---

Better late than never

Jon Brooke / 27.05.2004

As expected, Adria Lada, the Croatian team, were first to reach the dark zone at just after midnight. All the teams had to wait there until 4.30 am before they could proceed so for the leaders this meant around four hours sleep quite early in the race – almost like a normal night, and not much less sleep than this reporter! Some of the last teams were not quite so lucky with Pustolovec Rajd coming in last at around 2.30 pm though they will certainly have been pleased even to get 2 hours sleep. Before the race they said that they were very much beginners at adventure racing and the challenge would be to finish.

Once the race restarted the teams had to trek along a five kilometer peninsular before the first swim section, but the organizers expected it to be hard going. The terrain in these islands is mostly a cracked and fissured limestone, almost like stepping stones, and many of the edges of the rocks are razor sharp. To make matters even worse the vegetation between the rocks is higher than usual due to heavy rains in recent weeks so teams cannot always see where they are stepping and have to feel their way. Despite this the lead teams made it to the swim faster than expected with Snow and Rock from the UK leading the way a few minutes ahead of the others. But of course this does not mean they were leading the race as other teams had banked more time in the dark zone. By tonight the picture will be clearer.

To underline the seriousness of the danger several teams have already sought medical attention for cuts after falling on the rocks. The North Face were one of these and Chris McSweeney now has several stitches in his eyebrow, though he remains in good spirits. Luckily he fell right at the start of the stage while the medics were nearby and Keith Byrne the team captain thought it might only have cost them 10 minutes.

At the first swim teams used a variety of methods to get themselves and their gear across the 800m channel between islands. Most had brought fins with them, even knowing that they would have to carry them on the following trek and many also used floats of one sort or another. The prize for the best novelty floats must go to team Gatorade Finland who used giant blow up Nokia phones. The pictures may well form the basis of Sleepmonsters’ first caption competition – please post your entries on the forum.

As I write at checkpoint 6 eVent Endure have arrived in the lead, seconds ahead of Gatorade Finland. They were followed less than ten minutes later by Adria Lada (perhaps not so slow on the trekking sections?) and Osiguranje Zagreb, another of the favourites. More news later.

Footnote: This piece was written at 9.30 a.m.but because of the nature of the terrain we have not had a mobile signal to post it until now (6.30 p.m) Now we are back on the mainland and there have been lots of developments so more to follow soon.

See All Stories On This Race