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: Cursed With Ambition

Texas Water Safari 2008: Invista to Saltwater Barrier

By Chris Stevenson

We pulled out of the Invista checkpoint after taking on fresh jugs of water and ice.  The girls were still getting situated so we decided to go ahead and get our light ready for the coming night.  Sitting up front, Robb was the light guy, so he switched it on to make sure it was working.  Since it was still daylight we couldn't tell so we edged over to the bank where we could aim the light at the shadows under the foliage.  Either it wasn't on or we still couldn't tell.  We decided to pull over to the bank to get out and take a closer look at it.  Unfortunately, the way the boat is designed, the light housing is sitting too far forward of the bowman for him to be able to mess with it while in his seat.  We pulled over and sure enough, the bulb was not burning.  We changed out the batteries even though according to our calculations, our second battery should have had several hours of juice left in it.  We hooked it all back up and tried the switch.  Nothing.  We examined the switch and tried several different combinations of steps.  We looked closely at all of the wires and joints for any sign of damage.  We found nothing visibly wrong with the light, but it was not working.  No light.

We each carried a headlamp with us, so we had a source of light.  But, headlamps were not as good.  Even so, we tried to figure a way to secure my headlamp to the front of the boat as a spare bowlight.  We gave up without trying very hard, mainly because we knew the loss of the light wasn't a huge deal.  Besides, I really didn't want to give up my headlamp.  Fortunately, we were going to have a large moon and with the exception of submerged stumps every now and then, we were not too concerned with things that we needed to be able to see.  Plus, since we were paddling with the girls, we could use their light for the both of us.  The downside was that if we were going to rely on their light, we were comitted to staying with them unless we wanted to go on without a light or to try again to use one of the headlights as a bowlight.  We had planned on staying with them until the bay anyway and I couldn't think of any other reason why we'd leave them, so it wasn't a big deal.  Even though we could manage fine without our light, I was more frustrated that the light failed and we didn't know why.  I pride myself on making sure things go right.  We'd snapped our rudder off, and that was plenty bad, but other than that things had gone exceptionally well.  That's saying a lot for a couple of first-timers because there is a lot that can go wrong.  Still, the light malfunction bothered me at the time.

While we were messing with our light, the girls had pulled out from the checkpoint and were waiting for us in the middle of the river.  We pulled up beside and told them about our light.  Everyone agreed that with the moon and the fact that we were running together that it was no great loss.  In the bay, especially, a light doesn't do much for you anyway. 

We started paddling at our regular pace, which was around 5mph at that point.  It was about 18 miles to the next checkpoint, so we figured at least four hours to get there.  It was about 7pm when we left Invista, so we figured to be in at around 11.  During the previous stretch one of the girls had started feeling nauseous.  She had kept paddling but slowed down considerably.  I was not that concerned about it because I knew that people often "went down" for a while, but that most of the time they would come back from it.  On the first night, Robb had gotten sick and actually vomited a few times, but he'd recovered.  I had felt nauseous for a while on the second day and I had bounced back from it.  So I thought that she was going to be fine.  Even still, I had cautioned Audra at Invista that we might slow down from averaging 5mph to 4mph or worse so that if we were running late to the next checkpoint not to worry too much.  That would prove prophetic.

There was little current here and the river was wide and brown with silt.  The banks were muddy and usually steep, although there were many places that were flattened out where cows would come down to drink.  There were still trees lining the banks so you couldn't see the fields beyond the banks except for the ocasional glimpse.  Plus, with the water level so low, we were sitting pretty low in the river channel.  There were lots of alligator gar rolling.  The gar were a thing that I had never had much experience with before I started training for the Safari.  I'd heard of them, but that was about it.  After spending hours and hours on various rivers I had seen hundreds of them and a couple dozen that easily weighed over 50lbs. or more.  Even though they are smelly and ugly and look like some kind of dinosaur, they are generally harmless.  The main hazard is when the boat startles them and they thrash.  That, in turn, startles the people in the boat and it's easy to lose balance in a tippy boat.  We'd startled plenty of them and never gone over because of a gar.  So I was pretty immune to them.  It was funny to me every time we'd scare one up, especially if it was near the front of the boat, because I could feel Robb react to it.

We chatted some more with the girls as the light faded.  By now we'd learned quite a bit about each other - our jobs and families and athletic history.  We talked about the race and things that had happened.  We were all hurting pretty badly.  My ass was really, really sore.  I had abrasions and sores on the pressure points from sitting in the same position for nearly sixty hours straight.  I'm sure the affliction is similar to the bed sores invalids get.  Anyway, it was painful.  One trick you learn is to use Desitin on your butthole and taint area to prevent chafing.  Essentially, the chafing is the same as diaper rash that babies get.  I'm sure there's bacteria and all involved, but I never looked into it much because I really didn't want to know.  Anyway, Desitin works.  I can say with almost absolute certainty that I would not have finished the Safari without it.

The other major problem I was having was muscle soreness.  They were beyond sore.  They were burning.  One of the body's defense mechanisms is pain.  Pain exists to tell you to STOP doing whatever it is that is causing the pain.  One major component of the Safari is being able to resist that urge to stop because of the pain.  I'd been trying to ignore the pain for about 48 hours and it had continued to get worse and worse.  All of the muscles of my upper and lower back, shoulders and especially my neck were just on fire.  It eased them a little to stretch, so I would go through cycles of exaggerating my paddle stroke and reaching way out to stretch the muscles as I paddled.  My neck hurt so much that I had gone to paddling basically looking down at the bottom of the boat, then stealing a glance up to get my bearings to steer, then back down again.  I had started using Icy Hot every 6-8 hours or so and that provided relief for about 40 minutes.  I had also been popping Advil on a regular four hour cycle, but if they were working I couldn't tell.

Darkness came and the girls switched on their light.  We got in close behind them so we could follow in their track and avoid any obstacles.  We could see fairly well with their light up ahead, but not as well as if we'd had our light working.  I put on my headlamp and tested it out.  It was bright, but it wasn't really feasible to paddle with it on or to use it as a bowlight when it was sitting on my head, so I switched it off and we settled in behind the girls' boat.

Shortly after dark, the pain in my muscles started to subside.  I felt a little calmer and happier.  As we paddled along, I had the sensation of going downhill.  It looked for all the world that the river was flowing downhill at a much steeper grade than what I had perceived in the daylight and that the current had picked up and we were being aided along by it.  Plus, the water seemed "slicker;" like the resistance of the water on the hull of the boat was lessened somehow.  Paddling took less effort.  I mentioned something to Robb about the downhill effect and he said that he could perceive it slightly, but not as much as me.

Meanwhile, one of the girls was getting sick.  She had increasing nausea and was having a hard time.  She wasn't able to draw much force with her paddle, really just dipping it in the water.  She would moan every now and then and I knew she was in real pain.  She was reaching limits.  I had seen her popping what I thought were Vivarin over the previous few hours.  She was so exhausted that I'm sure she was worried about falling asleep in the boat.  I don't know what the effects of that many Vivarin are, but I'm sure it can't be good for the stomach.  There wasn't much I could do to help.  I still thought she would snap out of it and besides, Safari racers aren't allowed to receive any outside assistance, even from other racers.  She and her teammate were on their own.  So while one of them was getting sick, the other had to pick up the slack and paddle that much harder.

I, on the other hand, was entering a state of euphoria.  I knew that the body produced endorphins during strenuous exercise, excitement or pain.  I had experienced the "runner's high" many times.  But never like this.  The feeling of paddling downhill had become even more pronounced.  So much so that I felt like I was downhill skiing and steering the boat side to side to catch a slight edge to slow down, just like a skier does.  I also felt that we were travelling much faster than we probably were.  At this point for me, paddling felt effortless.  In fact, Robb and I basically had to switch off paddling or else we'd go too fast and pass the girls' boat instead of staying in behind them.

The moon came up and reflected off the trees and the water.  All of the bubbles on the surface of the water sparkled red, blue and white.  I started recognizing shapes in the trees.

We paddled up beside the girls to ask them how they were doing.  One was still sick and barely able to paddle and the other was huffing and working hard.  Even though I felt like I was high, I never lost touch with reality and was able to think clearly.  I asked some questions about how much they had eaten and drank to make sure they were staying fueled and hydrated.  We offered words of encouragement, but not much else.  Then I told them, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but I'm in a state of euphoria."  I'm not sure if they were envious or what, but they didn't say anything.

We continued skiing down the river and I was just enjoying the breeze and the moonlight.  We came upon an area where in year's past there had been a massive logjam that was nearly a mile long.  The people with the Guadalupe/Blanco River Authority had broken up the jam at some point during the year and piled all of the debris on one of the banks.  It was a massive pile that was ten or twelve foot high in places and did stretch for nearly a mile.  Parts of the old jam were still hanging into the river and we came up to a spot where it had partially reformed.  The water was rushing under and around it and there was no channel through it.  We could hear it before we got there so we slowed way down.  Robb and I had trained on this section once before the Safari and we knew that there was one small spot that was covered over with logs.  That had been several weeks before, though, so it has all changed.  We eased up to the floating mat of logs and tried to look for an opening.  I flashed my headlamp around.  I also looked on the banks.  We were in alligator country now and I really didn't want to have any close encounters.

We hollered back and forth to the girls over the sound of rushing water. 

"Do you see a way through?!"

"No!"

"We can't either!  It looks like it narrows here to the left though!  You think we can push through there?!"

"We can't really see!  It's worth a try!"

"Do you think we should just portage over it?!"

"Let's try the channel!"

"Okay, we'll go in first and try to push through and make an opening!"

The time we'd come through before getting through had been a simple matter of pushing several floating logs off to the side either with the boat itself or by grabbing them and moving them by hand.  The water was pushing us into the jam as we tried to remain stationary so we could look around.  I had a momentary panic as I envisioned us capsizing and swept under the logjam.  But we'd found a spot where we were out of the main current and relatively safe.  It was still hard to move, but once we'd formed the plan we were able to straighten out and head into what channel there was.  The nose of the boat came in contact with a large log that was blocking the way.  There was a tangle of other logs and branches beyond that.  To the left was the bank choked with trees and vines.  To the right was the main body of the logjam; a twisted mass of logs and debris that reached several feet above the height of the water.

I called out to Robb, "Can you move that log?!"

"No.  I don't think so!  It's too big and it's lodged in!"

Nevertheless, we tried using powerful paddle strokes and the boat to push the log to the side.  It wasn't working and we were using a lot of energy.

"Do you think we can portage it?!"

"I think we're going to have to!"

"Can you get out on that big log?!"

"Yeah, I think so!"

"Okay, then I'll walk the boat and get out on the other side and we'll pull it over!"

"Okay!"

Just then I turned to tell the girls what we were planning and I saw one of them standing next to the bank in knee deep water holding their boat still.  It was a relief to me to know that the water was shallow right here.  My great fear was submerging in deep water and getting swept under a logjam with no way to surface.  But here, it looked like the water was too shallow for that to happen.  I pointed this out to Robb.

He gingerly set his foot out on the log to test it to see if he could put his weight on it.  It appeared to be sturdy and he climbed out the rest of the way and turned to hold the boat while I made my way forward.  I walked the length of the boat and carefully got out on the same log, which sunk a little as I put my weight on it.  I tried another log closer to the bank that was smaller, but stuck in the mud, so sturdier.  Once we were both out I called back to the girls over the noise of the water, "We're going to lift the boat over the logs here!  There's no way to clear a channel!  It doesn't extend much beyond here, so there's not far to go to get to open water!"  "Okay!" they called back.

I had seen once I'd gotten out of the boat that the jam only extended another ten feet or so before it opened up.  The problem was that the only opening where we could pass the boat made a sharp turn so it was going to be hard to pull the boat through.  We grabbed each gunnel and lifted and pulled it up onto the logs where we were standing.  Once we got it up that far we turned it as best we could and tried to keep our balance as we struggled under the weight of the boat and the awkward positions we were in.  We finally got the boat over and set back down in the water on the other side.  I breathed a sigh of relief and shone my headlight into the undergrowth on the bank checking for gators.  I turned to the girls and asked, "Did y'all see how we did that?  Can y'all do that?"  They nodded that they could, no problem.  I held the boat so Robb could walk it up to his seat and once he was in I climbed in as well.  We held up and waited for the girls to come over.  They repeated what we had done and paddled on ahead and we fell in line behind them.  We had made it over the jam without any damage or injury, but we'd used a lot of energy doing so and everyone was already exhausted.

As we paddled away from the jam, I looked up at several buildings and houses on the banks, including what appeared to be an old millhouse and thought to myself that I did not remember those being there when we'd passed through here on our training run.

We settled back into our pace and I was enjoying paddling downhill once again.  The night was still and the moonlight was filtering down through the trees and onto the water.  All of the bubbles on the water shimmered with color.  I was still in a state of euphoria.

I knew all about the hallucinations that many Safari racers claim to have.  I wondered whether I, myself, would have any.  On the first day of the race, somewhere between Gonzales and Hocheim, I thought I had seen a large piece of green outdoor carpet stretched down over the bank to the water's edge with an angled metal lift overhanging it.  To me, it looked like a place where someone launched a johnboat.  When we got up close to it I could see that it simply wasn't there and that I'd imagined it.  Now, I was recognizing shapes in the trees - faces, animals, dinosaurs - but nothing that I ever thought was really there.  That's when I entered The River City.

The shapes on the banks were no longer ambiguous - there were buildings lining the river with windows and doors and roofs.  There were brick and stone bridges arching over the river in places.  There were large buildings that appeared to be some type of apartments.  All of these buildings were well-kept and clean. All of the lights in the windows were out, but I could feel that whoever lived there was asleep inside.  It reminded me of some old European city with a river flowing through it or even some fairy tale city like Hobbiton, though the buildings I saw would never had suited Hobbits.

I mentioned this to Robb.  He said that he was seeing things too, but his visions were mainly in the reflections on the water.  He pointed one out, "See, there - it looks like an apartment building.  See the windows?"  I could.  "Yeah, three on the bottom, two in the middle, three on the top?"  "That's it!  That's it!"  Then I told him to look up to see the actual building.  "Whoooaaa!"  We both laughed at how crazy this was.  I paddled on with a smile on my face, every now and then pointing out an interesting looking building or a bridge over the river.

Meanwhile, the girl who had been getting sick was even sicker.  She was barely paddling and moaning almost constantly.  I started getting worried.  We had already slowed down considerably and I wondered if this was the beginning of a DNF for somebody.  She hadn't bounced back like I thought she would and it had been hours.  She tried laying back in the front of the boat for a while, but that hadn't helped.  I had no idea if she had taken in any water or food.  The other one had been working like a mule this entire time since she'd been the only one really paddling.  I wondered to myself if there was anything I could do.  We had been going so slow that I had started to feel like we were being held back.  I told Robb to slow down so we could hang back and talk out of earshot of the girls.  I asked him if he still wanted to stay with them since I felt like we could probably make a lot better time if we went on ahead.  But we both agreed that they were in trouble and we were worried about them and wanted to stay with them to make sure they were going to be okay.  In any event, we'd given them our word to stay together.  I think we both felt like the competitive aspect had sort of gone out the window and now we were on an expedition and needed to support our fellow expedition mates.  It was the right thing to do and was not a hard decision.

We felt like we had to be getting close to the next checkpoint.  We rounded a bend in the river that opened up to a wide still pool.  Up ahead I saw two red glowing dots in the water.  "Alligator!" I shouted.  Sure enough, it was an alligator crossing in front of us right to left, fully submerged except for its reddish orange eyes.  The girl who'd been sick got a jolt of life and started paddling again.  I flipped on my headlamp and panned the banks.  I saw at least 2 or 3 others.  We were defeintely in alligator country now.  From then on, we'd see one every ten or twenty minutes.  Then, we came to another wide open area and there must have been twenty of them in there.  Red eyes glowed everywhere.  They seemed to only take a passing interest in us.  They certainly weren't aggressive.  They didn't move toward the boats at all, but they were in no great hurry to get out of the way, either.

We could see the sodium lights from the Saltwater Barrier reflecting orange off the humidity in the air in the distance above the treeline.  But there was no telling how close we were because the river twists around so much.  As with every checkpoint, the anticipation is so great that you just want to get there and every turn that results in more river and trees is a great disappointment.  But finally we could see the lights and the barrier.  People at the checkpoint activated when they saw our bowlight and headlamps.

We had encountered a logjam and passed through the River City and made it to the Saltwater Barrier; the last checkpoint before the finish line at Seadrift.  We were almost certainly going to make it.  But we still had to find Traylor cut in the dark and make it across the dangerous bay.

Full post as published by Cursed With Ambition on August 27, 2008 (boomark / email).