Each time I told land-based friends or family members that I was heading out to the US Surfski Championships, I allowed myself several seconds to enjoy the grudging admiration they expressed at finding that I was competing at the national level (while ignoring the raised eyebrows of obvious surprise). I then felt guiltily compelled, however, to point out that the qualifying criteria were limited to ponying up a registration fee and making your way to San Francisco. I took no offense at the inevitable replies of “No wonder!” and “Now it makes sense…”, but was a little hurt that my dad was doubtful that I could even get to California on my own.
I’d be participating in two races in the Bay Area, both organized by WaveChasers – a local paddling group. On Wednesday evening there’d be a warm-up competition in the waters south of San Francisco. Then on Saturday morning the championship race would have us starting in the Pacific, going under the Golden Gate Bridge, and crossing the Bay to end at in Berkeley. Mary Beth wouldn’t be racing, but she’d accompany me on my mission as a one-person support team. A Robin to my Batman, you might say. Assuming that Robin’s duties consisted primarily of apologizing for Batman’s social blunders, assuring him that the Joker was laughing with him, and occasionally cutting his steak.
Better get a beverage and some Twinkies. This is a long one. You’re going to wonder if it’s supposed to be a real-time account.
Our trip out West didn’t start auspiciously. Discovering that paddles could not be taken as carry-on luggage, I had obsessed for weeks over how best to safely transport them, eventually settling on checking them within a hard-sided gun case. Not wanting to attract the wrong kind of attention, I had plastered the case with stickers that said “Paddle Inside” and “Kayak Equipment”. This had roughly the same impact as dressing a rabid pit bull in one of those plaid poodle vests. Responses at the airport ran the gamut from people casting nervous glances over their shoulders to diving for cover. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have worn my novelty bandolier.
After assuring most of the United employees in Boston that I was not, in fact, checking a firearm, I checked my paddle, caught up with Mary Beth (who took a heck of a long time tying her shoe out at the curb, now that I think of it), and proceeded to airport security. Upon advice of counsel, I won’t go into the details of a subsequent incident involving an allegedly oversize carry-on bag. Oh – not legal counsel. Mary Beth’s counsel. She feels that I’m likely to embarrass myself enough elsewhere in this report without revealing how exactly I managed to get blood on half the clothes in my bag.
Borys and Beata prepping their skis
Arriving in San Francisco on Wednesday morning, we made our way to the start of that day’s race – just south of the airport near Coyote Point. I met up with Kenny Powell of California Canoe & Kayak, who was providing me with the V10 Sport I’d be using for both races. Nice guy, Kenny, but something of an enabler for wide-eyed out-of-towners in over their heads. The rest of the Northeast gang filtered in – Tim Dwyer, Jim Hoffman, Borys & Beata (last names withheld to protect their privacy), and Craig Impens. In the opposite of a surprising twist, Jan Lupinski showed up 10 minutes before race time in street clothes and without a boat, and yet somehow ended up beating me by 20 minutes. Although not as packed with superstars as Saturday’s race would be, we’d be paddling against such notables as Oscar Chalupsky, Greg Barton, and Sean & Kenny Rice.
We would be racing on a shortened version of last year’s Championship course – one of the most reliable downwind paddles in the country. After rounding Coyote Point, we’d head south under the highest span of the San Mateo bridge, continue another 4 miles deeper into the bay, then angle right into Redwood Creek (which sounds a lot more appealing than it actually is), finishing at the Bair Island Aquatic Center (affectionately known as BIAC by locals, and as “Oh sweet Jesus, the end” by me). While the Championship race would include the glamor of the Golden Gate Bridge and spectacular views of San Francisco, Alcatraz, and the Berkeley hills, Wednesday’s course was decidedly less scenic. Nobody ever asks a passerby to take their photo in front of a slough.
Greg Barton getting some last minute pointers from Tim
I usually use a paddle leash. I wasn’t about to take any chances in California though, so I instead broke out my leg leash and had it surgically attached to my tibia. Then I got nervous, thinking that in the inevitable high-speed capsize, I might inadvertently rely on a non-existent paddle leash while shielding my head from the impact (figured I’d tuck and roll). You can never have too many loose lines, I thought, as I rigged up the second leash.
Shortly after 5, a crowd of 40-some skis hit the water as SFO-bound jets streamed low overhead. Two chase boats maneuvered into position to define the starting line, and we were off. Although we all presumably were headed for the same initial waypoint – the center span of the San Mateo bridge – a spectator couldn’t be blamed for assuming our mission was to fan out and reconnoiter the lower reaches of San Francisco Bay. No two boats seemed to be on the same line, so I followed their lead and claimed a bearing for myself (114 degrees, if my compass was true).
Evidently my line wasn’t as unique as I had thought. I found myself close to Beata a few minutes after the start. I’ve managed to stay in front of her this season in the placid waters back east, but she’s clearly the better rough water paddler. If I could keep her in sight, I’d be doing well. Turns out I couldn’t, and I wasn’t, but I did manage to stay with her for the first couple of miles.
As the locals had promised (or warned, depending on your perspective), once we got out into the main channel approaching the San Mateo Bridge, the conditions intensified. A wind-versus-tide conflict magnified and steepened the waves, such that I found myself in seas twice as large (and, say, eight times as terrifying – it’s an exponential relation) as anything I had ever previously encountered. We’ll occasionally have conditions like this back home, but we’re generally too busy boarding up our windows to get out on the water.
Through a combination of blind luck, the stability of the V10 Sport, and a few well-placed prayers, I managed to string together several spectacular runs (while simultaneously losing ground to the paddlers ahead of me, granted, but they still felt spectacular). Lacking the sense or skill to cut diagonally down the waves, I seemed in constant danger of burying my bow. While crawling out on the back deck to avoid this, I had visions of being pitch-poled high over the next wave, my boat pausing momentarily behind me until the leash bungees pulled taut and hurled a carbon-kevlar javelin in my direction.
That Wile E. Coyote scenario didn’t quite come to pass, but as I pushed too hard to hop on a particularly vengeful wave, I flipped in a convincing fashion. I was safely tethered to the boat (and paddle!), wearing a PFD, dressed appropriately for the water temperature, and have never lost a single crew member in dozens of prior boating mishaps. In short, I was in no actual danger. Despite all of this, a casual observer to the scene would have assumed that an epileptic non-swimmer had been tipped into arctic seas wearing only a speedo. Overwhelmed by senseless panic, I swallowed a good mouthful of seawater (calms the nerves) and scrambled crazily to get out of the water. Not only did I forget everything I ever learned about getting back on a ski, my initial wild-eyed attempt at remounting demonstrated a twitchy lack of coordination more typically associated with marionettes than 38 year old athletes (or 47 year old wannabes, for that matter). At one point I believe I had both feet in the bucket and one arm passed through the foot strap (try that, Howdy Doody).
If executed correctly, a panicked frenzy is self-limiting – you’ll quickly find yourself too exhausted to keep up the manic outbursts. Calming myself in this fashion, my third remount attempt was successful. As I sat astride my ski, catching my breath and getting my bearings, a fellow racer cruising by asked if I was OK. I shouted out a resolute “I think so?” and watched him speed downwind. It was at about this point that I realized that I was essentially lashed to the boat. My leg leash was wrapped around the hull, my paddle leash was wrapped around the leg leash, and both were coiled around various appendages. Those marionette cracks were coming back to haunt me. I had chewed halfway through my leg before, to my chagrin, I realized I could just undo one end of the leash to untangle the cords. I slipped my surly bonds and was free.
My GPS indicates that from the time I went over until I started paddling again was only about two minutes, but that malicious little flapwrapper lies all the time about my speed, so I’m not sure why I should believe it in this instance. Despite being a little shaken by my quarter hour adventure, I screwed up what little courage I had left and threw myself back downwind. I passed under the San Mateo Bridge without incident, and my race went reasonably well for the next couple of miles.
Several other paddlers later corroborated a phenomenon that I thought I might have been imagining. The alignment of the wind, course direction, and sun meant that you would be alerted to a particularly large wave approaching not by your stern lifting suddenly, but by an ominous shadow that stole over you as the wave blotted out the low-lying sun. More than once I took advantage of this advance warning system to power up in preparation for the wave itself. I was catching a reasonable number of runs – at least enough to help minimize the amount of time I was losing to the rest of the field.
With 3 miles of downwind left, however, I started to lose the rhythm. Or perhaps I had grown so fatigued from chasing down uncatchable waves that every wave now fell in that category. There was a lot of wallowing, supplemented by a healthy dose of swamping and peppered with salty language. I went over once more, and spent so much time sloshing around in a bucket full of water that I had to periodically stop to scrape the barnacles off my thighs. Talk about chafing…
Craig didn’t need a single stroke to complete the downwind course
Although most of the racers were dressed in fluorescent hues of eye-searing brightness, and thus were visible for quite some distance, these guiding lights had gradually been blinking out ahead of me over the course of the race. Increasingly enveloped in metaphorical darkness (with literal darkness not that far behind, if my understanding of celestial mechanics wasn’t off base), it was getting downright lonely in the rushing sea. Ultimately, I was left with a single lodestar – a snake-striped Huki two dozen lengths ahead of me. Fearful of being unable to find the turn into Redwood Creek on my own, I flogged the water mercilessly in an attempt to maintain contact. Although our long-distance relationship was tested over the next couple of miles, we ultimately made it through the trying times.
Before the race, I had heard some jaded locals grumbling about the 3 miles of flat water that marred the finish of their otherwise unblemished downwind course. They failed to note that today we’d have the added indignity of paddling these flats against both the tide and wind. By the time I got to Redwood Creek (a delightful name that I have to assume was given ironically), however, I was so grateful to be free from the uncooperative waves that even the subsequent sub-6 mph slog couldn’t dampen my spirits. I even managed to pass a few boats.
As I approached the finish at BIAC, two mystery boats emerged from the twilight gloom to knock me back to my rightful place in the results (32nd! But also last in my age group!). It was Borys Markin and Greg Barton – an unlikely pair to join me in finishing nearly 45 minutes after the winner (Australia’s Greg Tobin). Greg and Borys had gotten lost in the tangled estuaries, and would perhaps still be haunting the sloughs now but for a few strategic portages through sucking mud. With any luck, the fog of time will erase this truth – leaving my 1.8 second loss to a double gold medalist unsullied by nuance.
Nosed out yet again by Greg Barton…
Fortunately, the rest of the East Coast gang picked up my slack. Jan finished an impressive 14th (at 1:57:39), with Craig (15th, 1:57:53) and Jim (17th, 1:58:54) close on his heels. Beata took 1st among the women and 20th overall (2:06:03). Despite stopping midway to touch up his hair and make-up for the photo shoot, Tim smiled his way to 28th place (2:14:48). I was an exhausted 32nd (2:18:49). It wasn’t quite the indoctrination to West Coast paddling that I had hoped for (I figured there’d be more wine and avocados involved), but at least now I had an all-consuming dread of Saturday’s race.
You can view the excellent WaveChaser photos of the event here (including many good shots of Jim, Tim, and me – I’m in the last few of the set, while Jim and Tim are about halfway through).
We’re twenty paragraphs in and it’s still only Wednesday. You have to pace yourself. Take a short break. I’ll wait.
The Northeast gang. Jan, ever the shy one, wouldn’t look up for the photo.
Let’s see if I can squeeze the two off-days into a single paragraph. On Thursday Mary Beth and I drove up to Muir Woods, only to discover that it’s bad policy to place a awe-inspiring national monument a half-hour drive from a major metropolitan area. We settled for scoping out the Muir Beach start, driving up Route 1 along the coast, and grabbing some beer at Russian River Brewing (the US Champion of breweries, with all due respect to Craig Impens and the estimable Stone Brewing) in Santa Rosa. On Friday – demo day at Shorebird Park – I got an early jump on my Christmas list. Can’t wait to see what’s sticking out of my chimney come December. Tim and I shared some quality time with defending champion Sean Rice. Sure, it was in the context of a paid clinic, but I’m pretty sure he would’ve wanted to hang out with us regardless. Sean’s a really nice guy and a skilled instructor. He may also be the youngest person I’ve ever met. The day concluded with a race meeting at which Carter Johnson (a legendary local paddler who apparently lives out of his surfski across the Bay in Sausalito) told us horror stories about the unspeakable fates that await those that try to cut either Point Bonita (death, maiming, etc.) or the Angel Island nun (disqualification, shaming, etc.) in a manner that suggested that he thought the latter had more serious repercussions.
Chumming with the champ
Congratulations. You’ve made it to race day. After catching shuttles to an overcast Muir Beach, we lined up our skis and engaged in our individual pre-race rituals. Lacking any goats to sacrifice (see above comment about over-sized carry-on incident at airport), I offered up 83 cents and half a Snickers to a shabby bearded guy with a trident tattoo sleeping on the beach – presumably a human manifestation of Neptune. I had managed to keep my nerves at bay until this point, but now felt an unbearable pressure in the chest and shooting pains in my left arm. That’s normal, right?
The course was similar to that of 2012. After leaving Muir Beach, we’d paddle south along the coast to Point Bonita – a dramatic be-lighthoused headland that protects the mouth of the Bay. Turning eastward, we’d pass under the Golden Gate Bridge and make our way towards Angel Island. After passing between the island and the green nun, we’d head for the finish at Shorebird Park in Berkeley, picking our way through a gap in the derelict Berkeley Pier on our way. Several miles into the race, a hotspot awaited one of the superskis.
A good part of my anxiety about competing in the Championships had been focused on the surf launch at the start. All anyone had to say to me was “Joe Glickman’s paddle”, and I’d retreat whimpering to the nearest high ground. Fortunately, that phrase doesn’t come up all that often. For weeks before the race I had woken in a salty sweat from nightmares in which I was frantically trying to reassemble a surf-crushed boat. Mary Beth’s prank of sneaking a busted up ski bow into bed with me one night didn’t help matters. So it was with great relief that I saw that the surf at Muir Beach was minimal. I launched without any life-threatening issues.
Muir Beach a couple of hours before the start
The strong field of women paddlers were sent off 5 minutes before the men. Once they were away, I settled into a starting position in the back-most third of the men’s flotilla. Before my mouth even had a chance to fully dry out, the starter set us loose. My start was typically slow, but unlike most races, I wasn’t able to pick off any overly optimistic paddlers during the first mile. I was in the big leagues now. Well, maybe not quite in the league – more like attending fantasy camp with the pros.
The field quickly divided into two hordes – one on an inner line aimed at the hot spot and the other apparently heading for Big Sur. Figuring you only get so many opportunities to be lost at sea, I chose to follow the outer group. At a safe distance, naturally – no reason to risk a pile-up this early in the race. As we progressed south toward the mouth of the Bay, conditions grew increasingly beamy. Nothing too daunting, but sloppy enough to dull my form and keep my speed down to a sluggish (quick glance at GPS, followed by double-take at GPS)… 8.6 mph!?! Even well outside the mouth, we were being sucked inexorably into the Bay by the flooding tide.
Start of the men’s race
For Wednesday’s race I could blame poor performance on my country bumpkin ignorance of big city conditions – I was quite literally in over my head. Now I was in a stable boat in pig slop that was only slightly more distasteful than what I’d often wallowed in back on the farm. There could be only one explanation as to why I was steadily losing ground to so many faster paddlers.
Even as we passed Point Bonita, the inscrutable (and invisible – at least to me) leaders of the outside pack continued their southerly charge across the mouth of the bay. I watched longingly as the insiders rounded the point and started eastward on a direct line to the left stanchion of the Golden Gate Bridge. When I had just about given up hope that I’d ever be flattened by boat traffic in the Bay, I noticed a string of skis in our group finally turning sharply to the left. As I’ve never been hesitant to tell people – I eschew right angles (a mantra that explains both why I failed shop class and why I got punched a lot in shop class). Figuring I’d take advantage of my God-given right as a straggler, I angled diagonally left to cut the corner. Doing some rough trigonometry in my head, I figured I’d soon be in the lead.
As it turns out, the trailblazers of the outside pack weren’t as geometrically challenged as I had suspected. They had circumnavigated (or, more accurately, rect… never mind) a minefield of jagged waves arriving from every conceivable direction (and a few I hadn’t previously even considered). I had not. Struggling to make significant progress beyond what the ever-present tidal boost was providing, and in danger of losing several fillings, I decided that I might perhaps embrace right angles after all. If they were good enough for Pythagoras, Tron, and Pac-Man, who was I to make waves? I adjusted my course accordingly, and soon escaped certain jouncing.
In the smaller races that I’m used to, you generally have a good sense of where you stand at any given time. You keep updating a mental model of your place in the race as it progresses. In the Championships, however, that mental model was elegantly simple. At about the 3rd mile I arrived at a unnerving realization: I’m in last place. The other 90-some paddlers are now ahead of me. I am the single worst paddler in this race. I didn’t take this punch to the ego well at first (there were tearful lamentations), but eventually came to peace with it. Just after settling into my new-found role as a sad-sack loser, I was shocked to see a Fenn trying to slip me to the left. I’m not in last place! I can redeem myself! For the next couple of minutes, I threw everything I had into holding off this challenger, but it was ultimately fruitless – he passed and pulled away. Alright, now I’m in last place. And I progressed again through the painful process of coming to grips with my lowly status. This sequence was to repeat itself probably 25 times during the next dozen miles – the final iteration as I took a swim 200 meters from the finish while desperately trying to stay ahead of yet another threat.
In retrospect, I probably wasn’t in last place any of those times.
Rejoining the outer pack (as a fringe member, of course), I eventually found myself nearly in the middle of Golden Gate Strait, pointing directly at the center of the bridge, still more than 2 miles away. Over the next fifteen minutes, the majestic bridge loomed larger and higher, until finally I passed into the Bay. No matter how many times I paddle under the Golden Gate Bridge, I still get chills. And thanks to the glorious leaders of the Outsiders, I didn’t have to slink by shamefacedly just meters from the northern shore. I understand the Insiders don’t even get lifetime access to the Gater Club VIP lane.
Since I had made the turn into the Bay, I had been catching odd runners. The downwind conditions continued to improve as I passed under the bridge, but these were frequently interrupted by capricious patches which had apparently decided to opt out of the prevailing trends. I found myself
paddling through various fantastical realms: an area the size of a football field with choppy little standing waves, a zone of almost glassy smoothness, an elliptical zone populated by talking seahorses (it’s possible that I hadn’t been hydrating properly). During this fevered time, I could see more adventurous paddlers ahead of me, zigzagging crazily in search of the best downwind conditions – sometimes in a direction literally perpendicular to the direct line. I was content to aim for Angel Island, accepting whatever freaky conditions the Bay deigned to give me.
I had been warned by race officials, area paddlers, and a bizarre anonymous 3am phone call that the Bay would be clogged with boating traffic. Other than flotsam-to-be surfskis, I mean. There would be throngs of cargo ships, pleasure boats, tour boats, and sailboats – all of whom would like nothing better than to continue their disbelief in the phenomena (so-called) of self-powered craft. Although 97% of surfski paddlers insist that they do in fact exist, these kayak denialists would look right through you as they plowed your boat under, perhaps remarking idly that the wind in the rigging can sometimes sound just like human screams. Despite all this, I had but a single close encounter – a handsome sailing vessel of some size, whose captain had striking hazel eyes (a fleck of blue in the left) and who had recently dined on what I believe may have been garlic scampi.
Fearful of missing the Angel Island nun, I had to force myself to constantly correct to the left lest lust for downwind speed lead me too far off course. As if to underscore a lesson on the direct line not necessarily being the fastest, just before I arrived at the nun a ski sliced ahead of me from the right, made a sharp turn around the buoy, and headed home for Shorebird Park.
Jim finishing strong and scenic
We now had 6 miles of unadulterated downwind ahead. The waves were bigger than what I was accustomed to by a fair margin, but not nearly as awe-inspiring as Wednesday’s behemoths. They were manageable. Surely in a stable boat like the Sport I could string together a solid 6 miles of paddling to cap off my trip. Let’s do this!
To be fair to myself, I can’t imagine, say, a baboon in a ski handling this stretch as well as I did. I linked together several reasonable runs. None of my 3 remounts concluded with me trussed to the boat. I was mostly continent. However, I was also passed by a dozen or so paddlers, some of whom appeared to be napping at the time. If there was any doubt before about the soft underbelly of my surfski skills, this downwind evisceration revealed my, uh, Achilles’ heel. Nevertheless, I was having a blast.
It was difficult to see the rotting husk of the derelict Berkeley Pier (a 3.5 mile long boondoggle that saw just 12 years of service before clogging up the Bay for the subsequent 75 years), but I eventually spotted it and surfed through one of the gaps. Once on the other side, the finish was a straight shot just a mile ahead. Just 3 more people overtaking me ahead. Just one spill ahead. Just one gut-busting sprint ahead.
I’m almost home
I finished my first Championships at 2:02:33.7 in 76th place – nearly 30 minutes behind winner Sean Rice (call me, buddy!), who repeated as champion by beating Jasper Mocke by 7 seconds. Despite my downwind troubles, I had averaged 8.2 mph for a 17 mile journey. You can do the math for Sean. The after-race consensus was that the outside line into the Bay was superior, despite adding a half-mile to the course. Those closer to shore had to contend with eddies and a less robust tidal flow.
I again served as sweeper for the East Coast Crew. Without Greg Barton to lead him astray, Borys finished a solid 24th (1:45:26), and was the 7th US paddler in. Beata made the podium by finishing 3rd among women (54th overall, 1:55:59). Jan (53rd, 1:54:58), Jim (54th, 1:55:20), and Beata showed impressive solidarity in finishing within 61 seconds of each other. Rounding out the crew were Craig (60th, 1:57:18) and Tim (66th, 1:59:17). Our Blackburn friends Dorian Wolter and Reid Hyle finished 11th and 20th, respectively, with Dorian being the 2nd US finisher.
The big guns – Sean Rice, Jasper Mocke, Clint Robinson, Dawid Mocke, and Austin Kieffer
After landing my boat and chatting for a while with other competitors, there was no sign of Mary Beth. She had a thankless week (oh hey, thanks, by the way) as my driver, equipment manager, medic, and motivational coach, so I wondered if she had perhaps decided to take off for some much-deserved R&R in Napa. I finally found her at the finish line, searching the seas in vain for one final paddler – she hadn’t seen me finish. To her credit, she did a good job of at least appearing relieved to find me whole.
I had a great time in California. Of the 100 best runs I’ve had in my life, 97 of them came in this trip. I can’t say that I wasn’t disappointed in my performance, but that’s just one facet of the experience. I got to hang out with my paddling buddies, met a lot of great people (including a college friend’s wife’s sister’s husband’s brother – small world), learned a little something about paddling (left-right-left-right – who knew?), and had the opportunity to see San Francisco Bay from a perspective that not many people can boast of. Thanks to all hard-working WaveChaser crew for making such a fantastic event possible.
You can view many more photos of the trip here.
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