I volunteered to be sweep on this fun kayak race, as I did the last two years. Roger Lamb volunteered to run the registration booth but did not get wet this time. I’ve never been much of a racer and seem to be a slow paddler, so it is not much of a hardship for me to forgo the race and take my time on this beautiful stretch of calm water.
The tide was the lowest I had ever seen it on the Estero de Americano, and continued to go out for most of the race. While paddling down the course I banged into some rocks and shallow places that I never expected to find. One of them hit the bottom of my boat so hard that it dug out a quarter sized piece of my gel-coat on the keel all the way down to the bare fiberglass. There may even be a crack here now that slowly leaks water into the rear compartment! I do not understand how some of the racing boats made it over these places, as they often have delicate skeggs hanging down below their keels.
The recreational paddlers are given a head start and the serious racers start 30 minutes later. Us slow boats were bogged down in a shallow spot when the racers caught up to us. Many people had given up paddling and were dragging their boats across. I was sliding my boat by pressing my hands down into the mud to lift the boat and scoot it forward a few centimeters at a time. While I was laboring like this, two racing kayaks paddled past me only 4 meters away! They had found slightly deeper water and were able to drag their skeggs through the mud. By scooting sideways I was able to find that deeper water and start paddling again.
The half-way point of the race is a shrine near the mouth of the estero. This year this was a pair of statues, a man and a woman, made out of 2x4’s and plywood mounted in the middle of two bonfires. A large collection of plastic cows were placed in front of this to watch the humans burn in effigy. Racers were required to pay homage to the tableau by kneeling down in front of a short wall made out of dried cow pies and bow to the burning statues. (Hey, this is better than the year they made everyone kiss a cow pie!)
I hung around until just about everyone had made it to the half way point. Then I paddled out of the mouth of the estero to get a look at the ocean. The estero was emptying into the ocean over a large shallow delta of sand and gravel. This apparently had a sharp drop-off and waves were breaking over the edge of it. I stayed in the soup zone over the delta and tried to catch a few rides on the waves. This didn’t work and I think I would have had to be braver about sitting closer to the breakers to do any surfing.
As I paddled back up the estero I only caught up with one slow paddler behind everyone else. I stayed with him until the end. I tried to challenge him to a race for the last 100 meters but he was too tired to rise to the occasion.