A LONG Cal Eco Ft. Bragg Report ¤

[bike2wmr]

Cal Eco #2, May 15-16, Ft Bragg, California

Race Report from Team Positive Altitude. Team Positive Altitude was made up of Annette Zaccor, Justin Snider, Brian Schmitz, and myself. We almost didn't get to race because we didn't have a crew but Brian managed to recruit Pam at the last minute. A million thanks to Pam for coming through.

The paddle leg in Cal Eco #2 was epic. On the map it looked to be a 3 to 3 1/2 hour paddle, about nine miles. We'd be using the standard Cal Eco rudderless inflatable blue bathtub Hyside kayaks. It started on the beach at Little River near Mendicino. We'd paddle north to the Noyo River Harbor and up to the first checkpoint. The race started at about 5:40 am with a mad dash across the beach under Hwy 1, to the ocean carrying our kayaks. The ocean seemed sort of calm. We had to get into the water through some small surf but had no problems. We were in the second third of the pack as we began to paddle around Point Mendocino and head north. As we hit he open ocean the wind picked up and the swells grew. Annette and I were in one boat and Brian and Justin were in the other. Justin and Brian are both good paddlers but hadn't worked together before and niether had ever been in the back seat in charge of steering one of these beasts. The blue inflatable kayaks used at Cal Eco races are notoriuosly hard to steer, it takes some practice. With the waves and wind it was especially difficult. We got our rythym and paddled along. We occasionally looked back to see how our teamates were doing. They were a little behind but not too far. We saw another team teathering the kayaks together (must have been Team Dark Horse) and making progress but decided that doing so would make controlling the boats too difficult. The swells continued to grow and the wind grew stronger. To make the kayaks go north we had to point them north west, so our direction of travel was diagonal to the direction our boat was pointed. As the waves built up we had to watch out for large breaking waves coming from the west (our left) side and quickly turn the boat west directly into them to avoid being swamped, or worse. Only about an hour into the paddle condions had grow truly nasty and we were progressing north at a snails pace. The swells were now mostly 5 - 8 feet with occasional larger sets. I asked Annette if she thought teams would be dropping out on the first leg. Her immediate though was, "How would they do that?" We pondered that thought, considering that along most of the coast the waves were either breaking against cliffs or rocky outcroppings. I supposed it would be possible to get out at one of the creeks along the coast. A couple hours into the race the swells were so high that we could only see across the surface when we were at the crests of the waves, and could barely see the coastal mountains from the troughs. We looked to find our teamates but it was difficult to do because we could only see other boats when they were on a crest of a wave at the same time as us. I caught a glimpse of them a good distance behind and then we continued. That was the last we'd see on them for awhile. To look back we had to stop and when we stopped the wind and waves quickly drove us towards shore...a very bad place to be. I'd also noticed that the boats only a few yards closer to shore were taking far more of a beating in the waves than we were so I steered the boat west and we travelled that rest of the way up the coast a little farther west than any of the other kayaks we could see. We spotted a fishing boat heading south and were amazed to the the high structure of it's bridge swinging back and forth between 45 degrees of the horizon either direction. I remembered always hearing, "Small craft advisory north of Point Arena" in the weather reports when I lived in the Bay Area...I assume that this is what it meant. Our progress through here was exasperatingly slow. We paddled around a rocky shoal that was just a cuople hundred yards off to our right, and after about half an hour of stuggling against wind and waves it was only a couple hundred yards behind us. A while after the first boat passed we saw another south bound boat heading our way. We were probably about three hours into the paddle and had probably made it less than half way up the coast. This boat was a Coast Guard surf rescue boat. This boat was rocking back and forth in the waves every bit as violently and the fishing boat had been, and as they approached we saw pretty much all of its hull clear of the ocean at one point or another. We paddled past them as they carefully checked us out. Once it was behind us we weren't able to see it but we could always hear the diesel engine over the sound of the wind and water. About 40 minutes later they we right behind us again, less than 50 yards off our stern. As they crept past on our right we could see about ten adventure racers on the deck. Several were clinging to the rail, and occasionally leaning over to throw up. I recognized some of them as people who'd been paddling along side of us only a little while earlier. We didn't see Justin or Brian on the deck so we figured they were still paddling behind us.

After hovering around for awhile, the Coast Guard surf rescue headed for the harbor, leaving a a Coast Guard zodiac to keep an eye out for more victims. We watched the surf rescue head north for what seemed like forever. When we could barely see the boat anymore it turned and headed towards the coast. The pre-race instructions were clear, Go around the red Buoy or face disqualification. I figured that they'd just gone around that red buoy. This was bad news 'cause they'd gone waaaaay the heck north, much farther than I imagined we'd need to go. It was clear that we'd continue to struggle against the elements for quite awhile. At about this time the theme song from Gilligan's Island popped into my head and stuck with me for quite awhile, "...A three hour tour. The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed..." Later the Coast Guard zodiac pulled up beside us and indicated that we'd be able to see the red buoy. Yep, it was up ahead alright but we could only see it from wave tops. I'm sure we paddled over an hour from then until we reached the buoy. We spent the last ten minutes paddling hard against the briskest wind of the day with that damned buoy almost directly off of our right side, working to clear it by enough distance so a wave would not land us right on the buoy. I was relieved to swing the boat around and point it toward shore. My relief was short lived as I was quickly reminded that these kayaks tend to steer into the wind. Each wave would slightly turn the kayak, and the wind would catch it and try to spin us. I was making correctionswith every paddle stroke to keep us relatively straight, and each one resulted in excruciating pain in my exhausted shoulder. As a result I began to mutter a string of profanities that probably scared the fish away for days. We managed to get into the harbor and under the bridge where we sat and waited for Justin and Brian. I wasn't waering my watch and had no idea what time it was. The Police Defenders.com team was also waiting for their second boat. Two more boats finally came along with both Coast Guard boats escorting them; the rest of Police Defenders.com and half of another team. The Coast Guard said there were no more kayaks on the ocean. Where were Justin and Brian? We began paddling up river towards Check Point #1/Transition Area #1. We had originally been expecting little curent against us and original estimates had us arriveing at incoming or slack tide. Now we were paddleing against the river current and a receeding tide, nothing was going to be easy about this leg. The other three kayaks were about 100 yards ahead of us as we neared the area where I expected we would find the CP. I spotted some flagging in a tree and up the bank, but for some reason the other three boats continued upstream. We hauled our kayak up the bank to a road and the CP. As we approached we were met by Pam, Justin, and Brian. Turns out that our teamates and 20+ other people were "rescued" by the Coast Guard. We heard that some teams were told, not asked, by the Coast Guard to get in the boat. Many racers were getting seasick in their boats and almost everyone on the Coast Guard surf rescue boat got sick too, including a Coastie. Several kayaks were left to drift to shore without their occupants. I hope California Sports Marketing finds them all.

We'd been in the boat for over 7 1/2 hours and I'd consumed only 2 oz. of Hammer Gel and 70 oz. of water. I wasn't seasick but if I'd eaten much I might have been. We took some extra time in the TA to consume calories and rehydrate. Brian and Justin joined us as our whole team set off on the mountain bike leg. At the first bike CP we were in 17th, but several of the teams had started the leg hours ahead of us after being rescued by the Coast Guard. As we left the first CP on the bike leg we started up a trail right behind team #10, who'd just passed us. Not far up the trail I knew that this was not a trail indicated on our map. Team #10 also realized this and turned around. I studied the topography and the map and concluded that the trail we were on would intersect the trail we'd intended to take, the one that team #10 was taking. we decided to continue on the way we were going.The hill was steep so we hike-a-biked up the trail to the ridge. Before long we rode through the intersection of the other trail and I knew we'd made the right descision. The rest of the navigation on the bike course was relatively easy. The last part of the ride was a couple miles of fun, non-technical single track. I think we were were 14th into the TA. Pam told us we were only about 30 minutes off of the fastest time for the bike leg. About ten minutes after we arrived Team #10 rolled in. They did a faster transition than us and got out on the trek several minutes ahead of us. When we dropped off our passport at the CP we were told that the trek had been abbreviated because the paddle leg was soooooo long. We were to skip directly to CP#9. There was a mandatory gear check here but they said we didn't need to do it since we were "unranked." That was okay with us because Justin's mandatory gear was in a pack on a kayak that was probably being bashed against the rocks long the coast somewhere. We set off on the trek just before dusk. I was nervous about locating CP#9 because on our map it was a good distance off trail and there were no remarkable features to indicate where we should leave the trail. We were basically looking for a place along a ridge where our direction of travel changed from West-North-West to West. While out on the course we were studying the map deciding where to leave the trail Brian and I discovered that we hadn't plotted CP10 yet. I quickly plotted it and we continued looking for the way to #9. We ended up passing the place by about 3/4 of a mile but found it when we back tracked. We headed north off of the trail. As we approached CP#9 we crossed a trail. After the race I looked at the map that was in the papers given to the support crews and discovered that a trail to CP#9 was marked on it, doh! The volunteer at CP#9 indicated that team #10 had been through almost three hours earlier, the must have been moving very quickly.
After CP#9 we headed northwest down the valley and across the creek. Apparently several teams had problems locating CP#10. The course description indicated that it was at the top of the re-entrant (small drainage feeding main creek). We crossed the creek near where two re-entrants fed into it. We could see headlamps way up the hill where the first, and incorrect, re-entrant was. We crossed the first one and headed up the second one. I think we gained over 400 feet before Justin punched the passport and we headed back down. Now all we had to do was hike to the finish, almost all down hill.

We hiked back to the fire road/trail and continued until we crossed a bridge. We hiked on a short way and I looked back at the map. On the map the bridge wasn't exactly where we'd found it. We backtracked a couple hundred yards, crossed the creek and found a fire road starting on the opposite bank as indicated on the map. The road merged with another dirt road and we realized we were right back where we'd been a few minutes earlier. Oh well, better safe than sorry. We continued towards the finish when a racer approached us and asked if we'd found it.
"Found what?" we replied.
"The CP."
"Which CP?" we asked.
"CP10" he clarified.
"Yeah, we got it."
"Where is it? I've been trying to find it for four hours" he said.
Justin showed him how to get to it on his map. As he took off we saw the rest of his team straggling behind him, one teamate was wrapped in a space blanket and not looking like she was having any fun. As they passed we realized that they were team #10.

As far as we could figure we crossed the line 12th. Again, several teams started ahead of us while two of us were completing the paddle leg. I think we finished around 2:20 am so around 21:40 after we started.

I suppose we were technically unofficial, but I know that Annette and I did the whole course, and that in more reasonable conditions our whole team would have had no problems racing the entire course competitively. I don't FEEL like an unranked finisher. Completing that paddle was no small feat and I'm sure all those that did feel pretty good about it. I'm very curious to know how many teams had one or both boats not complete the paddle. Rumors at the TA's indicated Team Subaru finished the paddle leg in first place by portaged much of the leg.

Lessons learned:
Paddling raft/kayaks with hull speeds around three knots into a 25 knot wind makes into the wind seem like a comparatively good idea.
Check all avaliable maps, even the ones given to the support crew.
Teams with large leads can loose it all with one navigational error so keep going.
I didn't remember to pack extra batteries at night and probably made the nav error on the way to CP9 because I was trying to conserve batteries and not watching my compass closely.