Racers can choose an outer ocean route, an Inland pass thru barrier islands and boat canals, and even a path that takes you thru the mysterious and alligator infested heart of the Everglades swamps. The only rules are that each craft mush check in at least 1 time every 24 hours, carry a small assortment of emergency devices such as EPIRBS (emergency locating devices) and receive no planned support from the outside world. Teams that do not check in will be immediately disqualified and the coast guard sent to their rescue.

80lbs of gear and food and only two 6 inch hatches

All racers get to choose their crafts, which fall into 4 categories:

1)      Kayaks with only down wind sail

2)      Race Kayaks - No sail

3)      Full Sailing rigged Paddle kayaks

4)      Open Class (IE 18 foot Hobie Catamaran)

All crafts must be able to be launched from a beach by only the team members with no assistance from the outside and also must pass thru several natural filters, such a low bridge or a mud flat.

The event is governed by the Steve Isaac AKA "The Chief". It is difficult to sum up the Chief, but I think I can do so best by this short story.  Prior to the race this year, Hurricane Katrina wiped out a large portion of the course thru the everglade swamps.  The Local park service had all land thru the Everglades closed.  Boaters however could pass thru as long as they did not set foot on Land.  Now keep in mind this is potentially an 80+ mile section of the race thru some of the most challenging areas. 

I figured a smart question to ask the chief was his thoughts on a contingency plan incase the National Park Service did not lift this restriction.  Seemed like a good question? The Chief simply replied with a 1-line message to this nature...  "This is a challenge, not a race, and it is your Challenge, Not mine." Figure it out...  There was no politics, fussing, or whining - Very pure.

The Boat - "The Flying Ama".

When we showed up on the beach at 5:00am race morning, we very quickly felt out of place. Most of the vessels there were Large sea kayaks and sail boats.  Our 24-foot long, 17-inch wide Prototype tandem surfski looked like a needle amongst thumbtacks.  The boat was one of the first design concepts that HUKI was producing. 

It was simply an OC2 hull with the Ama removed and some seat buckets cut out.  We appropriately named her the Flying Ama.  We had two 6-inch hatches to store 5 days worth of gear. 

Most were skeptical and I do not believe there was a person on the beach that though we would even make the crossing of Tampa bay yet alone the entire 300 miles.  Jude at HUKI was working around the clock to produce his final Tandem S2-X for us to use, but the clock simply ran out and we had to ship the prototype.

Sally and I have used the prototype on many races locally and both knew that it was a flat water boat.  Any chop or waves over 6 inches would breach the front and back.  With 80lbs of gear in this already low volume boat, surfing was simply not an option.  Nonetheless, we pressed on.  The Gulf of Mexico is perfectly flat right? 

Turns out that over the 300 miles duration, we probably had 50 flat ones in the wee hours of some of the mornings or in some boat inlets where the cruisers speed was restricted by Manatee zones. Even the swamps in the middle of the night were whitecap crusted. The norm was 1 to 3 foot wind waves and a relentless onslaught of boat wake made from yachts that would even impress even Bill gates.

One of the Many inland inlets, We would hug shore to get out of the waves when possible

The Race

The day before we departed, I had the reality check that neither Sally nor I new the first thing about navigation.  We spent hours studying the charts and plotting points into a GPS.   But what if the GPS died or got washed off the Ski?  Off to REI for a backup.  We were now ready.  We simply had to follow the white line on the 1x1 inch map for 300 miles of ocean.  Piece of cake.  

I can walk on Water! There were lots of shallows

Day 1 started at Fort Desoto.  The first 10 miles of the race crossed Tampa bay.  Conditions would have been perfect for surfing with a 15mph following wind and 3 to 4 foot wind waves/swells.  We submarined thru it with a few near calls.  These conditions were eye opening and we quickly realized that the outer ocean route would be more than we could handle in our low volume Surfski.  We choose the inland passages.  For the next 70 miles we battle massive boat wakes and dodged manatees.  We reached Checkpoint 1 at 6:00pm and were the first Paddle craft (Class 1 and 2). Including all stops we averaged over 7mph for this leg.  Just enough time to run to the local restaurant and grab a burger. 

Off we were in the dark after an hour rest.  The ambition was to paddle to 2:00am and pitch a tent near Ft Myers.  Like all other plans on this adventure, they did not go accordingly.  Around 9:00pm, we found ourselves in a 12-mile open bay crossing preceding Sanibel islands. There was not a light to be seen. The winds had picked up to 20+knot and large wind waves were engulfing us.  Both Sally and I have done some silly things in our surfskis such as paddle around great white infested Farallon islands, but we both quickly agreed that this trumped them all.

With our hearts redlining, we made the painful decision that we would have to paddle to the single tiny speck of light on shore that we saw way off course. The light at the end of the tunnel for us turned out to be a semi abandoned trailer park.  We wrapped up in our space blankets and got ready for a long night.   Lots of other funny events happened here, but we will save them for the longer version of the story.

Sally in before the Swamp Entrance.

The Sun finally dawned at 7:30am and we repacked our boat thru the 6-inch hatches, a process that took no less than 45 minutes each time.   Our bodies were aching and the winds were still howling. 85 miles behind us only and way behind schedule.  Luckily though there was only 4 miles left of the brutal channel to cross before we were in the shelter of the inlet.  However, there was no rest for the weary. After our few moments in the inlet, it was back to the open ocean for a 30-mile section that spanned from Ft Myers beach to the barrier islands. 

Ah yes, the joys of youth.  50,000 kids on the beach enjoying their spring break.  We emerged from the ocean like a ghost ship from the past entering a brave new world. Us in full black thermal wear, headlamps and rain hats drinking protein shakes and them in Speedos and bikinis sipping on drinks that I cannot pronounce with pink umbrellas.  Believe it or not though, we went relatively unnoticed from the masses.  It was during this portion of the race that we realized the beauty of fast food.  "Sally, is that a Dairy Queen in front of us?.. Yes , it is"  Needless to say, there were numerous stops before we hit the barrier islands.

Ft Myers Beach. 50,000 drunk kids on Spring break

The Barrier islands start with long section thru a deep swamp.  We got here just as the sun went down.  It was very creepy.  We looked at each other with disbelief. "Would you ever enter this in a million years on your own?"  "No Way!!!!"  But we mustered up our sense of adventure putting faith in the 1x1 inch back lit GPS screen and into the swamp we went. The darkness was so vast that even our 20watt lamp didn't make a dent. At about 11:00pm we stopped for the night for a quick nap. We took shelter on a beach adjacent a nice resort.  For more than a few moments we contemplated checking in. The thoughts of a nice bed and shower consumed us. 

Nonetheless, the beach ended up our home. 2 hours later, I woke Sally.  "Sally, what glowing potato do you want for breakfast?"  Sally, who thought she was still dreaming, gave a logical answer.  "The one glowing less please."  Turns out the inlets before the barrier islands were filled with phosphorescent algae.  The water seeped into our food bag and all our nourishment was glowing in the darkness of the night. 

Winds sweeping over a 4 mile long mud flat. After 2 days in a ski, we welcomed these breaks

After our 45-minute repack, we shoved off. The few hours of sleep really helped, however knowing what was in store for us next, we would have taken more. 40 miles of island hopping now with one checkpoint in between till we reached the mouth of the Everglades swamp. 

Between one of the islands, we had our first close encounter with a hippo sized Manatee.  We approached the docile sleeping monster not knowing what it was.  They sleep with only the tops of their back above water. It was then the explosion occurred. The startled beast hit the throttle so fast that the percussion of water lifted our surf ski an easy 2 feet out of the marsh.  Sally recalls looking back seeing my paddle in air and my face pale white as I was engulfed with white foam. 

We somehow kept the unstable Flying Ama upright and recollect ourselves.  Ok, back on target now. The plan was to stop at every island and rest for 1 minute.   We proceed with this plan for a few hours, and then much to our dismay, there was the thorn in our back that would brutally beat down on us till the moment we finished. It was our now close friend "Salty Frog" in a double male kayak (class 1) with a down wind sail.  The winds were still about 10 to 15 knots at our back and they were moving along. 

Their boat was wide and stable and being extremely seasoned navigators, they did not have to take any of the forced weather breaks during the middle of the night that we had to.  Turns out these guys had been awake for all but a few hours for the last few days.  We almost felt bad to tell them that we already logged 12+ hours of sleep. It was a true story of the tortoise and the hare.  This new motivation brought a sudden stop to breaks. We made a continuous 4-hour push to the Everglades swamps.

Here was our next major plan failure.  After that push, we were going to get out and take 10 minutes on a beach that we saw on our GPS.  Having never been to the Everglades, we mistakenly took mangrove islands to be solid land.  Oops, just a twisted mess of roots and no place to get out. We just did many hours without getting out of our boat and still had many more hours of the deepest swamps in this country ahead of us. 

Our spirits sank, but without options, once again we pushed on.  What happened next, I still cannot believe.  The swamps are an endless maze of islands and channels. It was now 7:00pm and it was pitch black.  "Oh god, I though to myself" GPS 1 just shut off.  My heart stopped. What do I do? Tell Sally, who at this point was badly hallucinating, or just push on. I choose option B.  2 hours went by then GPS 2 started blinking low battery.  This was going to be it.  Our EPIRB and VHF were buried in the 6-inch hatch, a mistake I will never make again. 

Navigation thru the swamp for a pair of rookies in the pitch black was simply not an option. Fishing out the VHF from the hatch would mean a wet exit in the middle of what was appropriately named "Alligator Bay".  My heart raced and I paddled as if it was a 1000-meter sprint keeping my secrets to myself. Sally, who was seeing an onslaught of flying monkeys and green clovers flying out of the sky seemed more than willing to keep the brutal pace without asking questions.  As fate would have it, the GPS held and we found the last 5-mile long button wood canal that punched thru the swamp to the Florida Bay entrance.   It was now 11:00pm and the next section was a 37-mile open bay crossing thru shallow water. No option to get out of your boat unless you like to sink 3 feet in mud and a maze of channel markers that even seasoned flat boat fisherman cannot follow. 

We were rookies and knew it. Despite the overwhelming urge to push on, we made the call to sleep till the sun came up. Almost 8 more hours out of the boat passed us by.  We did not know what position we were in at this point, but with 24 hours of stopped time over the last 3 days we could not have been doing that well.  When the sun finally poked its head over the horizon, we shoved off at first light into the abyss of mud flats that is called Florida Bay.  It took us no longer than 45 minutes to be hopeless stuck.  Ok, time to back track.  We went all the way back to where we started and luckily met up with a class 4 boat who enlightened us to "The Channel".  What a concept.  It was like connect the dots.  Dots that took us thru a maze named the crooked mile and several other channels smaller than the hole on a needle. 

One of our 1 minute stops in the relief of an islands

The sun was blazing this day and the wind was big and from behind. As fate would have it, our sunscreen was chilling out with our GPS and radio still deep in the hatches.  The sun's poisonous rays reflecting off the water were eating us alive. By far the highlight of this leg was Sally's epiphany that our chap stick was SPF15.  We took a leisurely 10 minutes and applied the entire stick to our faces and hands.  Ahh. That hit the spot.  Had you not known what we were doing, you would have though we just escaped from the loony bin.

Ok, now that the SPF is applied, time for a quick bathroom stop in some 2-foot deep mud under a foot of water.  "Sally, is that a !!fin!! behind you?"  " Yep", she replied after a quick look at the 3-foot shark swimming directly at her.  We were so beat up that we did not even flinch.  It brushed our boat then decided that we were too stinky to eat.

We finally arrived at the end.  We could not believe it when we were told that we were the first Paddle craft across the line and broke the course record for any paddlers by quite some time.  Only 3 other sailboats had passed us over the last 3 days.  The mission was accomplished and we learned more than I could ever relate in a short story. It was an experience that I will never forget.

More photos are available on http://tinyurl.com/y3e83j

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