Roger and I ground the gelcoat (paint) off the outside of the boat, making it look worse than before. We put on a thin strip of fiberglass late in the evening and the air got so cold that the resin didn't set up for a day or two. When it did I decided to take the boat home and put it in my living room where the warmth of the wood stove would allow me to do two layers of cosmetic gelcoat in only two days. The boat was barely finished in time for the Cow Patty Pageant on Sunday and I was able to try it out again.
The Cow Patty is a tongue-in-cheek kayak race down the calm tidal waters of the Estero de Americano along the Marin/Sonoma county border. There are two groups of paddlers that show up at this event. The recreational paddlers who don't particularly try to win the race. Then there are the serious racers who come with sleek racing boats and fiercely compete to win. I was a volunteer at the race again this year and was assigned to be the "sweep", the person who waits for everyone else to finish the race and makes sure they all make it back OK. So I launched with the recreational paddlers and took my time paddling down the 6 miles of the estero.
The recreational paddlers go first and then the serious racers are allowed to start 15 minutes later. They quickly pass the slower paddlers and then come back going the other direction before we even see the end of the estero. This year John Dixon came down the estero first in a double racing boat with Susan Starbird in the rear cockpit. Following them in a "V" formation were two racers in single kayaks. These two guys were "drafting" John and Susan, getting a boost by riding the wake of the larger boat. This conserves their energy so they can push harder on the trip back and pass up the boat that helped them on the outward paddle.
As usual at the Cow Patty, there is some sort of shrine at the beach. Everyone is required to land their boat, jump out, run across the sand (if they are serious about winning), kiss the shrine, and run back to their boats before finishing the race. If you don't kiss the shrine your time does not count. Last year the shrine was a gold painted cow pie. Rumor has it that the first Cow Patty Pageant shrine was a dry but unpainted cow pie. This year the people in charge of the shrine had managed to carry a life-sized fiberglass statue of a cow to the beach! It was covered with sparkling silver spangles and wearing a world war one soldier's helmet.
I waited for everyone to kiss the shrine and get back in their boats. This year one couple told me that they were going to stop and have lunch at the beach and I shouldn't wait for them. I took down their race numbers and reported them to the timekeeper later. It turned out that since this was an ACA (American Canoe Association) sanctioned race complete with liability insurance coverage, someone had to wait until the last boat was accounted for. So that couple was surprised to find that someone was waiting for them at the takeout hours later to make sure they made it OK. They didn't think this was necessary, and next year they say they will not bother to register in the race. They'll still paddle along with the rest of us.
As I started back up the estero, one other racer came down the estero towards the beach ("I got a late start" was his excuse) and I memorized his number on the way by. He made it back but ended up the slowest kayak of the day. The last few recreational paddlers took their time and I occasionally got ahead of them but kept track of who was part of the race. A few kayakers went by who were just out on the estero on their own and not part of the race.
We made a wrong turn and ended up cutting across a cow pasture that was covered with water from the high water in the estero this weekend. Two of us got out of our boats and dragged them the last few hundred meters across the pasture to get back into the channel. The rest had to backtrack a little bit in order to find the channel and catch up with us. From where I got back in the channel I could see the short-cut that Maryly and I had tried out two years ago. The water was so high that this short cut was almost navigable without getting out of your boat. I tried to talk a few other kayakers into taking the short cut with me but only one guy, who was not registered for the race was game to try it with me. It turned out that all the serious racers had taken the short cut this year and the result was record short times for the race.
Since I was supposed to be sweep, I didn't take undue advantage of the short-cut and sat on my boat for ten minutes until I saw all the last few kayakers I had been following. As soon as they were in sight behind me again I took off and crossed the finish line ahead of them. There was a cluster of other kayakers arriving about the same time and I assumed that these were not people associated with the race. But it turned out that they were recreational racers who had taken a wrong turn and gotten way behind. Somewhere on the way up the estero I had passed them. I think they had found a channel that turned off the "long-cut" and I had passed them by walking across the short cut between loops of the estero just before the finish.
As usual after the Cow Patty, most of us retired for lunch at the Union Restaurant in nearby Occidental. The rules of the race say that you have to be present to receive your award and if you are not there they give it to someone else! Even though a large percentage of the racers had shown up for lunch, we were pleasantly surprised to find that there were enough prizes for everyone, even the slowest kayaker of the day!