Wakulla River Race, St Marks, FL

Sunday, January 29, 2006 brint.adams@us.army.mil

I just cannot stay away from a good race and the FCPA stages well run races with very tough competition. So, after last week's misunderstanding long forgotten, I loaded up the SUV and took off Saturday afternoon for the Wakulla. I rolled into St Marks around 7:30 PM, parked by the main intersection and walked across the street for some seafood and beer.

After I got my fill and traded stories with a couple of locals, I went a mile further to the San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park, parked under a palm tree and stretched out in the back of the 4Runner. When it was light enough in the morning, I noticed a couple of other vehicles with boats on top had come in during the night as well.

The morning weather was not nearly as nice as last week. The temperature was fine at 63 degrees, but there was a strong southerly wind blowing in some sporadic rain, while the tide was just past bottoming out and starting to rise again. After some last minute instructions, about 25 boats, half racing canoes and half kayaks tried to avoid the low muddy shoreline and lined up for the start.

After we made the right turn from the St Marks to Wakulla River, I made a tactical error. There were alot of boats all starting out at pretty much the same pace, so I got boxed in a little close to the west shoreline where the water was shallow and which slowed me down. It took me probably a half mile before I could get away from it and into deeper water where I could keep up and try to catch up with some of the frontrunners. At the Hwy 98 bridge at the 3-mile mark, I caught up and passed one canoe and was hot on the tail of a kayaker. There were only about two others within sight, while maybe five more were further ahead.

We worked hard trying to find the best combination of deeper water, but into more current versus shallow shoreline water with less current. The canoes tended to opt for the shallows while the kayaks stayed out in the deeper water. It wasn't until I got almost to the second bridge turnaround that I could see who was in front and by how much. The two clear frontrunners had a big lead on the next group, who were not too far in front of me and the two others in my group.

My splits on the way upriver were 10:02, 10:38, 10:54, 11:29, 10:54, 11:41 and 10:25 including some on the return. About four boats had just made the turn when I was about 50 meters away, so I had a glimmer of hope I might keep them in sight once I made the turn. On the way downriver, I was able to make up a little distance and caught up with the two near me and we stayed right together for the rest of the race. When we got back into the wider, but shallower water, we were paddling straight into a stiff headwind. The canoe headed for the inside turns which were shallower, while I went wider, looking for deeper water with a little more downriver current. In the end, it did not make much difference as the three of us were still very close together.

In the last mile, we caught up to another kayak and canoe and the three of us blew right on by, as all five paddlers made the final turn and sprint to the finish line. I was lucky to have a little more left in the tank and finished in front of the group. What was more gratifying was mine was the only touring boat paddling against much faster and lighter hulls. My splits on the return were 8:32, 9:08, 9:36, 10:43, 11:10 and the last 0.83 miles in 9:21 for a total race time of 2:14:40 at5.7 mph over the 12.83 mile course. With the better conditions last week, I finished six minutes faster, but you just have to deal with what you have at racetime.

So, I was very happy with how the race turned out and my finish among all of the racing hulls. I will post the complete results here as soon as I get them. We were lucky to finish when we did, as the rain started up again right after we loaded up and took off.