We stayed at the Jupiter Waterfront Hotel, which is where the race registration, start, and finish all were. The race started at 3 p.m. on Saturday, and we arrived at the hotel sometime after 11 p.m. on Friday night. It was weird to be going to sleep the night before a race and not have to worry about getting up early (since most races start 1st thing in the morning!). I woke up around 8:30 and snuck out, since everyone else wanted to sleep in. I walked around the hotel, did some morning yoga on a dock in the water, and waited for everyone to get up. When they did, we all went down for breakfast at the Lighthouse restaurant.
We returned from our late breakfast and started getting our gear together. Race check-in was at 1 p.m., and we received our maps and passports then. We had to have our bikes checked in by 1:30, and had a mandatory pre-race meeting at 2 p.m. In hindsight, we should have spent more time studying the map and passport, and marking some of the trails we'd be following during the race. (We would not have been able to determine them all until out on the course.) It also would have been nice to at least drive around the park (Jonathan Dickenson State Park) once or twice in the morning to get familiar with the layout, as the local teams or teams who had raced here before had a big advantage. (In some ways it was more adventurous to know nothing about the course, though.)
The race started at 3 p.m. on the West side of Federal Highway (U.S. 1) just across from the hotel. It looked like there were maybe 75 to 100 racers, and we were amazed at the differences in both attire and gear. Some people had next to nothing, while others were carrying a lot. This was pretty much a totally self supported race -- there was only going to be water available at a few of the checkpoints -- so you had to carry all change of clothes, all food, some water, and any of the required gear. (Required gear included a 2 inch locking blade knife, headlight, fluorescent night sticks, whistle, first aid kit with snake bite kit, etc.) You could keep your bike equipment with your bike. This included your bike lights, helmet, shoes, etc.
We ran north along the highway for about a mile, where we were directed west into the park. We had to jump a fence, and then bushwhack further west for close to a mile, where there was an old paved road near railroad tracks. We were to follow that road south to check point #1 (CP 1). We had been told about the bushwhacking and advised to wear long pants, so Ben and I wore army fatigues. These were a bit hot, but their toughness was great going through the thick bush. Ben and I tracked a little further north than most of the other teams, through what seemed like the thickest sections. This would have turned out to be a good thing, as many teams went too far south and had to then trek north through a swamp. Unfortunately, at some point we decided to put on gloves because the bush was so thick and the palmettos were cutting our hands. I tucked the map and passport under my arm to put the gloves on, and apparently forgot to take them out when we started out again. We made it out of the bush and a couple of minutes later, I realized I no longer had the map and passport! We had to back track and try to find them, or we would not have been able to complete the race. Our track through the bush was impossible to find because of the thickness, and the resiliency of the palmettos. Their branches bounce right back to where they were after you pass through. We spent a long time looking for the map, and were both getting a little frustrated, though more disappointed than anything. After about 40 minutes (and a lot of praying!), and after having been over the same ground over and over, I finally spotted the map and passport, and we started back on track towards CP1. We got there almost 25 minutes after the last team had already left, at 4:11pm.
Looking back, in some ways this was a good thing, as we would no longer put pressure on ourselves to hang with the fast teams. We had entered this race as a chance to try a "non-pampered" adventure race. (I.e. no markings on the trails, etc.) We had not entered to race competitively. However, being so far behind was also very difficult, as we had to make decisions the rest of the race without being able to see what other racers had done. At any rate, I learned that carrying the map and passport in your hands is not a particularly good method, and I will not do it again. I saw several racers that had map carrying cases which attached to the front of their packs, where they are easily accessible and not easily lost. Lesson number 1 learned -- Keep the Map and Passport attached to you at all times -- do not carry in your hands!
From CP1, we headed north along the paved road, towards the main entrance of the park, to CP2. It didn't take long for us to take off the fatigues, since they were hot and we were no longer trekking through thick bush. We heard Ben's cell phone ringing but didn't get to it in time, and then mine rang. (Cell phones were required equipment so you can call the race organizers for help if you have an emergency.) We got my phone out and it was Kelly, Allison, and Karen calling, wondering where we were and what had happened. All of the other racers had left CP2 already, where they were waiting! We finally made it there, about 15 to 20 minutes after the last racers, at 4:27 p.m.. This would be the last time we saw the girls until the end of the race!
From CP2, we headed north along a trail. Looking at the map, we knew it was a long trek to CP3 -- we guessed as much as 8 miles. We ran some, and walked some, especially in the thick sand. It was apparent now that our packs were not ideal for this kind of trekking. I had a hiking backpack, which had waist and chest straps to hold it tight to my body, and it is an ok pack for hiking, but not terribly comfortable for running when you have all of your food, water, and other gear in it. I didn't think it would race that well, but I didn't want to buy a racing pack until I had done at least one race like this one to see what features I would want. Ben was in even worse shape, as he just had a regular back pack. He had made some straps to try to keep it tight, but they didn't work very well, and his pack was therefore very uncomfortable to run in. Lesson number 2: Use a good adventure racing pack!
(After doing this race, the list of features I want in a racing pack are: 1. comfortable to run in with good weight distribution; 2. some kind of hydration system (I had my camel back in my back pack, which worked ok); 3. somewhere to attach the map to; 4. some kind of storage room on the front of the pack (I often wanted something out of my pack, but since it was all in the back, I would have had to take off the pack, get it out, and rearrange everything. It would be nice to have commonly used items and items you may need quickly, like a compass, knife, bug lotion, some food, etc., to be in front.) )
It took us quite a long time to get to CP3. We had to follow the trail almost all the way to the north border of the park, then we began heading west, and eventually a bit south, until we came to some power lines. We had to follow these west, all the way to CP3. Towards the end of the power lines, we were going through swampy areas and the bugs came out in force. Just stopping to put bug spray on allowed them to swarm us. And once I had it on, they were still biting through my clothes! We had still not seen any teams until we finally reached CP 3 at 6:08 pm, where we at last did see a few.
At this point, we had an orienteering course. This consisted of following compass directions and pace counts, to find stakes in the ground that had words written on them. We had to record the words at 7 spots and return them to the race volunteers at the CP. Ben and I went through this course rather quickly due to Ben's good compass skills. At this point, we were to transition to the bikes. We saw Cole and Jon here, and they left about 5 or 10 minutes before we did. We spent some time at this point eating food, drinking, changing socks, and then took off on the bikes. There was one team's bikes still there -- they had apparently gotten lost between CP2 and CP3 as we never passed them and we knew we were last at CP2.
We headed south on our bikes from CP3, and then headed west. At this point, the passport told us to find the best way to CP4. Looking at the map, there was a road that headed south. However, we opted to keep heading west to the park border. We assumed there would be a road there, though we couldn't see if that were the case on the map or not. Luckily there was, so we followed the border south towards CP4. After about 15 minutes, we got to some swampy water, and unfortunately, our dry socks got totally soaked. We had to ride through several sections like this, but we eventually made it to the unmanned CP4. We had to record the word written on the stake, and then continue on to CP5. We caught and passed a team here -- our 1st one since we got so far behind before we reached CP1 (not including the team that we never saw but still had bikes at CP3.) At this point it had become dark so we had to start using our lights.
We followed the fire road east back into the park, and eventually north. At one point, there were two big dips on my side of the road. The 2nd one was big enough to catch my entire front wheel, and since I was not quite expecting this nor ready for the depth of the hole, I went right over. Ben caught a similar hole on the other side of the road and fell right next to me! We were both fine and got back up to keep on going. A few minutes later, a rider passed us going south, and I thought we may have missed our turn. I yelled out to ask if we were going the wrong way, and he said that his team had missed CP4. It was only later I found out this was Cole! As we headed north, we watched for an outhouse and a wooden sign, and then just past that, we looked for a sign that said "Florida Trail, Foot traffic only." We headed east along this trail for a while. Ben's bike seat had come loose, so we stopped to adjust it, and eventually we ran into another racer waiting for his teammate. This turned out to be Jon, who was waiting for Cole to return from CP4. We talked with him for a bit, before continuing. We headed east, and eventually south. We were supposed to then find another trail that went east, and take it to some power lines, and follow those south to CP5. We apparently missed that trail somehow, and ended up going pretty far south. We finally found a trail that brought us to one of the main park roads, but we weren't sure if we were north or south of CP5. We headed south for a while, until we saw signs for the boat ramp where CP6 was, and realized we had gone the wrong way. We headed back north and got to CP5 at 8:24 p.m.
From CP5, we were to head south along some more power lines to CP6. We started in that direction, and I got out a power bar to eat. All of a sudden, there was a chain blocking the road! I had the bar in my right hand, so I could only brake with my left. Unfortunately, this is the front brake, and I had to hit it so hard, that the back of my bike came up and over and I fell just on the other side of the chain. It was quite a spill, but nothing hurt too bad so I got up and we continued on. A couple of minutes later, I noticed what I thought was lots of blood on my right leg, coming from under by bike shorts. It looked really bad -- there was a lot of blood dripping down my leg, and when I lifted the shorts to see where it was coming from, there were big drops falling from the shorts and the shorts were soaked! At this point, I thought I had a serious cut somewhere, like I had gouged myself in the crash, but I didn't feel any pain. I finally realized that I had busted open a chocolate goo in the fall and that it was oozing everything out. I felt much better since I now knew I wasn't bleeding to death....
We reached CP6 at 8:36. This was a canoe leg, so we left our bikes behind and jumped in the canoe. We followed the river west, though we did have a bit of confusion at the start due to the directions in the passport. They said hug the left bank, but this was clearly bringing us south, not west. So we went west for a while, not hugging the left bank, until we got across the south water way. We then hugged the left bank until we saw two green fluorescent night sticks which indicated where we were to get out and port the canoe. The passport said to carry the boats north along the fire road to CP7 for about an 1/8 of a mile, though it felt more like 1/4 of a mile! We got to CP7 9:02.
We were told to follow a little stream to the river from there. The little stream was like a tight tunnel, as it was low, with banks of 3-5 feet on each side, and palmettos growing all over the sides and over our heads. At some places, it was very tight, and we had to shift the canoe in various directions to get it through. Ben had not worn his headlight, so we only had mine in front to make it through this, and he could not see very well. We finally made it through this tunnel -- it was much longer than I had first imagined, perhaps as much as 50 yards, and it took a lot of effort to get the canoe through.
The passport indicated that when we got out of the woods, we should head right and follow the river back the way we came, and explicitly told us not to cross any rock jetties. We followed the directions, but got stuck in a different part of the water way. We followed it all around, and there was clearly not a water exit, and the only way we were going to make it back was to cross a jetty. We decided to instead head back to where we had come out of the woods and see if we had missed a turn. At this point, we ran into another boat, which turned out to be Cole and Jon again. They had caught up to us because we had gone so far south on the way to CP5, and because we were lost in the water! We told them not to continue on where we had come from, since there was no way through. We headed back all the way where we had come out of the woods, and again attempted to find our way back following the passport's directions. However, we never could find a way out of this section of the water way and we finally had to cross a jetty. It was clear that several teams had already come this way. There was no damage to the jetty, but you could tell people had crossed here. From there, we were finally able to find the green fluorescent night sticks that had marked the beginning of the portage, and from there were able to find the way back to CP6. Lesson number 3 learned -- don't blindly trust the passport -- use the map too!
We took a few minutes to eat food and fill up on water, before we got back on the bikes and headed north to CP8. We arrived at CP8 at 10:18 p.m., and from there headed north on a fire road. The passport said it would eventually head east, but we had no idea how long it would be! We rode for a while, stopped and examined the map, and finally realized that we were supposed to go almost all the way to the north end of the park! This fire road had a ton of sand, and we often had to get off and push the bikes through it. This was a very long section, and we couldn't believe we were supposed to be going this far because the distance between CP8 and CP9 on the map was very small. However, there was no other way to go, and there were tire tracks from the racers who had already been through, so we figured we must be going the right way. We finally made it to where the trail headed east. We eventually crossed some railroad tracks, and found an old paved road which the passport told us to head south on towards CP9. The pavement only lasted a short distance, when the road became sand and gravel. We followed that as far as we could, but eventually ran into a gate that we could not pass. Now we weren't sure that we were on the right road, but we headed back west just a bit to the railroad tracks. We could see from the map that CP9 was south on the tracks, so we followed them down. Ben rode on the tracks for a while, but it was too bumpy for me and I didn't think it was particularly safe, so I rode next to the tracks on the gravel. We finally made it to the main park road, and headed east just a bit to CP9. We arrived there at 11:45 p.m.
From CP9, we followed a mountain bike trail to CP10. It was nice to be on a real trail rather than on fire roads and it looked like a pretty fun trail to ride -- if we hadn't already been racing for 9 hours!!! I'd like to go back and ride this trail when I'm fresh and can do it with some speed and aggressiveness, rather than the slow plodding rate we rode it at at this point.
We made it to CP10 at 12:06 a.m. There was a traverse here, which meant we had to get into a climbing harness, strap a pulley on, and attach that to a rope so we could swing across a swamp. The ropes were tight, but not tight enough to keep our bodies out of the swamp. We could just picture gators at the bottom, waiting to take bites out of our butts, as we'd be almost helpless strapped to a rope and stuck in the water! We had to use our hands to pull ourselves through the water and up to the far platform. From here, we had to head through the woods, around the swamp, and back to the start of the traverse. I had taken my light off my helmet as I thought it could get lost in the water, and Ben had left his batteries behind for the same reason. So we had no lights to make it through the woods! We were eventually able to make it through the darkness back to the start, and then we headed out.
We followed the mountain bike trail to the end, went north on an old paved road, then a bit west on the park road, which then brought us south back to the boat ramp for CP11. We made it there at 12:43 a.m. Here, we were to leave our bikes and get back in the canoes, and go all the way to the hotel. We were given a pumpkin and a candle, and were told to have the pumpkin carved (with at least 2 eyes, a nose, and a mouth), and lit by the time we reached the finish line. We could carve it where we were, or in the boat on the way back. We decided to carve it in the boat.
We got in the canoe and began following the waterways south and east towards the inter-coastal. This river has many estuaries and twists and turns, so it is not easy to follow. However, we seemed to pick our way through the maze almost perfectly and were doing great. I carved the pumpkin while Ben paddled for a while. We eventually got out from the narrow water ways, to where the river widened and there were many nice houses. The river kept widening and widening, and we continued to make our way towards a lighthouse where we knew the inter-coastal started. It was very peaceful and quiet out on the water that late at night. We eventually made it to the lighthouse, but made a bad mistake.
The map we had was a black and white photocopy of a topographical map that was a bit hard to read, and it looked like we should be turning where a Coast Guard facility was. It did not appear to be right at the lighthouse, so we thought it might be one more turn ahead. So we went on. We could hear the surf in the distance, and there were two red lights which looked like the marking of a pass under a bridge. These appeared to be way out, so we thought it was the land on the far side of the inter-coastal. The current continued to pick up, and we were happy to be moving so quickly. All of a sudden I realized there was surf -- big swells and breaking waves -- right in front of us! It was very dark, so this snuck up on us quickly! I yelled to Ben and we quickly turned the canoe around. However, it was too late -- we were too far along and the current was way too swift. We paddled as hard as we could, but we were being sucked in the wrong direction -- out to the ocean!
At this point, I was really scared. We were in an unstable canoe and were about to be pulled into large swells and breaking waves, with very strange currents from the river and the tides. If we had tipped, we would have been without any signaling gear and would have been pulled out to the ocean in some strong strong currents. I have no idea how far out we would have gone until we could have tried to swim back towards shore -- diagonally against the currents -- but I was guessing at least 1/2 mile to as much as a mile! So yes, I was scared! I yelled to Ben to angle the canoe towards the rock jetty and we paddled our hearts out diagonally with the current towards it. We made it there, about 10 to 15 feet from the first big breakers, and about 20 - 25 feet from the end of the jetty!
The current was very strong and it was difficult to get out of the canoe onto the slippery rocks, but we managed. We then had to pick the canoe up over the rocks, and onto the walkway on the jetty. It was here that I figured out those two little red lights I had seen -- the ones I thought were marking a bridge way in the distance -- were actually just at the end of the jetty! We carried the canoe along the walkway, then through some sand along the rock wall. Eventually we had to make our way along the slick, sharp rocks, with the canoe. We couldn't put it in the water yet because the currents were too strong so we pressed on. We eventually tied rope to the canoe, put it in the water, and dragged it for a while. This was very slow going due to the rocks along the jetty having such odd shapes, being slick, and being sharp. After a while, we had Ben get in the canoe and paddle, with me staying on the rocks and holding the rope, to see if we would be able to make it against the current. It was tough, but he was able to make it, so I got in and we paddled as hard as we could along the southern bank. Lesson(s) number 4 learned -- night vision can be deceiving, the surf at night sounds much different than during the day and can be hard to judge the distance accurately, and study the map much closer !!
We eventually had to cut north through the river towards the inter-coastal. The current was strong and was trying to push us back out to the ocean, but we made it through. We then followed the inter-coastal north, keeping as close to the west bank and as far out of the current as possible. At one point, some large fish, perhaps a ray of some type, got freaked out by us. Instead of just making one big ripple and swimming away like normally happens, for some reason, perhaps we scared it so much, made a ton of noise, circled around several times, and then went on its way. Its hard to explain how big the splashes were, how load the noise was, and how close it was to the boat, but it scared us pretty good!
After a couple of miles, we finally saw the finish line at the hotel! We were pretty tired at this point, although I still had a lot of adrenaline flowing from nearly being sucked out into the ocean. Kelly, Allison, and Karen were all there waiting for us! I could not believe they had stayed up so late! Ben and I would have called them at some point along the race if we knew they were still awake to let them know we were ok. (We hadn't seen them since a little after 4 p.m. at CP4.) It was 4:05 a.m. when we officially finished -- we had been going over 13 hours!
We had to lug the canoe up some stairs and around to the front of the hotel. I went to the room to change and came back out to wait for Cole and Jon. They came up about an our later, just after 5 a.m. Cole had carved a face on their pumpkin on one side, and the words "Howl at the Moon" on the opposite side. It looked fantastic!
We were all exhausted and went to sleep a little after 5 a.m. We got up around 9:30 the next morning (it was daylight savings day so we did get an extra hour of sleep), packed up, and headed out.
Even though Ben and I made some big mistakes that cost us a ton of time, we had a great time. (We guesstimate that we lost 45 minutes by losing the map and passport, and close to an hour by missing the last turn in the boat and being sucked out to the ocean. We had a couple of more minor navigational mistakes that probably added up to another hour, so we lost almost 3 hours total!) We learned a lot of lessons, which was one of the main reasons for doing this race. We have a goal to do the Florida Coast to Coast race in May of 2001, which will be around 200 miles! Getting in the experience this race gave us, for night racing and for navigating unmarked trails, was just what we wanted. Our next stepping stone will most likely be Myakka in February of 2001, which is 112 miles point to point. We estimate that Howl at the Moon was in the 50 mile range....
Again, we has a fantastic time!