Alex: Click to see larger view. Photo Credit: Jasmine Shahbandi

Rounding Point Diablo, and into the larger bay, things got a little hairy. The refraction was serious, and the seas were coming in sideways. I was still getting used to the V10L I was borrowing, it’s a bit different than my 45 lb Mil, and I was really getting pushed around. Pulling was sluggish. I kept seeing sea lions, which are bigger and toothier than seals. I figured there wouldn’t be sea lions around if sharks were in the area. Or so I kept telling myself.

Point Bonita was dead ahead. I could see the lead pack well ahead of me, and they had cut inside to catch the eddy. But there were a few a bit back from the lead bunch on the left that found that ‘eddy within an eddy’, and seemed not to be losing ground. Most of the lead pack and a few hardy souls had cut through the rocks off the point. I wasn’t quite that brave. The jetskis were zipping back and forth earlier, but seemed to have disappeared behind me. I later learned that that all support boats were focused on the numerous swimmers at the rear.
The potato patch outside of point Bonita wasn’t too bad. I was advised to cut right and go wide in order to avoid the potato patch altogether -which I think I did. Once I turned the buoy I went wide and headed out and for the center of the bridge, following more good advice. I had a fantastic run from the buoy to just under the bridge – I was surfing some long-period swells, and passed at least half a dozen people north of me off to the left, not as far out into the current as I was. I finally passed former local paddler Mike McNulty at this point, who snuck through the mayhem at the start more nimbly than me. Things were looking good until things started to steepen up under the bridge. At one point I was suddenly jerked right and threw in a really, really, deep low brace – I was nearly up to my elbow, I was flooding the cockpit, and, more importantly, I was holding my heart in my throat. I was thinking of sharks, but reminded myself that the big ones only hung around outside the bridge.

McNulty: Click to see larger view. Photo Credit: Jasmine Shahbandi

I was approaching the rip into the bay, which was heading to the left of Angel Island, my waypoint. The wind and swell were heading directly into the bay, straight ahead, if perhaps to the right. It was a really, really weird, unfamiliar feeling. Rob Mosley talks about running through this section a few days before the race on surfski.info, and describes the experience well. I actually stopped, trying to figure out what to do – head right, into the channel; try and surf the countering slop; or head left. This continued to Angel Island. Mike McNulty passed me at this point. I was able to surf a little – the chop at this point was about 3-4 feet, and looked like so much fun. But I started finding that my ability to surf, for lack of a better term, sucked. I’d get picked up, start surfing, get pulled left or right, pin the rudder…and then lose control altogether. The pegged rudder would cavitate and simply drag until I slowed down enough, and then it would catch, flip the boat set, and make me brace hard on the opposite side. This continued for the next few miles. All these hard braces were shaking my confidence. Things steepened up all the way to Angel Island, the turn buoy, and afterwards. Everyone I spoke to afterwards said the best surfing was for the last six miles or so, and I believe them. People were probably averaging well over 8 mph on this last leg. The conditions were excellent for surfing, and they kept getting better – the problem was, I was actually trying not to surf as I kept getting broached. I was getting very frustrated.

I was using a stock rudder on the V10. A bigger surfing rudder would have made up for my lack of surfing ability. Glickman indicated he had the same problem, and also had a stock V10 rudder. Don Kiesling used a stock rudder on his V10 super elite, and was fine - but he’s got tons of experience surfing, having competed in this race four times, and has as many Molokai crossings under his belt. Some of the top guys (Gardner, Chulupski) have confessed that they don’t even touch the pedals while surfing. The trick, it turns out, is to float on a wave– let the boat move around, and control direction with hard strokes on either side, and not use the rudder much. But that takes a lot of experience, which can be made up for with a thick or long surfing rudder. However, I had neither.

After playing this not-surfing game for about a mile after Angel Island, during which time I was passed by a half-a dozen people as if I was standing still, I went for that inevitable, christening swim. I was exactly 4 miles from the finish. Not a welcome baptism - I was tired, cramping up, and, of course, thinking of sharks. I had never swam in such conditions, and remounting wasmore difficult than I remembered. It turns out that in high winds, boats not only blow away, but flip in the waves. If you’re lucky enough to be leashed to one, you end up wrapped like a Christmas present. My head got caught between the boat and the leash, my head was pinned to the boat temporarily, and I wasn’t happy. A few more paddlers had caught up to me and passed me at this point. Craig Tanner and John Dye graciously stopped to offer words of encouragement as I was trying my remount, the first of which failed. The second landing stuck, but by this point, game over. I was now thinking only of trying to say in the boat, and limped along until the end. More boats surfed by, probably totaling about a dozen or so since the bridge. Normally 4 miles flies by, and this was supposed to be the easiest, most exhilarating run of the day, but for me it seemed an eternity. I limped along, finishing 67th out of 94 finishers with a time over 2:34. The winning time was about 1:50.

For those last four miles from when I flipped until I crossed the line, nearly 39 minutes had elapsed according to my gps. My remount wrapped my gps upside down, so it lost satellites until I flipped it over after crossing the finish. I figured I lost about 5 minutes or so with the swim, and probably 10 minutes or so because I was having problems surfing – Mike McNulty finished well over 10 minutes ahead of me, at 47th. If all had gone well, I might have stayed ahead of him, right in the middle of the pack where I had hoped. All in all, a fantastic ‘first’ surfski race. A few more years and I might even be ready for Molokai. But I’ll need to gain experience beyond the sheltered waters of New England if I ever hope to respectably finish it.