Jericho 2008

Thankfully the beginning of the day was not a precursor of the activities to come. I'd planned to be up at 3:50 am, potty and feed the boys, shower, make coffee and have a light breakfast before leaving at 4:30 am to pick up Lise and meet our carpool at 5:00 am. Well, Lise called me at 5:00 and woke me up!!! Oh Shit! Hopped out of bed, dressed and was dragging the dogs out to potty as I was calling Troy, the carpool driver. My saving grace was the idjit who left his car and boat blocking the trailer egress down at SSP. I was out of the house, dogs feed and pottied, in 15 minutes! Got Lise and made it to SSP another 20 minutes after that. And the guys had just cleared the path for the trailer. We had 5 people in a Ford F150 crew cab. Troy and Patrick in the front seat, Lise, me, and Frank in the backseat. I took the hump seat as penance for my tardiness. We were on our way.

We stopped in Bellingham around 7:00 for gas, coffee, and pit stop and connected with Tom and Lianne, their son Kyle and dog Gibson. Then we caravaned to the border, a quick hello to the border guard and off to Vancouver. We arrived at Jericho beach around 9, unloaded the boats and set to rigging them. Jericho is on English Bay which opens into Howe Sound and the water has the potential for big waves, certainly bigger than we see in Lake Washington, so we needed to put on the spray skirts. They are similar to kayak spray skirts only bigger and a real pain to put on. And I needed to locate our steersperson. Kristen was unavailable for so she lined up Miranda McNamara from Jericho as her replacement.

The boats were ready and everyone was there so we got the boat down to the water. Our crew was Lianne in stroke (her first race ever), Rives, Nancy, Melissa, Lise, and Miranda steering. We headed out for a little warm-up and then set up for the start. And we're off! We started towards False Creek, around an inflatable bouy and then back towards Howe Sound. It was a very exciting turn, there were many boats clustering together for the turn and Miranda took a very aggressive line. At the turn there were two boats slightly ahead of us bumping each other a bit, our bow was just a little between them. We nudged the tail of the boat closest to the bouy and they spun out away from the bouy and in the process hit the boat they were next to and both boats went off totally away from the bouy and we were left with a nice clean turn! Wow, talk about an adrenaline push right at the start. You could hear those crews yelling at one another for a long time afterwards. Then it was a long push to the red bell can bouy, it felt like forever until we finally got there. We had clear water and as we were coming around Miranda cut us a bit close and then called Lianne and Rives to draw, that helps bring the nose of the boat around more quickly. We the wind was a bit stronger than she realized and we were closer to the bouy than expected and then there was that sickening, stomach clentching sound as the ama scraped/crunched along the bouy. Well, nothing we can do about it now, we have to get back in, time to dig deep and get us home.

We paddled hard until we heard the finish horn, done! It was a long, hard race, but we finished. We were 11th across the line and the 3rd master women's crew. Back on the beach we were able to take a look at the ama, it was split at the seam, about 5 inches long, and you can see a bit of the foam inside, there was also a bit of cracking on the top, too. It will take a bit of repair to make it watertight again, but the damage is all above the water line. In all we got off easy, one of the boats from Mt Home, a club down from Portland, had their ama damaged so badly at the start of the men's race they were taking on water during their race. Our men's A team (Doug, Clem, Than, Ed, Ryan, and Tom) were 4th across the line and took 3rd in open men's, our men's B team (Frank, Ernie, Patrick, Ken, Todd, and Troy) were the last men's crew to finish and were 10th in open men's. It was a good day racing in all.

Jericho has a yummy BBQ after the race. After the prizes were passed out we gathered our carpool and hit the road again. It took a while to get back to SSP and drop of the trailer and put the gear back into the container. I was off to drop Lise home a bit past 8 pm and home around 8:30 pm or so. A very long day, a very good day. Way to go SSPO!

Jericho highlights

Had a great time up at Jericho Saturday. It was a very long day and I was soo tired when I got home last night. I'll just give you the highlights right now because I'm off to Folklife in a bit, a second date even!

Master women 1:29:38 3rd place master women, 11th across the line (first was at 1:16:27)
Open men A 1:07:43 3rd open men, 4th across the line (first at 1:04:46)
Open men B 1:21:15 10th open men

It was a day filled with adventure and I will fill you in on all the details either tonight or in the morning.

I got worked

I went up to Jericho in Vancouver, BC this morning. We left Seattle around 6:45 with a full carload, Ed was paddling OC2 with Clem, who had gone up Fri night, and Doug N who was paddling OC1, and my friend Scotty who loves anything to do with boats. I paddled this one OC1.

For any small boat race I participate in I have three goals I hope to meet. 1) don't huli (flip the boat), 2) finish the race, 3) don't finish dead last. I very nearly didn't meet two of my goals. I came damn close to huli'ing on more than one occasion, way too close for comfort. I was also very close to finishing dead last.

Conditions started out ideal, not too cold, not much wind, and the snow that had been predicted never materialized. We were told it was about 6 miles. Leave from in front of the dock, go towards False Creek, around 2 channel marker bouys, then back and around the first dolphin (large wooden piling marker structure), and back to the dock to finish. Up towards False Creek was upwind and not so bad. I was feeling a little out of shape and held back some as I didn't want to start coughing. I was at the back of the rapidly spreading out pack. There was one kapuna master guy (over 55) near me, about halfway to the bouys I was able to pull away from him some, but couldn't seem to catch anyone else. That first leg also cut right through a sailing regatta, at one point I was sure a sail boat was going to split me in half, probably passed 50 ft behind me. I was able to surf a couple of bumps along the way to the bouys, that was kind a fun, feeling a surge of speed that wasn't your doing. Around the first bouy, then the second, damn, where is everyone!

By then he wind had picked up some and so did the bumps. The water was pretty disorganized, too, couldn't really tell where all the chop was coming from. This is where I nearly huli'd, the bumps were mostly coming from the ama side, the left side, at one point the ama popped out of the water quite a ways. At one point I paddled in towards the beach, I was hoping for two things, first to get away from some of the bumps and second to get away from the big container ships. I then headed back towards the dolphin and I wasn't anywhere near anyone else. When I was within a mile of the dolphin I could see how strong the tide was, combined with the bumps and I was getting kind of nervous. I hiked my butt up on the left edge of the boat so I could sit on the ama to add to the stability of the boat (the ama is on the left). I started paddling 10 strokes on the right side to 20 on the left and pointed myself directly towards the dolphin.

There was a woman who'd been in my sights pretty much the entire race, I never figured I have a chance to pass her. Here was my chance, she was struggling with the bumps and the current and ended up taking a much wider line around the dolphin. I worked so hard to stay on the higher line, actually pointed myself inside the marker and let the current push me out just far enough, I could reach out and touch it as I went past. Now I just had to dig in and finish and I wouldn't finish last. I hadn't seen the kapuna guy in so long I figured he must have quit. That last leg was a hard upwind push that never seemed to end and I pretty much had lost feeling in my toes, too. My GPS recorded nearly 7 miles as I went around the last turn. I pushed and gave it all I had to the end, glancing back occasionally to see how close Darcy was, still behind me, keep pushing! I was never so happy to hear a horn when I finally crossed the finish line!

Scotty called down his congratulations as I rounded the dock. He said everybody was looking beaten down and it was a harder race than any expected. I got into the beach, Doug and I carried the boat up. I could hardly walk my feet were so cold. Scotty offered to fetch my clothes from the car while I hobbled up into the locker room looking forward to a nice hot shower while Doug rinsed off the boat for me. Finishing nearly last has it's perks! Doug and Scotty biggest mahalos for your help! That nice hot shower was tepid at best, but the color did come back to my hands and feet eventually. My official time was 1 hr 36 min and my GPS course length was 7.7 miles, part of that was my zig zagging, but not 1.7 miles worth! We stuck around for the awards ceremony and as things were wrapping up I saw that kapuna master guy come in. He did finish the race; that's one tough dude. That was a really hard race, I felt worked afterwards. Had a great time and would do it again in a heartbeat. Oh, wait, I'm going down to Portland in 2 weeks for another one!