2007 Watertribe Everglades Challenge

The 300-mile Kayak race seen through the eyes of a first timer.

Decisions  
The Watertribe EC is held annually on the first week of March. It starts at FT. Desoto in St Pete FL and finishes in Key Largo in the FL keys. Choices prior to and throughout the event are numerous. You have to decide which class you desire to compete in. Class 1 for touring kayak and canoes that are permitted a small downwind sail. Class 2 that is for racing kayak or canoe, paddle only no sails allowed. Class 3 that is for touring kayak or canoe, with larger sail and usually outriggers on both sides. Class 4 for full on sailboats, you can use any wind or human powered boat that can be launched from the high water line. Along with class you also have to decide whether going solo or double, if going in a double one of the most important choice is whom you paddle with, a wrong decision here can be disastrous.

You have full control of your route, needing only to stop at 3 checkpoints and the finish, you can take the intercoastal waterways or the outside gulf route or any combination of the two. Another thing to consider is if you are going to navigate primarily with GPS or follow a map and compass, everyone brings the obligatory charts and compass, but it is a great deal easier to follow a purple line on a GPS than it is to use a map and compass. It is up to each participant to find their own camping spots; this is perhaps one of the most difficult parts for a first timer, knowing when to stop for the night because there are no other campsites for several miles.


My Choices
We chose to paddle in class 2 double (no sails) in a Bayrunner kayak. The boat is a fiberglass sit-on-top sea kayak from South Africa that I picked up used for $800 a little over a year ago.

As for the route we took the intercoastal waterway whenever possible, there are few parts of the course where this is not an option, just pass Lovers key before Naples beach, another is in the middle of the Wilderness Waterway to steer clear of what everyone calls "Nightmare", which is a section of that is not cleared of down trees and is very shallow, and the final leg of the race across Florida Bay. By taking the 30-mile longer Wilderness Waterway earned us the coveted alligator tooth award.

As far navigation was concerned we had 3 GPS units with us, along with compasses and all charts of the route. Two of the GPS units had the blue chart maps loaded into them along with the intended routes for Shari to follow. She is a control freak and needs to be in the hot seat with the rudder pedals. I use Ram ball mounts with Velcro on the base that is positioned between are knees that is tethered with a leash so we do not lose them if we were to capsize. I will be screwing the base down to the kayak for future races as she had mentioned that the Velcro was not strong enough and the GPS would fall over quite often. She usually keeps the GPS on the map screen and follows the purple route line. I hardly ever looked at the charts, we're capable of using map and compass, but this requires one to stop paddling and would slow our progress. One thing you have to be careful about when stopping to rest or eat is that the boat does not get turned around and you start following the purple line the wrong direction (this is easy to do in the mangroves as everything looks the same). One thing Shari and I learned the hard way at last years 68 mile Ultra Marathon was that the routes can't have more than 150 points in them (at least for all the different models of the Garmin Legends that I have used), the software will let you enter it and when transferring the routes to the GPS it says all info was transferred successfully, but any points in the route over 150 do not transfer to the GPS. When you get to that part of the coarse the little purple line disappears. So I had to break them up into smaller routes. I was able to get one route for every leg of the race except for the Wilderness Waterway, which I had to break into two parts. I also had alternate outside routes programmed in as well.

My other decision was to request my wife to be my paddling partner, a double kayak is known to many as the divorce maker, as many couples can not paddle a double for a day with out major arguments let alone in a week long 300-mile race. Shari and I make a great team we both have good endurance and we each have our own strong and week points. Where she is nearsighted, I am farsighted, where I am shine with a map and compass, but fail to pay attention to my surroundings, she has an uncanny ability to recognize every last tree she has past, where I have very little fear, which sometimes can be a bad thing, she has a healthy respect for the hazards around us, which keeps us safe, where I have a good short-term memory (like where I left my keys) and horrible long-term memory, she still remembers almost everything from our biology class in college over 20 years ago, but can never remember where she put her glasses. I could not ask for a better partner for this adventure.


Day One
Saturday morning we where running behind schedule as usual, Shari had missed roll call, Chief came up to us and jokingly said we were disqualified. At around 7:30 we finally left the beach a half hour after the official start of the race, at least we had 300-miles to make up the time.

We originally had planed a direct route to Sarasota bay, but as we got away from the protection of the beach the 20 MPH NE winds would require us to fight side waves the whole 8 miles across Tampa Bay. The conditions were worse than last years race, where a wave turned us sideways, and the next breaking wave flipped us. So instead of fighting the waves my wife started heading SW towards the Anna Maria Island keeping the wave directly behind us. We live in the area and know that there is a sandbar that runs parallel to the island that kind of knocks down the waves, making it easier to take the waves from the side. As we got close to the tip of Anna-Maria I thought with the winds being out of the NE we might be able to get away from the wind by going on the outside of Anna-Maria, Shari did not believe it would be any better, but since we were so close to the north end of the island she agreed to stop at the beach and walk around to look at the conditions on the outside. Somehow it looked even worse on the outside, so we kept to our plan on taking the inside to Grand tours.

At the pre race meeting a Watertribe member named Shallow minded told everyone, that a marina in Sarasota had a sign that said "Free hotdogs to all boaters" we didn't see any sign, but stopped into the marina that I thought he was talking about. I was right and we told the nice chap running the joint about the everglades challenge as he cooked us as many hot dogs as we could eat along with coffee at no charge. We did end up buying soda, energy drink and beef jerky while we were there.

The winds had died down and we were playing hopscotch with There-and-back-again and Chuck-the-duck all day before we got to the painfully long Venice canal, with the tide going against us to boot. Before entering the canal we stopped to get our night lights out. It would probably be dark before we reached the end of the canal, there is nowhere to get out of the boat in the canal.

After the canal we continued down lemon bay to the bridge near Manasota key at which point Shari pointed out a McDonalds near the coast, I said, "lets go!!!" We headed directly for the shore closest to it and we luckily found a nice sandy beach to land on. We got some funny looks as we walked in soaking wet still wearing our pfd with our safety knives attached. We had buggers, fries and Power-aid, it tasted so good after paddling all day, we ordered 2 burgers to go for later and got out of there only minutes before they closed.

We then made short work of the last nine miles to the first check point in Placida were we got a full 8 hours sleep. We arrived at 12:45 AM making it an 18-hour 68-mile day.


Day Two  
It was nearly 11:30 AM Sunday morning when we finally shoved off from the Grand tours dock heading south across Boca Grand bay.

The wind had picked up to around 15 knots, this time it was directly at our back. We surfed the waves across some of the biggest bays I have ever seen. Later that day Shari pointed out that we had already covered 20 miles I could not believe her, it felt like we just left checkpoint 1. The waves were so big, ever so often riding down the wave the nose of our kayak would submerge and the front cockpit that I was in would fill with water and submerge the nose even further, at which point I would lean far back and the nose would finaly lift up out of the water. A few times I thought the kayak would continue to dive, pitch poll and slam us into the surf, luckily this never happened.

It was now nearing sunset and a small sailboat (a fellow Watertribe member I assumed) had beached on a island that looked prime for camping, we commented that it was to soon to stop for the night as we had only gone about 35 miles at that point, I remarked that maybe he knew something that we did not. After the sun had gone down and we had covered close to 40 miles that day, we needed to look for a place to camp. Before going under the Sanibel Causeway Bridge we were treated to a fireworks show from a large ship. Traveling another 5 miles, there was nowhere to camp, the coast and islands were all thick mangroves. Looking for a place to stay for the night the paddling was slow, as we had to follow very close to the shore to try and find a suitable spot. Without a powerful light is was hard to see if the mangroves gave way to any land big enough for a tent. Things did not look to promising as we were heading into the heart of Ft Myers, with large fancy sea-wall lined homes all around us. It was getting late and we were getting desperate, there was a house under construction but it was surrounded by a huge sea wall with nowhere to stash the kayak. Shari said that she had noticed a house "for sale by agent" about a quarter mile back that had a sandy beach and dock, time for some stealth camping. There it was a nice sandy beach with a dock to tie the kayak to, it was about 11:30 Sunday night, there were no lights on in the house, we tide off the kayak, put on our dry clothes and put our sleeping bags right on the lush green grass next to some shrubs, would have been perfect if not for the full moon. We both didn't get much sleep that night between the cold and fear of being kicked in the head or worse for sleeping on someone's lawn. There must have not been anyone home, as they would have easily seen us, as the whole back of the house was one large window. I set my alarm on my cell phone for 5:00 AM when it went off I looked at the deserted home and decided to sleep a bit more.


Day Three  
We hit the water at 6:30 AM, this being our earliest day on the water; stealth camping has a tendency to get you moving early. After paddling down Estero bay we stopped to cook brunch at a beautiful park on Lovers key, before heading out into the Gulf. After eating the wind was out of the North and we were making good time surfing waves down the coast of Naples.

We came to a very busy beach and I told Shari to head in, must be a public beach and should have a concession stand with real food. The surf landing was little tricky but we managed not to dump her. After some sandwiches and caffeine it was time to fight the surf back out into the gulf.

When we got to Gordon pass, Shari wanted to go back inside, I suggested we stay on the outside as the wind was still strong at our back, and we were making good time. It was getting close to sundown and she did not want to be out in the gulf surfing large waves in the dark. She is the navigator so in we went, our progress was much slower on the inside and after an hour Shari conceded that we should have stayed on the outside.

Since having trouble finding a nice place to camp the previous night, we started looking for a placed to rest before sunset. Most islands were thick mangroves with no place to set up a tent, we stopped to check my charts, I had marked some potential camping spots that Porky and Nightnavigator had pointed out for me. The next pass was marked as having good camping, which was just a few more miles. We stopped on a gorgeous beach right before Big Marco pass at dusk.

Once on shore we set up camp and cooked a hot meal during which a few other tribal members passed by us including the team of Tyro and Paddlecarver. They were paddling a Seda Tango, who's ages together totaled over 145, I hope I am still as active as they are when I am 70. Our paths would cross many times over the remainder of the challenge.


Then we fell asleep under the light of a spectacular full moon.


Day Four  
When we arose from another full nights sleep I noticed that we were not the only challengers to spend the night on this particular island, Get-r-done and Whale had come in after we had retired for the evening. We bid them a good day and continued south towards Goodland. At Goodland we stopped at a restaurant on the water, hoping to get a hot meal but the grill was not yet open, a very pleasant member of their staff offered us some coffee or any drinks we might want, after getting something to drink we got back underway.

Stingray!!!! A huge stingray jumped 2 feet out of the water and soared not 4 feet in front of our kayak, in all of my paddling I have never seen one fly out of the water like this, it made our day.


Before getting to Everglade city Shari declared that the rudder was broke. She did not know if it was the cable or a mechanical part of the rudder, I told her to pull up the rudder, which she did but we were still paddling in circles. I asked her if she was sure she had pulled it up and she said yes, but she could still hear it plowing in the water. So in order to get the boat to go straight she had to use her paddle as a rudder to counteract the broken rudder as I paddled as hard as I could the 2 miles to the closest island. When we got to shore I noted it was just the cable that had broken and I would be able to fix it. The Cable, which actually is made from a small strong rope, had frayed where it was attached to the rudder. Before the race I inspected all of the cables, they had no signs of wear. The last few days of combating the wind and waves had took its toll on them. There was enough extra cable that I was able to tie the two broken pieces together. While looking over the other cable I noticed that where it entered into the rear hull of the craft the outer sheath was frayed as well. So I loosened up the front to get enough slack to join the two ends together. I had extra rope with me, but it was easier to retie the pieces together then try to reroute a whole new cable.

Fortunately we made it to Everglade city before the Ranger Station had closed for the night, as we needed to get our camping permits for the Wilderness Waterway. The Ranger asked us where we wanted to stay for the night. Since we had covered in excess of 30 miles already that day, "the closest one available for tonight" I replied. The closest one would be Sweetwater chickee, about 20 more miles, the nearer ones being full. I quickly said "will take it", the Ranger seeing that it was already 4:30 PM replied with concern, "you have to make it the full 20 miles, you can not stop any where else", she repeated this a couple of times. When I finally stated "we left Tampa on Saturday and made it hear 4 days later that I knew that we could cover the 20 miles to the campsite". We also booked one more night to camp at Harney chickee for the following night and would be in Flamingo by the end of the day on Thursday if all went well. Row-a-brick (my brother in law Larry) told us there was a first-rate eatery at check point 2 only about 3 miles from Everglades city, we asked the ranger what time the restaurant was open to? "They are already closed" she replied, so we went to the deli in Everglade City and picked up some more food provisions while we were there. After eating and refilling our water supply, we headed for check point 2 at Chocoloskee, checked in and left, as we needed to travel another 20 miles that night. Before leaving I brought up the 2 routes we had for the next leg of the race, one on the outside and the other inside, I nudged Shari, "if we went on the outside it is only 68 miles instead of the 100 doing the wilderness waterway". She came back with "we were not going to win the race we might as well do the whole wilderness waterway and get the gator tooth award for going the extra 30 miles".

Entering the WW in the everglades at dusk, we had never paddled on the WW and have heard many stories of shining a light at night and seeing a sea of reflected gator eyes, and here we are entering it at dusk. Marking the mark the WW are very small markers with numbers on them. They were hard to follow at night and some seemed to be missing altogether. Not having the chickee programmed into our GPS we had to rely on map and compass to get us to our camp, in the dark after another 50-mile day of paddling. The chickee was not on the trail it was 2 miles across a large bay and a mile up a creek, in the middle of the mangroves. Starting at a known point on the map a WW marker, number 112 I believe, I took a reading to the other side of the bay, aimed the boat in that direction and told Shari to pick a star to follow to we get to the mangroves on the other side. I picked a star as well, she started heading further to the left than what my star was telling me, I told her "go more to the right" but she still went more to the left than I would of liked. I figured that we would just have to travel further once we get to the other side. Once reaching the other end of the bay all we should need to do was to follow the coast to the next cut-in into the mangroves. We arrived at the cut-in rather quickly and started down the dark path. "This is a dead end" yet we had not gone only 50 feet!! I looked at the map and from matching up the map to the terrain I concluded that we had traveled to for to the left and were on the peninsula to the left of the coast we should be on. Shari was not a happy camper and was certain we were totally lost. I told her I knew where we were and that we had to go to the mangroves to the right of us and follow this to the next (correct) cut in. Following the contours of the mangroves is much greater distance than making a beeline line to the cut in, and it seemed, as we would never get to it. Finally we came to a cut in, my wife still convinced we were on the wrong creek and we would be wondering around until sun up "they would never put the chickee this far from the trail". I assured her we were on the right creek; if wrong I'm not sure if we'd still be married. There was absolutely nowhere else to camp, all the islands were just thick mangroves. I didn't know what I was looking for or where it would be, having never camped or even seen a chickee. So here we are going up the creek very slowly as not to pass the chickee hidden in the mangroves when finally after what seemed like a lifetime we came upon the chickee in the middle of the creek. It was low tide now; we circled the entire structure looking for a ladder or anything to climb up onto the wooden platform. No such luck, with the platform 3 to 4 feet above the water, my wife now almost in tears, exclaims "there is no way we can get up there". I tie the front of the boat off and stood up in the kayak while holding on to the chickee and pulled myself up onto it. I then helped her out of the boat, and then came the task of getting the gear from the kayak to the deck of the chickee; Shari held my legs as I bent at the waist to reach the hatches. After many reverse sit-ups I had all the needed gear on the platform. We slept exceptionally well that night.


Day Five  
Another full nights sleep, the tide was still low but nothing like the night before we loaded up the boat and headed back to the WW. Before this trip, I pictured the WW as a 100-mile narrow mangrove lined path through the heart of the Everglades. When in actuality the first half had a few narrow paths linking many large bays.

Today would not be an easy day, we would end up fighting a slight head wind and tides for most of the day. We got some motivation when my wife spotted a double kayak at the other end of a long bay. So we now had a mission to catch the craft in front of us, It took us some time but we finally caught them, it turned out to be Tyro and Paddlecarver who looked to be barely paddling with their Greenland style paddles, yet Shari and I had paddled very hard to catch them. We chatted for a while and then tried to put some distance between us. We stopped a few times to stretch our legs and usually as we start to get back underway, up would come that familiar Tango double sea kayak with Ed and Joe.

Just before dark Tyro, Paddlecarver, Shari and I all stopped at Shark river campsite Ed and Joe said they were going to stop to cook a hot meal, Shari and I would of stayed longer, but the no-see-ems were vicious, so we quickly ate some dry food and continued down shark river. We went the few more miles to the gulf where it was completely pitch black as the moon had yet rise. Our boat is steered from the rear and when Shari attempted to use her headlight it would shine on my back and wouldkill her night vision. So she gave me her headlight (the best one we had) and I was to be her eyes, there was quite a few objects halve submerged in the water that we had to avoid.

Once back into the creek the moon had come up making it a easier to see. We now had to find our way to Harney chickee; luckily it was right on the trail and could not miss it. From talking to other boaters earlier in the day we new there might be to many campers at Harney chickee. We intentionally had forced ourselves to camp at the sites we had permits for; we did not want to be kicked off the chickee when someone with a permit came in after us. After a long hard day of paddling we arrived at the chickee and it appeared full, when we pulled up to the platform a nice gentleman with an accent, his name was Tim I believe, asked us if we planned on staying here for the night? "Yes, we have a permit to camp here do you?" was our reply. Thinking he was part of the race and maybe not having a permit we were a bit rude, exhaustion has a strange effect of making one a little less charming. I express regret if we came off a bit blunt that night to Tim, Sandy bottom and Kiwibird, who were also staying on the same chickee. We made our way to the ladder (this one did have a ladder), unloaded our kayak and found just enough room next to Tim's tent to put up our rather large tent. Once in our tent Shari and I were instantly dead to the world, until the next morning.


Day Six   
We woke to another beautiful day; Sandybottom and Kiwibird had already packed up their camp and had headed toward Flamingo long before we regained consciousness. We conversed with Tim for awhile about the race and stuff, he offered us some water which we accepted, I had used a lot the day before and we still had close to 35 miles before the next available water source. Our new friend packed up his stuff as we cooked some Romain noodles for breakfast.


Back in the boat we had seen our second gator of the trip. We had the tide with us today and we were looking for the next chickee where our friends Tyro and Paddlecarver were planning to stay the night. The chickee was another 10-miles past were we had stayed. They were just packing up their kayak as we passed by. I talked to them later and learned they had got stuck out in the gulf at low tide and had to wait an hour for the tide to come in before they could paddle again. They did not get to their camp until 4 AM, and I thought Shari and I had a long day.


I had read stories about how rough Whitewater bay can be, and was glad the winds were light and Whitewater bay did not live up to its name.

On most trips I usually bring to much food, in talking to friends that have done this race, I knew there are many places along the route to replenish our food supplies, Flamingo our next check point being one of them. Not knowing when the store at Flamingo closes, and wanting to get an early start the next day, we where pushing hard trying to get there before 5 PM. About 5-miles from Flamingo we asked a fisherman how late the store was open to "they are open until 8PM" he replied, "thanks" we answered and slowed our pace.

It was a little after 5 when we arrived at Flamingo our last checkpoint before the finish. We moved the kayak up onto the grass and headed for the store to get some hot food and rations for the next day. Then portaged our boat to the saltwater side and tied it to the docks and chatted with the other Watertribers. We had caught up to quite a few teams at Flamingo, 8 including us all stayed at Flamingo that night. That night was spent stealth camping near the visitor center.


The Finish  
AT 5AM I went to use the restroom and noticed that all but one other boat had already left for Key Largo. I woke Shari and told her "come on everyone is already on there way to the finish". While packing up the boat for the last time the only other kayaker that had not left came up to me and asked "you going all the way to Key Largo", I said "yes, there is only one other place to camp, about 10 miles from the end, if I get that close I am going all the way".

Leaving Flamingo at 6:30 AM the tide was with us and the winds seemed calm. After an hour or so the wind started to build and we finished up fighting the strongest headwinds of the whole trip.

Florida bay is massive, there is almost nowhere to get out of the boat for some 35 miles, it is very shallow in many places, and if you try to get out of the boat you sink into the mud. Being so shallow it is important to stay in the channel. At first we were able to cut some of the corners as it was high tide, but as the tide went out I had to remind Shari to not cut the corners or we could get stuck in the mud. She did pretty good, we only once had to go a long way in very shallow water. We were not alone in the shallows as this is were we saw a small shark. The shark was easy to spot in the shallows, his fin constantly out of the water, trying to get the shark to come closer, Shari agitated her hand in the water to get the sharks attention so we could get a better look at him.

We often thought we saw other paddles ahead of us but usually ended up being pelicans, we were hopping to catch some of the other challengers. Finally we did see a couple of boats ahead of us and we put the hammer down trying to catch them. The first challenger we caught was Sandy Bottom paddling her Krugger canoe. She was paddling very hard and was trying to get the attention of the other double kayak in front of her. She would paddle very hard and then stop and wave her paddle over her head, I thought she might be in trouble so we caught up to her and asked if she needed any help. Turns out she was just trying to catch them so she could have someone to paddle with. The double kayak in front of her was our now good friends Tyro and Paddlemaker, and they seen us and were once again trying to give us a run for our money. After what seemed like an hour we finally caught up to them, chatted for a while and then tried to put some distance between us, with only 12 of the 300 miles left to go.

About an hour later we took a break to get some food in our gullet, we did not stop much during the crossing, the wind would try to push us back to Flamingo when not paddling.

Finally we were able to see Key Largo's shore, we were following the channel toward Bay Cove Motel. This year's finish was at a new location, the old finish lines Campground had been bought out by developers, and there was some confusion as to the exact coordinates of the Motel. I had found them on the Watertribe website forum the day before we left, it also said that there was a tower right behind the Motel. The problem was there were several towers visible from the water. To help narrow down which tower we need to head for I picked the finish waypoint on my GPS and selected go to, which then in theory points me to the right tower. I wanted to get to the end so bad, I told Shari We need to go strait to that tower over there it is only 2 miles away. She refused, I insisted that she head for that tower, what I failed to realize was to go straight to the tower we would have to go far over land. Fortunately my wife was steering with a clearer head and said we need to go around the land mass first. After awhile longer I told Shari, "we must be getting close there is Crazy Russians blowup catamaran sailing over there" I then spotted Wizards 8' mini sail boat Sand flee. Finally we saw several Watertribers waving us in from the dock of the motel. As soon as I found out where we needed to land I started to paddle for all I was worth. Then right before we hit the beach I buried my now burning hands into the water to cool them off.

After 6 days and 9 hours we were done, we had a great time, but I was relieved we did not have to paddle the next day.


Reflections
What I would do differently

Sleep less
Shari and I had more sleep on this trip then we do at home.

Use different paddle
The full carbon wing paddle that I was using is a bit to stiff for the barge we were paddling. I developed some tendonitis in my hand. Shari did not use a wing, during training it bothered her shoulder when paddling our larger double. We both use a wing when paddling our surf skis. We might use Greenland paddles if we do this again.

Use a smaller tent
I had bought a new 2-person tent for the challenge but never was able to test it before hand. So we took the 4-person tent we usually use. It was almost too big to fit it next to another tent on half of a chickee.

Replace the rudder cables before a long trip.
Even if they do not show any signs of ware.

Pick up the sheet with the camping GPS lat and long numbers from the ranger station to load into my GPS.

Leave the beach on the start before 7:30.
I have yet to leave the beach on time at any Watertribe event.

Bolt down the GPS mount instead of using Velcro.

Bring extra pair of sunglasses Broke mine on 3rd day.

Things I did right

Did not go alone
Having someone to talk to help pass the lengthy days on the water.

Used a very stable easy to re-enter boat.
Having a 26 inch wide sit on top kayak let us continue on even in very large seas.

Take just enough food. No need to bring a weeks worth of food when most days you can find some place to get some provisions.

Will I do it again?
Probably, but not in 2008, I only get 2 weeks vacation a year and have so many other places I would love to see and experience.


Closing  
I want to thank Chief for putting on this wonderful race, my wife for paddling so hard and doing such a great job at reading thewater and terrain. Porky and Night Navigator for going over the charts with me before the race, Row A Brick for taking us and our kayak back to Sarasota, And all of the other competitors for the companionship and stories after the race.


  
Links
2007 EC
2007 EC Videos
2005 UM
Watertribe
FCPA