Driving up from Connecticut for the 25^th Annual Blackburn Challenge was a relief. Much of the U.S. was gripped in the sweaty palms of an unbearable heat wave. My central air was on the fritz and the prospect of four hours in an air-conditioned car was a welcome one.

Dean Jordaan sent us an account of this year's Blackburn Challenge, his first attempt at this classic event.

Gloucester, MA -- More than an hour into the Blackburn Challenge, a 20-mile race around Cape Ann, Erik Borgnes, up front in a gang of four, spotted a small grey fin rise above the ocean's glassy surface. As the dorsal fin grew steadily larger, he began chanting: "That's a seal...That's a seal..." A physician who lives on the banks of Lake Michigan in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin - a three-hour flight from the nearest man-eating fish - Borgnes is aces when it comes to human anatomy but a rube when it comes to marine biology. In fact, he had nearly planted his paddle on the critter's head when he realized, "That's a flippin' shark!"

Carnival Time (the finish of the Blackburn) (Pic: Richard Hodgkins)

A century ago, the fisherman out of Gloucester, Massachusetts were among the toughest watermen on the earth. Long before Gloucester was immortalized in the best-selling book and then movie The Perfect Storm, it was the leading fishing port in the world. Heading north and east from Gloucester into the stormy stretch of the Atlantic from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, sailors would leave their mother ship in two-man dories to set lines for cod and halibut.