My support crew, Joel Perrera and Peter Dobbos from Breathe Magazine and my partner James all did an outstanding job at support crewing during that day.
As an adventure class I had the option to start either at 6am or 8am. I opted for the 8am start thinking it would give me people to chase. That would be my goal of the day.
We were about 23 vessels all up, 5 in the competitive class and the rest in the adventure class. When I got to the start at 8am I learnt that most people had started in the 6am wave and that we would be only 3 of us starting at 8am.
According to my calculation I should be able to catch the slower people after roughly 14 hours of paddling if they were paddling 2km/h slower than me.
I had a great start but realised very quickly that something was slowing me down. I saw a canoe on the way and asked them to check my rudder...it was full of weeds :(
I had borrowed a think uno max from my friend Jodi. It is a faster lighter and more tippy boat that what I was used to but for speed I thought it would be worth it. The only problem is that this boat was a prototype and they didn't place a weed deflector. I never had this problem before and would realise very quickly that it can wear you down a lot. I made it to the first lock in a good time considering. Joel was ready with food etc. I was first of the 3 who started at 8am and was well determined to go and catch those people ahead.
After about 50km of paddling or so I caught up with the stand up paddle boards (they were two of them). They both one after the other helped me with my weed situation when I could barely be paddling anymore due to the dragging behind the boat.
James had met up with the guys by then and it was good to see him at the locks.
To follow the route I had printed maps of the course and I also had a gps in case I couldn't see the navigational channel to help me find my way.
The first 100km were not straight forward and the gps or maps were necessary. After that it wouldn't be too open anymore and it would become channel like so much easier to navigate.
The open sections with all the big lakes was a little scary. The weather was pretty bad all day with lots of rain but by then the wind had picked up a lot and the waves were starting to grow considerably on the lake. Thanks god the wind was in my back most of the time so I could stay upright.
I started panicking a little knowing that I didn't have my leash so that if I had tipped I could have lost the boat very quickly. There was also no safety on the water which made me pretty nervous.
When I reached the 70km mark I wasn't happy. I was tired and terrified and didn't want to keep on going.
I decided to keep on going after the race director told us it should get sheltered and a lot better after...It didn't..I started what was supposed to be a 30km section without seeing my support crew very very stressed. The waves were bigger and bigger with reflective waves coming from the side and the winds picked up to 60km/h sometimes. I decided to wait in a little bay for the next boat to come and paddled with him as I was more than scared. We paddled together and some of the boats from the 10am wave (the competitive class) caught up to us. After about 5km of bracing I fell in. My PFD wasn't tight enough and I struggled to keep my boat, my paddle and everything else floating around with me. The other kayaker helped me and held onto my boat and paddle for me as I was trying to tighten my PFD. Unfortunately within seconds they were blown away just a little too far for me to reach them. I tried desperately to reach them without success and he couldn't paddle anymore since he was holding on my boat etc...As a last resource I used my whistle and some very nice people came out of their cottage, took their motor boat and went to rescue my boat as I swam to shore...What an experience :(
A pro canoe had stopped at the same place than us and we all decided it was too dangerous to keep on going.
We called our support crew from the cottage and called the race director who told us he was cancelling the race due to the weather.
I ended up doing about 75km in 11 hours (with at least 30 to 45min spent in the water trying to get rescued).
The race director made a tough but right call by calling the race off. If it wasn't for the weather (and the weeds) I think I would have done pretty well. At the last lock I went through I was apparently 15-20min behind 4 boats that had started 2 hours ahead of me so I was catching up.
There will always be next year..and this time I will be more prepared. I will have my revenge!!!
Nathalie
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