kept waiting for the check point and waiting and waiting. Google Earth does confirm this one, as the river in this area starts to snake back and forth. On top of that, you're sort of running parallel to the highway, so you hear traffic and assume it's the bridge, but it's not. It really felt like we were running through one hairpin turn after another, barely moving south at all. We when did hit a straight away it would look almost infinite. I'd squint into the darkness ahead, but couldn't tell what was at the end of the tunnel. Matt was starting to crack now. He REALLY wanted to get to the check point and couldn't understand why the hell it was taking so long. At one point, he suggested that we must have missed the check point...some how. Holy hell, I'm glad I wasn't out of my mind enough to agree with that assessment, that's how Safari legends are born. We'd turn around, paddle back up river, and if we were lucky, we'd bump into another team who'd set us straight. If we weren't lucky, we might pull over and wander off into the woods in search of civilization, before our sanity returned at day break...

“No way in HELL we passed that check point!” I knew that wasn't possible. A big bridge, with people, and lights, not a chance of missing that. “Did you see that tent back there though?” “No.” “Really!? I swear this one was real. It was a big tarp with chairs under it. Didn't see any people though...”

The weirdness continued as we were still running through tight, bending turns, then long, infinite straight aways. We were both looking forward to sleep at Cheapside. Matt only had about 15-20 minutes of sleep after the first night and I'd had zero sleep. Suddenly, the river made a couple of turns and we were running through rapids. Not rocky, frothy rapids, just fast flowing channels with sweeping turns. In the darkness and in my condition, it was happening way too fast. I reminded Matt to give me steering directions, but I was mostly just hanging on. We cleared a couple and then I thought I could actually see a slope ahead in the darkness. We got swept into a right turn and then sharply left. Just as we were swinging out of the left turn we slide into some thing, hard, probably a stump. The canoe tipped to one side and when it did, my paddle flew right out of my hands.

Funny, there was not a single thought in my head, I dove straight out of the canoe and grabbed the paddle. Shit! Now I'm getting swept down stream. I think Matt was much more shocked than I was. No big deal, I'm about to float on this gravel bar. Wait, I KNOW there was a gravel bar right there? Where the hell did it go!? Matt pulled over, but the water was deep and I was getting washed down stream too quickly, so he pushed off again and gave chase. I don't remember if I washed ashore or climbed back into the canoe. We ended up on a gravel bar, a little shocked, only to look up and see...the F***ING check point!!! You have to be shitting me!? I stayed dry all night only to get completely F***ING soaked RIGHT before a sleep break!? Son of a bitch...I wasn't happy. Of course, what are you gonna do? I climbed out, got naked, and put on the only dry set of clothes I had. I'd have to leave my paddling clothes out and hope they were reasonably dry in the morning.

Pulling up to Cheapside was not as joyous as I'd imagined, not under these conditions. My new clothes were dry, but my hair was wet and I was still slightly pissed. Lots of people were sleeping and it was quiet, so that was good. We told Ed that we hadn't slept and that we were going to knock out for two hours. The muscles in my shoulders were getting severely knotted, so I popped a muscle relaxer (left over from a tweaked back muscle two weeks before the race) and shoveled down a Dinti Moore. Ed lead us up the hill next to the car. I brought the emergency blanket and my inflatable seat cushion. It really wasn't a bad spot on the cliff over looking the river. I laid down, tossed around for 5 minutes or so, then was out cold. Unfortunately, this was the only real sleep I'd have the entire race.

Staples to Gonzales: Miles 16 - 85

Staples to Luling 90 is probably the most technical stretch of the course. Other sections come to mind as far as the amount of junk (submerged logs, downed trees) that litters the river, but none are as consistently narrow AND junky as this section. Oddly enough, I don't remember many details from this part of the day. Not far past the check point there's a downed tree that spans across the entire river, with a small gap that you have to shoot on the right, near the gravel bar. Fortunately, portaging across the gravel bar is not an option as the owners have installed a barbed wire fence that runs all the way to the water. Thank you for simplifying the decision. That was very kind. Of course, we did make the gap and it was probably as sloppy as every other time we've been through there. This clip is NOT from the Staples to Luling 90 stretch, if the “Mile 13” title is correct, which I assume it is. However, I feel that this gives a good idea of the kind of junk you navigate through on the Staples to Luling section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR8cIDXOMFI

As I mentioned in the last post, we continued to trade positions with other back of the pack teams. There are no portages in this section, but many teams had crew meeting them at bridges along the way. We'd pass them as they were taking on water or talking with their crew. Eventually, some of them would pass us again. We stayed with our “cruise mode” pace, focused on the idea of conserving energy on day 1 and finding our groove on day 2. For the most part, we didn't mind being passed, but some teams seemed really determined to pass us, then not so determined to actually maintain a pace once they had passed us. What can you do? You sand bag it on day 1 and that's what you get...I guess. I'm not sure what the mileage is on these next two clips...but we're in them, so I'll do a bit more self promoting. Skip to the 4:30 mark of the first clip and you'll see us in a few seconds. Skip to the 8:45 mark of the second clip. You'll notice in both clips that I'm either eating or digging around for food. Haha. You'll hear more on this later. These clips do give a good idea of the pack we were riding in on day 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3AFmCLDSNw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3AFmCLDSNw&feature=related

There were some “entertaining” mishaps and near misses on this section. One sweeper was almost completely choked with logs. After sweeping out near the bank, I failed to see the slot on the right and tried to steer us left, where we ran straight into the junk. After climbing out, dragging over the crap, climbing back in, and bitching at each other, we had a quick conversation about steering. Matt was annoyed that I missed the turn. I was annoyed that I was expected to do all of the steering. We agreed that there's no way I was going to see every thing from back there in the stern, with Matt right in the center of my vision. Matt would have to be the spotter in the bow. We were never able to completely commit to this method, but it did work well through out the rest of the race and was our only option on night 2, when I started hallucinating from lack of sleep.

Another interesting mishap involved, not surprisingly, a sweeper with a large stump. This sweeper was very shallow with a stump sticking six feet out of the water at a 45 degree angle. Unfortunately, the stump was directly in the line of flow, just past the shallows. If we cleared that one in training, it was just barely. We weren't so lucky this time. Instead of fighting across the inside, we were swept out towards the log. I ruddered on the right and brought the bow around enough to clear. In the next second or two, it became obvious that I would not make it. The stern was going to swing under the stump and there wasn't enough room for me to duck or lean back. Option 1: get knocked out of the boat by the stump. Option 2: flop out of that boat, like a kook. I chose option 2, diving over the side of the canoe...like a kook. Not the most skilled way to approach the situation, but we lost nothing in the process. Matt heard me hit the water, turned around and asked “what happened?”. I climbed back into the canoe and recounted my harrowing escape from almost certain death. Just then, a guy in a solo boat paddled past us (having taken the inside line) and said “thanks for the line”. Yea...you're welcome.

A key feature I should mention from this section of the course are the hordes of beer swilling, river lounging vacationers. The family crowds on private property aren't much of an issue, unless they're all sitting right in the middle of the river, which they apparently do on occasion. Rather, the campgrounds are where you find the most entertainment or frustration, depending on your point of view. Enough people to span the entire river. Of course, every one will be crammed into a small area directly adjacent to the camp ground access, because wading away from this area would waste valuable energy and would place you further away from those 6 cases of beer. It's surprising that people can be so oblivious to any thing and every thing around them. What's even more surprising is that they can be so oblivious to any thing and every thing going on around their children, who are invariably playing right in the channel that 100 canoes are attempting to navigate. Fortunately, this was not quite as bad as Memorial Weekend, when we had to get out of the canoe a couple of times to avoid running over unattended children.

Aside from the crowds, we still had plenty of sweepers to negotiate. Much of this went as expected, sloppy, but no disasters. We still had boats around to follow through these sections: crunch, smack, “OK, don't take the route they just took”. Hearing some of these composite boats grind out in shallow channels, we were (for the first time) glad to be in an aluminum. More than once we saw a solo boat get “wrapped” going through a sweeper. As I said before, we had a serious lack of course training. However, we had been through this section a couple of times in training. This paid off. We remembered several of the “problem spots” and either knew how to navigate them or that we should just hop out and drag through the shallows. One particular spot, not long before the check point, was a downed tree that was just above the surface, across the entire river. I'm not sure if there was a “skilled” way to navigate this. In March, we tried to run up and over the lowest spot, missed, swung the canoe into it sideways, and had to crawl on top and heave the canoe over. On Memorial weekend, we still got wet, but we made our way a bit more cleanly over the shallower spot. Knowing that we were nearing the check point, we waited for this spot and didn't see it. Possibly, some one with a 6 man canoe got a little happy with a chain saw before the race...

Not long before Luling 90 a group of boats, including Debbie and Amy, caught up to us. On our Memorial weekend run, Debbie and Amy launched at the same time as us. They had plenty of course practice, but were really worried about making the first cut off. We were both happy to see them there, as they were now guaranteed to make it. At our easy pace, we'd cleared the cut off with an hour to spare. Not as fast as we would have liked, but we hadn't expended much energy either. We pulled up to check point 2 amid a crowd of swimmers and race crews. A little further down stream we found our crew, who had picked out a great location away from the traffic. Once again, we pulled onto shore just long enough to toss out our drinking jugs and pick up one ½ gallon each. Zedler Dam was only 6 miles away and we'd have to stop here any way to mount our light, take care of a few small things, and portage. This is a clip of check point 2 at Luling 90.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpPETDf_Ajk

The 6 miles to Zedler Dam are mostly uneventful. There's a bit of current and junk for the first couple of miles, then the river widens and slows as you get closer to the dam. Faster teams set “Palmetto before dark” as a goal. We would be pulling into Zedler Dam just before dark, meaning we'd have to run the next 14 mile stretch to Palmetto in the dark. Neither of us had ever seen this section before. I was a little concerned and had actually been collecting info from other racers who had seen the section. Some of it I already knew and some of it was extra details. There are a couple of junk filled sweepers just past Zedler, miles and miles of more junk filled river, Ottine Rapids, Ottine Dam, and Palmetto Bridge. Nothing to do at this point, we'd see it all soon enough.

As we were approaching Zedler we passed a table on river left with, what I'm assuming were TWS officials? Matt yelled up and asked how many boats had come through. “A lot.” OK, I guess we have been paddling slowly. “What place are we in?” “71st.” Apparently, we were pretty far back in the pack. I didn't bother me too much, I knew we'd been sand bagging all day and we were never really going to be “in the race” any way. Still...I planed on running straight through the night and and all the way through the next day.

Pulling up to the dam, volunteers were trying to direct us to portage directly over. We wanted to drag up on the bank instead and take care of some things. We should have listened to them, it would have saved time to portage directly over the dam, then take care of every thing on the gravel bar across the river. Another mental note for next year. I remember seeing Nancy pull up as we were stopped. We wouldn't see her again for the rest of the race.

This was the first in a series of lengthy portages for us. We mounted the flashlight, took care of some body maintenance, then dragged the canoe up the hill, around the concrete slab, and down the rocky bank. I don't remember why, but Matt ended up in the water on this portage. I think he waded in to pull the canoe out, then stepped off into deep water. I paddled across to the gravel bar as Matt swam after. I thought it was pretty funny, Matt didn't. Our crew met us on the gravel bar to swap water jugs and to get instructions for the next check point. I remember telling them to get some sleep at Palmetto...I think they just drank more beer instead. This is a good view of Zedler Dam, with some of the faster teams portaging.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPqawZUrNtU&feature=related

We bumped into a 3 man boat (who we'd been next to at check in) after leaving the dam. They were fully set for night travel...sort of. These guys had what I'm assuming was rope lighting rigged all the way around the inside of their canoe and they had some dance music pumping out of the speakers. We would trade places with these guys for a while and, as with pretty much every boat from day 1, we'd never see them again.

We'd heard about a nasty sweeper not far past Zedler. It didn't take us long to find it. Actually, it wasn't much of a sweeper, just a left turn clogged with junk. During the daylight, we might have seen where we were going and been able to squeeze through on the right. Going left, we ran right into it. People were up on the bank some where in the darkness trying to direct us to go right. Of course, we couldn't see them or where they were pointing and it was too late any way. Nothing to do but climb out and drag over. This would be a big theme for our first night of the Safari and would set off several hours of bitching, by me. I was cursing that river and could not wait to hit the Guad. There was nothing demoralizing or discouraging about it, I'd just had enough of being in a bow heavy aluminum canoe and running aground on every bit of any thing. I was ready to get the hell off of the San Marcos and on to the Guad, where we could finally paddle.

Aside from the typical San Marcos junk, the main obstacles on this section were Ottine Rapids and Ottine Dam. If I'm correct here, Ottine Rapids are the remnants of an old dam. As I said, we'd never seen this section and we didn't know that teams were portaging here because of the low water. Approaching in the darkness, we heard the loud roar from the rapids and back paddled to stop the canoe and try to get a look at what we were about to hit. The rapids are a sort of tall, rocky slope, so we could only really see the top and where we would enter. Well, pick a spot and go. That's what we did and other than running aground (imagine that...) on the way down, we didn't have any major issues.

Two miles of beautiful, pitch black, log filled river and we were at Ottine Dam. Fortunately (and I really mean that) the TWS has lights, portage signs, and volunteers set up at every dam, because they can really sneak up on you, especially in the dark. Case in point, on a San Marcos training run Matt asked “what's that up there?”. Being a smart ass I said “water”. About 5 seconds later I noticed we were almost on top of Cummins Dam. “Oh, good call, Matt...”.

Next to the log jam, Ottine Dam was the biggest pain in the ass. After pulling the canoe ashore, you drag up the tall, steep, sandy bank and get your first view of the 1 mile trail that you have to portage. OK, so it's not really 1 mile (not even close), but it felt like it that night. We really struggled on that portage, though we did survive, and probably didn't not take much time. Actually, I can guarantee it took less time to portage than it did to wait for the two boats in front of us launch down that steep bank. To be fair, it was a tricky spot to launch and we likely weren't so quick with it ourselves.

I can't tell you much about the next couple of miles to Palmetto. It was dark and we weren't feeling so “thrilled to be there” after the portage. Honestly, it was one of those times when you're REALLY just ready to get to the check point, pick up your water, and hit the reset button. Before long, we came around a corner and there was the low bridge at Palmetto State Park, packed full of race crews waiting for their paddlers. After yelling out our boat number, we jumped out and just barely managed to squeeze our canoe under the bridge, to avoid portaging over, which neither of us wanted to do. Our crew was on the bridge, so I tied us off on the other side so we could empty trash, get new water jugs, and prepare for the rest of the night.

This was another slow transition for us. Well, in comparison, we probably didn't lose too much time at Palmetto. Mostly, I was getting anxious seeing a couple of canoes pull out before us. This is the first check point where teams start pulling over for sleep. On the way to Palmetto, we paddled near another aluminum canoe, although they were paddling with double blades. One of the guys asked us if we were planning on sleeping, because they were stopping at Palmetto. I assumed they were a little unsure of the plan and were debating on whether other teams were doing this. From what I gathered, a lot of the back of the pack teams do stop for sleep at Palmetto. You can see a bit of this in the race results. We were in 73rd place at Staples. We had only moved up to 70th place by Luling 90. By the time we left Palmetto, we had jumped up to 63rd place, most likely due to passing teams as they were sleeping at Palmetto.

Still, after seeing other teams leaving I was ready to run. Matt finished what he was doing, we got a couple of tips from the check point official about what was directly downstream, and we set off. Maybe we should have picked up a few more tips, because on the first turn we stuck to the outside and ran right into a dead end channel. I wasn't happy and I took the opportunity, once again, to curse this damn river and wish I was on the Guad already. Curses aside, we backed up and took the correct route. Not long after, we ran aground on more junk...son of a b****!!!

It was 25 miles to the next check point at Gonzales and I can only remember pieces of it here and there. For a while, the river was much the same as the previous section: dark, narrow, and clogged with junk. I started getting really tired at this point and tried paddling for a while with my eyes closed to relax. Me and Matt both popped a Vivarin, Matt got more of a boost than I did, shouldn't have had that iced coffee in the afternoon. As the night progressed, I started getting cold and sick. Neither was a huge surprise. After paddling all day in 90-100 degree weather it's not uncommon for paddlers to get cold on the river as the temps “cool” off. Similarly, I'm not exactly the first person in the history of the Safari to get sick. I knew that if I just sipped some water and ate some thing fatty (fritos and sausage) it would pass sooner or later. Being cold was a bigger problem that I needed to deal with, so we took the opportunity to pull over on a gravel bar and stretch. While we were stopped, I changed into some pants and popped a pepto pill.

We lost a bit of time on the gravel bar, but it seemed as though we made it up before too long as we started passing one sleeping team after another. I don't think we ever considered stopping for sleep. Our all-niter on the Brazos gave us confidence that we could push through the first night and re-charge when the sun came up. The closer we got to dawn the better I felt. I wasn't cold or nauseous any more and I was slowly waking up as it got lighter. We continued to pass sleeping teams all the way through dawn until we hit that last stretch before the Guad.

I suppose Matt's Vivarin wore off. He started falling asleep, paddling really slowly, and missing the water on almost every stroke. It might have been funny (OK...it was) had I not been so anxious to get to the Guad and Gonzales. I could see there was no point in pushing on like this, so I told him to lay out in the bow and get some sleep. We'd made a deal after all: help me steer the boat on day 1, be a mule on portages, get us off the San Marcos, and I'll push through the next day with out sleep. Matt held up his end, time for me to do some work.

Paddling solo wasn't much of a problem. Short, quick, light strokes, don't waste energy trying to move the canoe fast. I was probably moving at 60-70% of our tandem speed, so you're not sacrificing too much speed for 15-20 minutes of sleep. A couple of the sleeping teams passed us in this time. The Novice team asked if we had slept. I think they'd stopped for 1 hour. A C2 passed and laughed at Matt's snoring...it was loud. When Matt woke up, he didn't believe me.

Soon, we were on the Guadalupe. The current was still very slow, due to the dam in Gonzales, but the river was now much wider. A few miles of easy paddling and we were approaching Gonzales Dam. Neither of us had been here before, so we weren't sure of the portage. There's a steep hill on the left and a steep bank on the right. Another team was on the left, so we pulled up and asked them which way to go. They said the left was the longer, safer portage, or some thing to that effect. We decided to go right, muscle the canoe up the bank, and take the shorter route. Mean while, one of the remote control chopper cams was flying overhead. It was kind of funny at the time.

I don't remember having too much trouble with the bank or the short portage trail...but I doubt they were easy. At the end of the trail, you have another one of those funky, rocky slopes to negotiate, similar to Zedler Dam. We had to wait on a couple of teams here and once again, I had to slow myself down a bit and remember that not every one was portaging an aluminum canoe with reckless abandon like we were. Fortunately, in a few minutes, we were back in the water and on our way. Not long after that, we were at the check point. This was an exciting landmark for me for a few reasons. The course would be significantly different from this point forward: wider, less junk (mostly), and longer sections of flat out paddling. This next section (Gonzales to Hochheim) was notorious for it's ability to induce mind numbing boredom. I knew this and was very focused on maintaining my drive and momentum. I tend to get bored on long training runs and I didn't want that attitude to affect the race. Finally, once you leave Gonzales, statistically, you have a much higher chance of finishing the race. Some teams quit at Hochheim and some teams DNF further down the course, but many teams that DNF pull out at Gonzales.

I tried to move as quickly as possible, knowing there were other teams on the gravel bar and still other sleeping some where near by. We got fresh water jugs, Matt took care of a few things, and I took a quick dip. We learned that two canoes had set out with only 1 paddler. I'm not sure if it was injury or the reality of 2-3 more days on the river that caused those guys to pull out. The check point official that told us this also reminded us that quiting is mental, not physical. Just keep paddling. We intended to. We set out from Gonzales in 55th place, with a 36-38 mile stretch of river ahead of us. There are no bridges or access points for crew...you're in it all the way until Hochheim. It was almost 9:00 AM. We'd be paddling right through the heat of the day. I wouldn't realize it until we were well past the check point, but we'd just made our first major mistake. We had left the check point with only 1 gallon of water each. We had completely forgot to bring the extra gallon that we would certainly need. I was VERY worried that we might have made a big enough mistake to cost us a finish...