Two Harbors Kayak Festival. Hmmm. That would conjure up images of sun and colorful kayaks and warm weather and playing with boats on the water, yes? Well, turns out that one can play on the water in fog and mist, and have a great time.
I headed up to Two Harbors planning to race in the kayak marathon (18 miles) on Saturday, then paddle with some folks on Sunday.
Got up there Friday night only to discover that the race had been postponed until Sunday due to bad weather. To paraphrase Thomi Keller, though, kayaking is an outdoor sport. You get what you get as far as weather goes and make the best of it.
The festival had a number of classes running on Saturday, but most were fairly introductory. And I had been fighting a lurking sore throat and cold since Friday, so I decided not to take the rolling class, which otherwise would have been fun to do. Instead I went up to Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse. I don't remember seeing either of them before, though it's likely that my parents took my brothers and me there when we were kids, and the family trip may have simply become part of the conglomerate of early memories of joyful adventures, perhaps no more exceptional at the time than finding worms on the sidewalk after the rain or going sliding on the neighborhood hill.
In any event, this time around the view from the lighthouse was limited in the fog, but you got a real sense of how important the lighthouses were in the days before radar and GPS. The only whining I heard all day was from an adult, complaining that it was too foggy to take pictures.
Saturday night was a dinner under a big tent, followed by a large number of silent auction and door prize drawings. I won a shirt and a forward stroke DVD; both good things (as opposed to the plastic battery powered mug with blinking lights, which I fortunately did not win). After dinner I was very chilled and took a walk through town trying to get warmed up, as well as looking for a breakfast place that opened by 6:00 AM (found it) and generally exploring. Got down to the harbor and saw the massive infrastructure for loading cargo vessels. (Sometime I'll have to come back and take a closer look so that I know what I'm seeing and can describe it.) Back at the campground, talked with old and new friends by the beach and by the campfire until the rain started and it was time to call it a night.
Got up bright and early Sunday morning and had breakfast at Judy's Cafe, which had a definite local ambiance. There was a table of retired gentlemen who appeared to be regulars, who had all hung their caps on pegs on the wall by the door before sitting down. An older fellow sat at the counter and rambled on at the waitress, who answered politely but distractedly. The pancakes and eggs were tasty, and proved to be good pre-race food.
The pre-race meeting was at 8:15, where we learned they had changed the course, apparently due to the fog that limited visibility to a hundred feet or so. For the past several years, the marathon race course has been 9 miles up the shore, turning around Encampment Island, and returning to the start on Burlington Bay. The new plan was to go up about 4 and a half miles and return, then do that again. They only had the turnaround marks in (one for the 5 mile race and one for the marathon), so the race directions were simply to round the marks and stay within 150 feet of the shore.
There were 15 - 20 sea kayakers in the marathon, four of whom were women. Several competitors had had to cancel when the race was moved to Sunday instead of Saturday.
I started at the back of the pack, since this was my first race and I wasn't sure what to expect. And I figured that an 18 mile race was not going to be won or lost in the first mile.
I had reeled in 3 racers by the halfway point (there and back again). After one more there and back again, I finished with a time of about 3 hours and 55 minutes. Unfortunately, nobody knows exactly how long the race was. The race director guessed it was between 16 and 18 miles. If it was 16 miles, I would be very pleased with my time and a race pace of 4 mph. If the course was 18 miles (which is what I measured on Gmaps Pedometer, assuming that's an accurate tool and that I correctly guessed where the finish was), or 18.9 miles (which someone measured with a GPS unit, which are not always reliable), then I would be delighted to have paddled the race at a 4.5 mph pace. I'm not planning on a kayak racing career, but the ability to hold a good pace can make a big difference when fighting headwinds and tides, and opens up opportunities to do longer paddles.
But regardless of pace, it was a fun day. The early morning fog was magical to paddle in. When the fog was densest, I could see the reflective tape of the paddles ahead of me flashing through the mist as brilliant points of light. The safety kayakers holding station just off the course were barely visible in the beginning of the race. They looked like ghostly sentries, and I kept thinking that it would be nice if one of them had been playing a bagpipe. Not sure whether stirring/rousing or eerie/soulful would have fit the day better.
The fog slowly burned off within the first hour after the start. The wind was nominally 5 to 15 knots. It shifted around from a variety of directions and speeds. The waves varied too, from swells to calm to about a foot, and were from assorted directions. The swells were interesting, as a few times they suddenly shifted me shore-ward 10 or 20 feet. This was the first time I'd run into waves doing anything other then lifting me up and down. But it was all manageable and good practice in bigger water than we get on inland lakes. I was definitely tired at the end of the race, and if the course was in fact only 16 miles, I would not have been eager to race another 2 miles.
When I landed, a friendly young volunteer came and held my boat as I got out . Normally I would have thought "Hah! I don't need anyone holding my boat as I get out!", but I have to say that I was pleased to have some stabilization assistance as I coaxed my legs back into being load carrying mechanisms capable of forward motion. The volunteer was collecting our bibs in exchange for a lovely, custom made ceramic participation medal. Not sure if there's a difference in the carbon footprint between these and a regular metal medal, but they are truly unique and hopefully made by a local artisan.
After the race I was tying my boat on my car and a gentleman from another country came up to help, telling me that I was doing a man's job. What do you say to a thing like that? In his world, yes. In my world, it was absurd. I took it as an honest, generous offer as he helped throw ropes back from the far side of the car, and thanked him for his assistance.
Thanks to Dave for the picture of the start.
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