Florida Coast to Coast 2005
Braving the Devil\'s Breath in Florida
Team Hairy Scary Evolutions/Tally Ho / 07.06.2005
Team Hairy Scary Evolutions/Tally Ho placed 1st at Florida Coast to Coast Adventure Race over Memorial Day Weekend after 62 hours of non-stop heat. Team members include: Jon Barker (Team Captain), Paul Cox, Patricia Williams Smith and Ardie Olson. Diane Barker and Sherry Olson were the support (pit) crew for the race.Adventurous Concepts did a stellar job putting on the race. Our thanks to all of the wonderful volunteers and race staff.
Here is a blow by blow:
Leg 1/Paddle: Where is Midnight Pass? Starting in the Gulf of Mexico at Lido Key, the team launched their boats from the beach and got out in front quickly. The plan was to paddle the Gulf to Midnight Pass (which was clearly shown on at least 4 maps) and then paddle the intracoastal waterway to Oscar Scherer State Rec. Area (TA1).
After searching for a while, we found out from a local fisherman that Midnight Pass had been filled in after the 2004 Hurricanes. Now, it was an overland portage to get to the intracoastal waterway. Our Dennis Nigel Triton kayaks were light and easy to carry for this portage. When we got to the intracoastal waterway we could see the lead kayaks and started gaining on them immediately. We came in 6th off the water. The Missing Midnight Pass had cost us some time.
Leg 2/Bike: Wow, we did that fast.
After a short ride on sugar sand, we jumped onto an abandoned railroad tracks making quick work of this 10 +/- mile pedal. We arrived at TA2 just 2 minutes after Team E-Caps had left and were now in 2nd place. A quick transition and we were off on foot.
Leg 3/Run: Dueling with Team E-Caps for Position.
Our next section was a run through Myakka River State Park. We sprinted the first 3 miles of this section picking up CPs along the way until we got insight of the lead team. Coming out of OP2, we made eye contact with Team E-Caps.
Working our way through a maze of roads for CP2, we lost sight of them for a while until we met head on within 1/8 of a mile of CP2, then it was an all out sprint to the next TA3. Along this section, the team came across a wild boar.
Leg 4/Bike: Where’s the Exit?
Leaving the park was confusing as there were several prohibited roads and we could only ride on public roads and we had to make it to a specific waypoint to exit the Park Boundary. Additional maps were provided, but were just extra weight in our map case.
We traded positions with Team E-Caps a couple of times before making it to the hard road. The team came across a wild boar in one of the dirt roads. Patricia had to yell at it to get it out of the way. Twice we had to cross under I-75 to make our way to the Peace River put-in TA4. Riding along Kings Highway was more dangerous than any of the animals we encountered along the course. The heat is starting to get to us and keeping food down was a problem.See All Event Posts
