XPD Australia
All at Sea for the Start
Media Release / 19.05.2010
XPD racers boarded the buses out of Cairns at 0630 this morning for a two hour trip south to Mission Beach. Having discovered the main boat booked to transport everyone to Dunk Island had broken down, the event organisers had to recruit other services to help tackle the job as efficiently as possible. By 1130 and several lattes later (for those teams on the first boat) everyone had assembled for the absolutely final briefing, group photo on the beach and minute of quiet contemplative silence. Just before midday the starting gun fired – XPD Cairns 2010 is officially ‘on’!Teams left their one single inflatable kayak, aka ‘raft’, on the beach while they took off ‘trekking’ at a rather cracking pace down the beach to scale the heights and circumnavigate Dunk Island. Within an hour Orion Adventure (40) and Merrell/Alkali (42) were the first back to get their boats and paddle over to Kumboola Island for the snorkelling component of this leg. The head wind and choppy conditions created a challenge for all and although the snorkelling visibility remained good (~ 10m) the buoys proved tricky for many teams to locate between the peaks and troughs.
The strong start established by Merrell/Alkali (42) took a hit when the team damaged their boat on an oyster covered jetty pylon as they left Dunk Island for the passage crossing to Mission Beach (CP2). This damage required repair which gave Orion Adventure (40) comfortable space to lead ahead and transition to Leg 2 at their leisure.
Though the boat reshuffle to Dunk Island before the start had delayed the anticipated kickoff time, the organisers’ concerns that teams could be paddling all night in the choppy conditions didn’t happen. By 6pm half the field had passed through transition at CP2 and the two rear teams were departing Dunk Island. It seems that the tailwind across the passage worked to help quell the challenging swell and assist the heavy water and passenger laden ‘rafts’ ashore.
The inflatable kayaks, when loaded with 4 paddlers on open water, became more commonly known as ‘yellow submarines’ on this leg … and vomiting featured as a familiar experience (repeatedly!) for quite a few teams during the crossing.
All the teams emerged from Leg 1 in pretty good spirits. For City Bike Depot (27), team bonding proved to be an inevitable outcome when 4 people paddle a Sevylor. Team ‘It’s All Good’ (more appropriately ‘It’s All Wet’ on this leg) said that they resorted to bad singing to get them through and several other teams sighted turtles and rays which also helped to elevate the mood at testing times.
Leaving Mission Beach, the teams will cycle 100km during the evening and night up the Tully Gorge, via El Arish and Tully, and then get to decide how they will make best use of their dark zone time … most probably sleeping!
Day 2 (Leg 3) will start at 06.30 with teams trekking 9km from the dark zone area to the put in for rafting – the 10km of Tully River rafting (teams staggered 5 minutes apart - first in Wednesday, first out Thursday) will be one of the most thrilling and downright fun sections of the race. They will need make sure they exit the river quickly - no lingering for the resident croc at the edge!
After ‘easing’ into the race on Day 1 and following the fun of Tully River rafting, this is where the true competition and serious racing will really begin. The experienced and strong teams are already displaying their power and ease – so stay tuned for some major excitement to come in this XPD event.See All Event Posts
