Watertribe North Carolina Challenge

This week my son Benjamin and I are heading to the outer banks of North Carolina to paddle in the 100 mile North Carolina Challenge. This expedition race begins at the end of Cedar Island, up the Neuse River, through the Harlowe Canel, around Beaufort and up the Core Sound back to the start. Its our goal to paddle it in 2 days with just one night camping out. I leave for North Carolina Wednesday morning, will pick Ben up that night at the Raleigh Durham Airport and we'll head for the coast on Thursday. There are boat and gear inspections that afternoon and a captains meeting that evening. The race begins at 7 30 a.m. Friday, September 30.

There are two ways that you can track us if you are interested.

1. Go directly to my SPOT Tracking Page. Just click on whats highlighted and it will take you to

it. Here you will only see my progess. If you look before Friday morning all you will see is

when I tested the SPOT in the church parking lot.

2. You can go to the Watertribe home page. Click on the box that says TRACKING MAP. Here

you can see every boat or just me My Watertribe paddling name is "Passaic Paddler" so you

can search for just me or move your mouse across the boats on the map to find me. Ben's

paddling name is Macatawa If you do a specific search you have to regenerate the page.

Here's the boats we're paddling. Ben is in a folding kayak that he built himself. A skin on fram Yostwerks SeaTourEXP 17ft. You can see the construction on Ben's Boats Blog if interested. I am paddling the cedar strip Redfish Spring Run, 17ft 9 in. that I built over the last year. We are both rigged with flat earth kayak sail that Ben made. The first picture is what the sail looks like.

Third Annual 25k Hudson River Challenge

Today I paddled in the 3rd annual 25K Hudson River Challenge that is sponsored by the River Rowing Association in Nyack NY, just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. I entered as a tune up for the North Carolina Challenge that Ben and I will do in 3 weeks. The race begins about 2 miles north of the George Washington Bridge at the Englewood Boat Basin. One of the competators above was padding an expedition shell that could carry 3. Rowing alone he really struggled with the heavy headwind and finally pulled out.

I was the only single kayak in the race so even though I came in last I won in my class. There were single, 4 and 8 shells. The winner of the race was in a fast racing shell and set a new record of 1 hour 57 minutes. This is an amazing time considering a fierce headwind and choppy water. One of the 8 person shells with high school girls flipped about 3 miles out. I and the above rower stopped to assist as we were able. They loaded them all into the chase boat finally and slowly towed the shell to the Alpine Boat Basin. I stopped about 20 minutes or so to assist and then continued on my way.

As I approached the bridge I headed directly for the landmark in Nyack. When I got near the bridge there were signs posted of a 25 yard security zone. This meant over a 2 mile paddle to the highest section of the bridge and then back. Not fun. I found out later that it just meant that your couldn't linger around there but could pass through. Oh well....the extra miles were good practice. I paddled 16.8 miles and averaged about 4 mph. I was able to stay in my kayak paddling for 4 1/2 hours, however my left leg was badly cramped when I finally got out. Now I just have to be able to do that x3 two days in a row.