The last race of the year on the Sound Rowers race schedule was the Cascade Distance Race. This event was organized by the folks at the Cascade Canoe and Kayak Center at the south end of Lake Washington in Renton, WA.
I suggested to Kate, my wife, that she consider taking two of the three kids with her in the Escapade and do the short (5.25 mile) course, while I went in the Cadence and did the long (13 mile) course. Much to my surprise, she agreed! Hmmm, perhaps the enticement of the post race meal of barbecued steak was the deal clincher.
On Friday I loaded all the equipment, e.g., paddles, PFD's, blankets, ropes, dolly, etc., into either the Escapade or the car. Afterwards I spent time carefully lubricating and greasing everything mechanical on the boat. Unfortunately, I couldn't remove the propeller from the prop shaft to straighten the shaft. They were frozen quite solidly together. The good news is that I would no longer need to worry about the set screw loosening and the propeller falling into the drink! Also, unlike previous races, I made the decision to try racing without a canoe paddle strapped to the side of the boat. If I was careful it would not be needed. Not carrying it would make my boat a little lighter and, hopefully, faster.
Saturday started cool with the temperatures in the mid 40's and mostly clear. My oldest son, who was going to spend the morning at a cross country running event, assisted me in loading the Cadence onto the roof of my 1995 Dodge Neon. I then wheeled the Escapade trailer out of the garage and hitched it up. Oh, no - the left tail light was flaking out again!
After a bit of futzing around with the wires it began working again. Maybe this time it will continue to work!
My wife and kids were up and finishing breakfast when I came back inside. They were finally all ready to go only 15 minutes later than planned, which is quite an accomplishment, everything considered.
The trip to the Cedar River Trail and Boathouse, located between the Renton Boeing plant and the Renton municipal airport, was quick and uneventful. Many people had already arrived for the race and had parked their cars in the fairly spacious lots in the park. I parked the car on the boat ramp and prepared to launch the Escapade.
The boat launch was located near the mouth of the Cedar River where it entered the southern end of Lake Washington. In some respects this was one of my favorite boat launches as the ramp was so steep the Escapade could actually float on and off the trailer. In other respects it was a pain because there was no dock, and with the sand bar at the mouth it could be a little tricky to find an adequately deep channel.
After putting my wife aboard the Escapade it was quickly launched. I told her to follow the channel, go into Lake Washington past the logs present at the mouth of the river, make a wide turn to the right and tie up at the dock at the first building on the side of the river. She had her cell phone with her just in case she needed to communicate.
After finding a place to park I took the kids with me to the registration tent. It was set up on the pier next to the boat house, and other racers were milling about. There was a cold moderately strong wind coming down the length of the lake, and the water was pretty choppy. Still, I registered myself and with the exception of the signature on the waiver completed the entry form for my wife and paid the entry fees.
My phone rang.
"I'm stuck! What do I do?", Kate asked. I told her to take the canoe paddle and use it to push back from whatever was preventing the boat from moving. She did, and was able to return to somewhat deeper water.
Trying another route through the maze of debris she got stuck again, and again and again. Finally, someone came to her rescue and waded out to the boat to try and free her. Kate removed her shoes, jumped out of the boat and the two of them were able to pull it over the shallow section to deeper water. There she reboarded and began pedaling straight to the dock.
"Go around the logs!" I yelled to her, remembering the area in which she was heading as being either too shallow or filled with debris. She headed back out.
The race was about to begin, so leaving the kids on the fenced in pier waiting for their mother I headed back to the boat launch where the Cadence had been left. There was quite a backup of vessels waiting to be launched, and in staying behind to direct Kate I was now at the tail end of the queue.
My phone rang. It was Kate. "Ok, I'm at the dock. Where is everyone?"
"What do you mean, where is everyone? There should be lots of people on it. I mean, how could you miss it? It is the first and only dock beside the mouth of the river! It is right beside a smaller metal sided building, near the big Boeing buildings."
Somehow she missed the 150+ foot long pier with attached floating docks, and ended up further down the shore by some rinky dink semi abandoned pier in front of the big Boeing factory building. Sigh.... I told her to head west ("Yes, that's away from the sun along the shore, back the way you came") and she would arrive at the right place. She informed me that she would not be racing.
I was still waiting for my turn to launch when the phone rang again. "I'm stuck in weeds!", she said. "There is nothing I can do right now", I told her. "You will have to wait until I can launch and get over to help". She told me where I could put that boat.
At long last it was my turn to launch. Wearing water shoes and with the help of one of the volunteer race officials the Cadence was placed in the water. Brrr! It was cold!
Still wearing water shoes I pedaled down the river to its mouth.
This place was a mess. The heavy rains earlier that week had caused near flood stage levels in the river. This caused all sorts of logs and debris to clutter the already relatively difficult to cross shallows at the mouth of the river. Even people with very shallow draft row boats were having troubles finding their way through.
Finally, after almost certainly driving through some of the sandy bottom with my prop I ended up in deeper waters beyond the outermost logs. The other boats were getting lined up waiting to start. I headed to where Kate was with the Escapade in order to help her dock and swap my car keys for the tube of sunscreen she had.
Rounding the end of the pier, where the race officials asked what I was doing, I saw the Escapade near the shore, blown there by the wind. Just then my boat ran into a bed of milfoil and came to a complete stop.
After a bit of forward and backward pedaling the weed cutter did its job. However, since the weed bed was still between me and my goal, I had to repeat this maneuver several times before finally reaching Kate. Aargh! Now I could really use that canoe paddle!
As quickly as we could I got the Cadence to the dock. Kate had already managed to remove the weeds from the Escapade using a sort of home made gaff I kept on board for that purpose, and actually was ready to tie up to the dock. "Is this the dock, my love?", she asked (or something to that effect). "Yes, sweetheart", I responded (or something to that effect).
The race director started the race. Kate and I swapped keys and sunscreen, and I put on my socks and bike shoes.
I turned the Cadence around, and headed under the pier towards open water. The prop seemed to still be a bit fouled, so after stopping at the floating dock on the upwind side of the pier I pulled the stern of the boat from the water. Sure enough, some milfoil had wrapped itself around the prop skeg, as well as the prop shaft along with some sort of plastic glove. Off they went!
The race director said he would mark down my starting time the moment I crossed the line. So, about 6 minutes after everyone else disappeared, I headed onto the course.
For whatever reason I found it hard to get into a competitive mood. There just were no boats nearby.
As I was pedaling I made use of the time applying sunscreen to my face, ears, neck and hands. The GPS was registering about 6.5 mph, and the combination of wind from the starboard quarter and the chop made it a bit of a challenge to keep my balance. Hmm, could that be an overturned boat ahead?
Sure enough a youth in one of those kneel style canoes (C-1's?) was being attended to by the safety boat. Boy, those canoes are certainly not stable! He was back aboard his boat before I could get a photo of him in the water. Yippee! I was no longer in last place!
Shortly after leaving the canoe in my wake I encountered a pair of young women in a kayak. They were much too early to have completed the short course, so I guess they decided the conditions were too much for their comfort level. This race was getting more interesting!
I was starting to get warm. I was wearing a wicking long sleeved t-shirt under a nylon long sleeved shirt. Over this was my Kokatat PFD. In addition to spandex bike shorts I had woolen leg warmers covering my legs. On my head was a Kavu baseball-style cap, being that it was far too windy and cold for my regular hat. Off went the hat, and the leg warmers were shoved down to my ankles. This was much better!
The fast C-1's and even regular kayaks seemed to be having troubles in this race. The people in C-1's were constantly bracing themselves, which dropped their speed tremendously. The kayakers were doing a bit of bracing, too, but having less exposure to the wind and a lower center of gravity enabled them to handle the situation more easily.
The Cadence was working very well. There were a couple of times where I had to exert more than the normal amount of body english to stay upright, but generally had no trouble. The waves were keeping out of the cockpit, and the side wind blew most of the spray away. This was fun!
Just past the southernmost part of Mercer Island the first boat returning from the short course could be seen. He was in a rowing shell and seemed to be handling the chop fairly well. Other boats soon came after, including the crowd in whose I normally seem to finish.
The water seemed to be getting calmer near the Atlantic City boat launch. This made sense as there was less fetch to create waves. Motor vessel traffic increased a bit, and several small yachts cruised fairly close to some of the racers as they made their turn around the buoy.
I called my wife to double check whether she would be happy with me going on the long course as originally planned. "No" was the reply. Somehow I already knew this, because I had already made my turn around the short course buoy to head back.
It seemed to be quite a bit easier heading more or less with the wind. My speed was still in the 6.5+ mph range, and my legs were feeling strong. I was getting quite a bit warmer now, and had to drag my hands from time to time in the water to cool down. Also, with the sun on my face I had to put on the cap. Boy - now I could really use my regular hat!
A while after passing an OC-2 I came upon a youth paddling a C-1. For whatever reason, I kept my camera snapping pictures of him as I passed. Sure enough, he fell into the drink. After marking down the time on my watch I turned back to assist.
When I came alongside he seemed to be slightly incoherent, and was having troubles figuring out how to get back in his boat. As I held his boat I suggested he try going between my boat and his, hoisting himself up into the cockpit. He said something about being told by his instructor to hang onto the end of his boat. How this would enable him to reenter his craft was not very obvious, unless he somehow slid himself along the hull.
The safety boat was nowhere to be seen. The OC-2 came by, asked if we needed help as they rushed past and continued on with the race.
As I tried to come up with things that the guy would be willing to try, other than just hanging onto the end of the boat, we saw a police patrol more or less coming towards us. I waved to it, but they seemed to continue on for a few moments before they suddenly turned towards us. They pulled up just as their earlier high powered wake hit. Luckily it did no harm!
I towed the C-1 and the youth towards the police boat's tail platform. The youth climbed onto the platform while I held the C-1. He said that he wanted to continue in the race, and that all he needed to do was to get back in his boat. After leaving the C-1 in the care of one of the officers I continued on. Total elapsed time: 5 minutes.
It was time to put this race into high gear. The Boeing plant buildings loomed in the distance, and off to the side Mt. Rainier could be seen. Somewhere between the two was the finish line.
The distance between my and the OC-2 was shrinking, but even at the increased speed I could see that they would cross well before me. Boy, was I getting hot!
As the pre-race meeting was being held while I was trying to help Kate get her boat through the Cedar River delta, I did not know precisely where the finish line was. I guessed that it had to be somewhere between the end of the pier and the buoys out in the water, and laid in a course between some of the logs and a rusting hulk. Eventually the blast of a horn could be heard, signifying my race was over. Total time: approximately 55 minutes. Total distance: 5.23 miles.
Following the lead of some other boats I returned towards the boat launch. Almost too late I saw my way blocked by a partially submerged rope securing one of the logs to an anchor. Whew! That could have been a problem!
After finding a clear channel, without ropes or other entanglements, I made my way up the river. There were quite a few boats waiting in line to land. Calling my wife on the phone I found that they were at the nearby playground, but that they would be happy to come and help retrieve me.
After pulling the boat from the water we walked back to the car. I changed into dry clothes while the rest of the family walked over to the boat house for lunch. It felt good to get out of those sweaty things!
Lunch was delicious. The teriyaki steak was hot, tender and juicy, and the salads and beans were quite tasty and filling. We found some seats inside the boat house to protect us from the wind while we had our fill. Yumm!
After we were finished eating the first of the long course racers arrived. A women's double rowing shell came in first, followed by a couple of singles. The last racer, in a fast sea kayak, came in about 2 hours 19 minutes after the start.
At long last the award ceremony was held. Some very nice multiribbon awards were handed out for the first place finishers in each class for each race. There was some initial confusion with respect to my finishing time (54:46, including 5 minutes for the assist), but that eventually got cleared up. In fact, if you subtract the 5 minutes from my time, I would have finished in 4th place overall - and only a few seconds away from 3rd place!
Of course, all the faster racers were either absent or went on the long course, but it still does things for one's ego.
After the awards ceremony we returned to the car. I backed it and the trailer down the ramp, and left the trailer in the river to load the Escapade. Returning to the Escapade I headed under the pier using the same route that I took with the Cadence before the race. There was less than an inch to spare between the windshield arch and the bottom of the pier and the waves bouncing the boat up and down.
Since Kate had tried all the routes through the delta closest to the boat house I decided to try the ones further away. Sure enough, the furthest one appeared passable.
Pedaling rapidly for a few seconds to build up speed, I then stood up in the boat to get a better view into the water. The boat would coast a short way, and the rudder handles were just in reach to perform maneuvers. This worked well, and I managed to avoid several completely submerged logs.
It was not very long before the boat was back up the river and heading to the waiting trailer.
Thank you, Dan Henderson, and all the other volunteers for the race. Even with the initial problems it turned out to be a good day after all.
P.S. My wife noted that her heart rate monitor indicated that she spent over 20 minutes in her aerobic zone getting the Escapade from the boat launch to the dock.
Race distance traveled: 5.25 miles. Total distance traveled: about 6 miles.
For the full set of photos, take a look here.