Miscellaneous

Texas Water Safari 2008: Victoria to Invista

By Chris Stevenson

A veteran racer had once told me that he got that "horse headin' toward the barn" feeling at the Victoria checkpoint.  In urban terms, that meant that he could see the exit ramp to home after stalling through miles of traffic.  I didn't really get that same feeling because I was still nervous as ever about some mishap that would prevent us from finishing and we still had a long way to go.  There was some comfort in knowing that we were less than 65 miles away from the finish line, but a lot could happen over 65 miles.  Also comforting was the fact that we had been over every section of the river from Victoria to Seadrift before, except for five miles or so from the checkpoint in Riverside park to highway 59.

We left the checkpoint pulling on our doubles.  The idea was to go a little faster to catch up to the girls and make the best time that we could.  We hadn't used the doubles nearly as much as I thought we would; maybe 10% of the time was all.

Shortly after we got underway again I said to Robb, "You know, we're going to have to make a decision about whether we really want to try to beat the girls."  "I know you probably don't care about that as much as I do," I said, "because I'm a little bit more competitive than you are, but we need to be on the same page.  If we're going to try to beat them, we're going to have to push harder and suffer more."  "Yeah, I'd agree with all of that," Robb replied.  "So I've been thinking about it," I said.  "What if we ask them if they want to run together until we get to a certain point and then it'll be every man for himself," I suggested.  "I'd be fine with that," Robb answered.  "That way, we can relax a little, not push as hard and not suffer as much.  Plus, it might be fun to run with them and talk," I reasoned.

Twenty or thirty minutes into the run we came around a bend and could see the girls up ahead.  When they saw us I could sense a bit of disappointment on their part.  It was that way for both of us each time the other would catch up.  We pulled up beside them and I called over, "Hey, we've got a proposition for you."  "Yeah, what's that," they asked.  "What about if we paddle together for a while instead of playing this cat and mouse game and killing ourselves?" I said.  "We've been wanting to do that since Cuero!!" they shouted.  I think we were all relieved not to have the pressure of "racing" at least for a little while.  We worked it out that we would paddle together and then when we reached the Saltwater Barrier checkpoint at Tivoli all bets were off and we'd race each other to the finish.

The mood changed and everyone was convivial.  We traded stories about things that had happened and race news that we'd gotten.  One of the biggest stories was how the two lead boats, Bugge's Belizeans and the Mynar boat had been neck and neck almost all the way to Victoria when something happened and the Belizeans started dropping out.  The rumor was that two of them had gotten sick and couldn't paddle and another one had gotten fired and kicked out of the boat.  They had pulled out entirely at Loop 463 just outside of Victoria.  That was the rumor anyway.  The other news was mostly about other boats that had pulled out.  Several of the top tandem teams were out, including the solo record holder, Carter Johnson and his stud recruit, David Kelley.  Carter had come in second the year before, besting all but a stacked 6-man boat.  His theory had been that he could win it all with just one more engine.  They put a rip in the bottom of their boat between Luling 90 and Zedler Mill, and pulled out on the first afternoon.  Richard Steppe and West Hansen had had a string of mishaps, recovering each time and making good time.  We had actually passed them within two or three miles of the start when they had pulled off to the side to make some repairs to their rudder.  They had experienced trouble at the Martindale low water crossing too.  But they were on a torrid pace and when Carter and David dropped out were easily the favorite to win the class.  But then they'd damaged the rudder again in DeLeon Rapids and when they got to the Victoria checkpoint made the decision to drop out for good because their repairs wouldn't hold.  Two other top tandem teams, Vance Sherrod/Colin Grimshaw and Phil Gumbert/Corey Laskowski were dealing with illness and had either dropped out or slowed down to a crawl.  That meant that Robb and I had moved up in the class standings from 7th or 8th to 4th or 5th.

The afternoon was hot and even though we weren't pushing really hard we were all tired and hurting.  We passed Hwy 59 where we say Robb's mom and niece for the first time and took on more water and new neck packs.  After a couple of hours we pulled over to swim.  We did so again after another hour or so.  We started watching our GPS's more closely because we knew we should be getting close to the Invista checkpoint.  The Invista checkpoint is famously frustrating because you can hear the mechanical noises and at night you can see the glow of the plant lights long before you get there.  But the river twists and bends so much that at times you are going away from the noise and lights and you start to question whether you missed the checkpoint altogether.  We were hot, sore and a little cranky and every time we'd come around a bend expecting to see the checkpoint there was nothing but more muddy bank and trees as far as we could see.  It actually started getting funny and all we could do was laugh.  We were suffering and all of us just wanted to get to the damned checkpoint.

Finally, we came around a bend and saw some people in a red canoe.  They were not racers, but a film crew that was making a documentary about the Safari, or one team in particular; I'm not sure.  (Incidentally, I think the Safari would make an excellent subject for a documentary and I've often thought of how I'd do it.  Disappointingly, there have already been several documentaries made about it, but from what I've heard none of them are very good.  I haven't actually seen them though.)  We asked the film crew how far to the checkpoint and they told us it was only about a half mile further.

We rounded another bend and we could see people on the banks up ahead.  We'd finally made it to the Invista checkpoint.

Full post as published by Cursed With Ambition on August 22, 2008 (boomark / email).