THANKYOU!!!!!

Thank you extraordinary Steve, desert runner, Bass Straight crosser, Yukon conquerer, cougar fighter, finder of cabins, super organized, laughter at my jokes, boiler of billies and lighter of fires on windswept gravel banks. 

I could not have asked for a better Yukon solo buddy.

Thankyou Pip for lending me Steve and providing so much organization.

Thank you Lynton for for giving Pip to Steve and the great stability and sound advice you offered the team.

   
 And they waited, and they waited and they waited and they waited and they waited, to make sure they were there when we arrived

Thank you Kobi and Fiona for finding the missing spoon and keeping Christine happy and enthused.

and a special thank-you to the very best land crew Christine , now four time Yukon land-crew and countless Murray Marathons and Hawkesbury Canoe Classics. And the very best keeper of blogs.

and thank you Daen and Carina who kept the Australian side of the blog going.

and thank you Kristal and Amanda who at The Pilates Room kept my body together, and Dean and Yanda for their advice and training, and Lane Cove River Kayakers for their support and the Sunday morning guys at Manly Warringah and all those people who followed the blog who we knew were behind every one of the two million paddle strokes we each had to make to complete this crazy race.

And the mad Scotsman, Peter Coates for his extraudinary forsight in organizing such an event that can only grow and grow and grow.

Tom

Sorting Out Recovery

Sorry for not adding to the blog recently but, back at work trying to catch up and earn some money. What I need is a patron, so I can gallivant round the world and do this sort of stuff. Work does interfere with paddling. Leonardo De Vince had a patron so he could just sit around and draw stuff in a sketch book and invent stuff and dissect dead bodies and pull their bladders out and write backwards. Not that I am comparing myself to De Vince;
Yet.
I read somewhere that De Vince advised on diet for his kings troops in battle. Sort of an early sports medicine guru.

Christine and I have been going through and sorting out the stuff, and putting it all way for next time. I did drag out my own bladders and sterilize.

I even managed to fit in a few paddles including a race down at Manly Warringah Kayak Club on Narrabeen Lake. I ran out of puff after about 5 kilometers, but did finish.
I am about 2 kilos lighter than when I left but was unable to weigh myself over there. I have been making a bit of a pig of myself, on American apple and blueberry pie, and with no training I have probably put on a couple of Kilos since the end of the race.
Also feeling a bit tired in the afternoon. That may be Jet lag or maybe some sports medico guru will say I am depleated in hemogugu's or something like that.

Did I mention before my back was itchy. When we stayed at the 40 mile cabin. That was the one with the meat safe, gun rack and the Auson Wells writing table.

I hung up all my Skins and thermals to dry inside next to the fire. I needed to go outside with Steve's camera to take the photographs you have seen on the blog. I did not think it was worth putting my skins and thermals back on, so I raced around outside, just in my Crocs and budgee smugglers, through the swarms of mosquitoes. I thought if I kept moving I could stay ahead of them. So all was probably well until I thought, while I was out there, I might as well have a pee.
At that point the mozzies did catch up and I have had an itchy back up till yesterday.
Chritine recons it was not mozzie bites but some dreadful rash from wearing sweaty tops all day or from lack of nutrients, bit like scurvy, or how the oranges on the orange tree get spots when you don't give the tree enough fertilizer.
So some sports health guru type will probably have a theory about that also.

On the way home I made the mistake of reading a book by Nick Jans about Timothy Treadwell. He was the guy who lived with bears in Alaska for 13 straight seasons and was finally with his girl friend killed and eaten by one of them. The book pointed out some basic dos and dont's about preventing being eaten by a bear and it would appear, in hind sight, that racing around in the woods in just Crocs and budgee smugglers was not a good idea.

Post Race Stuff

We have flown over night out of Anchorage down to LA. We did a very dosey Parramatta Road style bus tour of LA, which explained were every body important used to live and where everything important used to happen, including where Bay Watch used to be filmed. The surf was not up but you could get a shower holding your board so you at least looked wet.
Also saw where every body used to stand on wet cement and had their names put next to their hand prints. Guys like Russel Crowe in frnt of the Chinese Theartre which did not look very Chinese.
Any how then we drove to Palm Springs. This is a nice place and nice and hot. This is also a place where every body used to holiday and generaly get rehab and the odd bit of plastic surgery before their next shoot. Even Shrep came here for rehab and surgery.
I have now to repack my bags to international flight standards, with some mythical weight limit that no one understands but the lady weighing you in.
I am a lot lighter than when I flew from Australia so I wonder if I get any bonus points for that.
Re packing the bags I go through the gear I did not need to bring.
Steve was much better organised than me but there was not much on the boat I did not use.
What I did take was lots and lots of saline solution as eye wash. In the past I found if I got Yukon water in my eyes soon after the White River entered, the high ash content hurt like hell and I could only get releafe with the eye wash. This time I had a similar problem with stinging eyes, but when I wiped them with a cloth I had in the cockpit to clean my glasses, the cloth was covered in tiny black flies. This was a continual problem. I had to wipe my eyes every couple of hours when paddling. But I never used any of the saline solution.
I had no chafe problems so did not use any of the first aid stuff, but that could have been a different story. I could have done with a better tent, but the half height therma rest was a must as was the minus 15 sleeping bag.
There was a 2 litre bottle of emergency water stuck in the bow that I could not get. I should have tied a bit of string to it. I took about a kilo of lollies for a sugar hit, but only had a few. A fe more pockets to keep stuff in it place in the cockpit may have helped other wise I used every thing.
Need now to drive back to LA and then back to Sydney. We have had no end of trouble getting internet access i Palm Springs. My next blog will be from Sydney.
Tom

Anchorage Airport

I am sitting at Anchorage airport waitIng for our flight to LA,  watching huge cargo air craft, taking off and landing and wondering why we can no longer air freight kayaks into Alaska. Most of these aircraft are Air China or Singapore Airlines, or Korean Air many are unmarked, just big and white. Japan Airlines air freighted my kayak before and I have not seen one of those yet.

Looking down at my fingers typing, the backs of my hands and fingers are peeling having been badly sun burnt. I did not wear gloves in the race, just covered my hands in a thick coating of Vaseline each morning. This kept my hands dry. I got a small blister on my little fingers on the first day. I bit them and let the fluid run out, I adjusted my grip and had no further problems. I was also able to adjust my stroke to more vertical and keep a check on the release so water was not left on the blade and drip down the paddle shaft.

I tried also to keep a nice light grip on the paddle, except of course when we had drama times like emergency paddling around a gravel bank or island.

So apart from a bit of sunburn on the backs of my hands and the two small blisters that literally went away  I had no problems with my hands

Steve had big problems. He was paddling a much heavier boat to start with, and carried a lot more heavier food than I did. His instant tent was great, he was set up a ready for bed, while I was still fluffing around with logs to tie mine down but his tent was a full kilo heavier. That all added up to a much tougher paddle for Steve.

We talked about swapping boats a couple of times, but were worried about the seating change. Steve had a simple blow up pad. I had worked on my seat for months and fashioned the foam for the right angle and shape. I trained in my Horizon Tourer with this seat. It is the same boat essentially as the Flyer so I was able to bring it with me and It is repacked in my bag to take home. Neither of us had any trouble with our seats.

Anyhow Steve’s hands blistered up badly. He wore gloves which held together the bandaging he did each night. The last couple of days he must have been in a lot of pain, but in true Steve spirit he battled on.

DEBRIEF 4 Funny Stuff and Land crew

Sleep deprivation does funny things to your mind.
I was putting in the hard yards, pounding along keeping an eye on Steve off to my right wing. As usual it was raining but the clouds were beginning to lift. There were sort of horizontal bands of cloud. Although I was probably half a kilometer from the shore a plank of wood appeared in front of me low over the water, I had to immediately duck in order not to hit my head, much to Steve's amusement.

We were coming up to a wide bend in the river, the sky was an absolutely featureless grey, in front of me way off in the distance, virtually from horizon to horizon, was a band of pine trees. The bottom of the band of trees was a perfectly straight horizontal line. The top, being the tops of the pine trees, was a bit like a painter had done a very bad job painting the line around a huge white ocean liner. So convinced was I that it was an ocean liner one of the many cruise ships that does the Alaska coast route, that I stopped paddling and desperately started back paddling in order not to run into this ocean going monster working its way up the Yukon.

The first three nights we changed our GPS batteries when we stopped. I could not find where my spare batteries were stowed so we decided to change them on the water when the batteries went dead and hope what we had would last.

So all GPS battery changing was done on the run in the middle of the river, often in quite quick flowing water.

With his sore hands Steve was having trouble opening his day hatch which was just behind him in the deck on the RHS. I got the battery container out for him. He had his new batteries neatly stowed in packs of three with tape around them. He got two out and asked me to hold them while he took the old batteries out of the GPS.
I remember wondering what percentage of the total volume of the Yukon river two triple A batteries would make up and if it would increase the river flow if I dropped them in the water. In order to find out I simply dropped them in the water next to my Kayak and watched them instantly dissapeared into the muddy water. "What the F... you do that for?" was Steve's reaction. I began to explain that I was doing an experiment on increasing the river flow, when I realized it did not make sense, and got his new battery container again out of his day hatch.

We did not find staying awake when we were paddling was a problem, but as soon as we rested our paddles, we often immediately dozed off, which put us in danger of capsizing the kayaks and we woke again shaking and splashing about before either of us actually fell in.

I did eventually find my supply of spare batteries and kept a few spare in a net under the deck between my legs.

In order to change my GPS batteries I needed to undo the battery clip with one of the blades in my Swiss Army knife. My fingernails were simply not strong enough.
I kept the knife zipped in one of the pockets in the front of my PDF. (life vest)
I had the GPS off the deck and on my lap and started to get the knife out of the pocket. With a little difficulty I got the knife out, and then completely forgot what I was getting it out for, so I zipped it back in my PDF and went back to paddling. I soon noticed the GPS was missing off the deck and on my lap. I could not work out how it got there so I hooked it back in its position on the deck. The next time I went to look at what speed we were doing I noticed my GPS was dead, took it off the deck and put it on my lap and started getting out the Swiss Army Knife. I got the knife out opened up the GPS and saw it had batteries in it, closed it again and re set it up on the deck. Off course the GPS was dead, and I started all over again.
Who knows how long it took me to get my mind in the state where I could do a simple task like change the batteries in my GPS. In the mean time Steve had paddled over the horizon, and when I eventually caught him I had difficulty explaining what had kept me.

Tom

Tomorrow thoughts on diet comparisons between Steve and I.

What are the Landcrew doing after their massive journey following the race 3300km???


Lynton is traveling to Purdoe Bay at the end of the Dalton Highway, flying across to Barrow and then to the UK to visit with his newly engaged daughter.

Kobi and Fiona visited Seward with Christine and Tom then took a train to Anchorage, a plane to Vancouver and then to Victoria Island and afterwards maybe a visit with relatives in Canada.

A pile of driftwood near the coal loader at Seward. The big rivers dump thousands and thousands of tons of driftwood into the sea each year.
The Eskimos that live way above the Arctic Circle, and hundreds of miles from any growing trees are expert timber workers, constructing house and whaling boat and of course kayak framing out of timber. They have names for the different species. Most of their wood supply is delivered into the Baring Sea and Arctic ocean by the mighty Yukon River, most of which Steve and I  had to dodge on the way down.

Christine and Tom are spending 3 days in Seward recovering, watching the cruise ships, watching the fish being cleaned visiting the Aquarium and walking to the Exit Glacier.Tomorrow flying out of Anchorage to Los Angeles, a day bus trip around Los Angeles and then 2 days in Palm Springs before flying home.

Debreif 3 Some Scary Stuff

The Yukon is a very mobile river, particularly through the area of the Yukon Flats. Each year, particularly when the ice breaks up the River banks are eroded significantly and the river changes shape.
As we passed through with the river level so low, the river banks were 4 or 5 meters high. Great looking garden top soil. On the outside of the bends where the current was fastest, often the river bank was badly under cut. Curled over on top of us like riding a surf wave tube. Several times as we passed by a whole section of the undercut bank would collapse with a great crash into the water, including the trees standing on top. As the trees wipped over they could reach 20 meters out into the river.
Some trees would immediately twist their way free of the bank and carry on downstream in the current only to later be stranded on a gravel bar. Other trees would still have their roots attached to the bank. These trees would hang on desperately to the bank, majestically out in the flow. We could hear these trees from some distance as the water roared passed the branches. This gave us a bit of warning. Debris, from other fallen trees, eventually got caught up in their branches and the trees, still with roots hanging onto the bank, swung against the bank. There they sat silently until the debris washed off their branches and with a great roar and rush swung back out vertical to the bank.
Survival rule No. 1 Dont be tempted too often into the fast water too near the bank

There were no river maps in the Yukon Flats area, The topographical maps were so out of date, "they may well of been of the Mississippi". As said the race director, so we relied on relatively new Google Earth images.
The river is so full of volcanic ash and silt that you cannot ascertain its depth by its color.
Shallow water we could ascertain by boat speed on the GPS, or stranded debris and tree trunks,  but on several occasions when more than half a kilometer from the bank on either side we hit gravel and mud banks. There was no indication it was shallow, just the same creamy flowing water. Not until we were stuck and stopped did we become fully aware of how fast the river was running. Some times we simply got out and dragged the kayak to deeper water, but often the river bed was too soft to stand on and you feet sink deep into the mud and you were at risk of getting stuck falling over and letting go of your boat. With a half mile wade / swim to the shore.

Before the flats the river gauged its way passed rocky bluffs, where the ice break up showed great scraping around the water line. May be it was the rain we had, or the hotter sun, but a couple of times when we went passed these cliffs, high above, a piece the size of a house broke off and crashed into the water beside us, sending out waves that followed us down the river for some time.

If we were not 100% alert, often we got caught just on the wrong side of an island or gravel bank, this required us to paddle desperately against the current, often bottoming out as we went against the current around the top. On one occasion after a desperate effort, I backed off a bit early and was crashed broadside into very sharp tree stump. Had the boat been holed or had I been tipped in I would have been in all sorts of trouble.

The river is full of bits of trees and logs. The moose we spotted and the cougar looked just like logs in the water. Even male moose with their antlers would look like a log with tree roots. This is their camouflage. There are no predators for moose in the water, no sharks or crocodiles. They are probably most venerable between the edge of the water and the trees on the side, where bear may be waiting In fact moose we understand are very dangerous. If approached in the water they will stand on their hind legs and strike at you with their front. All three plus ton. The moose we did see we consciously paddled away from. How many did we not see. The cougar I had to avoid by doing at least twenty desperate back strokes, or I would have run into it. It made no attempt to change direction to get away from me. It just kept swimming in the same direction while looking at me. That cougar had completed at least a kilometer crossing of the channel onto an island. It could similarly find us sleeping on an island, often much less than that from the mainland.or had we come across moose or the cougar in a more compromising position in the river when we could not stop, or the current would not let us steer around them it may have been a different story.

I would often power ahead and while Steve was catching up stop paddling, eat something, do a pee, change the batteries in the GPS etc. It was amazing if he passed me too soon, how quickly he disappeared and what an effort it was to catch him again.
Similarly Steve, soon after we left Dawson, had to stop to desperately do a No. 2.
At this point the current was running exceptional fast, I noticed he was not behind me and backed off a bit, turning every now and then to see if I could see him. It was raining. I was just about to reach for the 2 way radio (range line of site 3 kilometers)when I saw him. Apparently in his urgency to get out of the boat, he fell out and capsized. All be it on the bank, his boat did fill with water. It would have taken who knows how long to paddle back up stream in that current to find him, had he not recovered by himself.

Tomorrow some funny stuff.
Tom

Debrief 2

When the Australian Double canoe passed us Steve was a different man. Off he went after them and I had a real battle holding on to him. These racing canoes we were up against are 8 meters long, kevlar and weigh less 15 kilos, and very fast. The problem is that because of the huge amount of available space, they are tempted to fill them up with all sorts of unnecessary gear,

Up wind they are a lot of windage, added to the paddlers sitting in a vertical position.
We headed straight into a head wind, that knocked them around and we soon over took them and powered away, with Steve leading the charge.
Getting into Dawson we were able to get a sort of update from our trusty land crew.
We powered on to Eagle, in an attempt to reach there before the 11.15 pm cut out. We also wanted the time to get through customs included in our compullsary 6 hour lay off.
Approaching Eagle again it was bucketing down, freezing rain in our face. Extra incentive was to again find a cabin, or even the B and B the land crew were booked into. The heavy rain had washed out the road into Eagle and we sort of hoped it had been repaired so the crew could meet us.

I again powered ahead, to look for customs, and in the dim light on the shore to my left, there appeared flashing lights. I swung around the ferry pontoons and the customs officer was waiting on the shore just above the mud line. I nudged the shore dug out my passport, swung my legs over the side into the deep mud and promptly fell flat on my face, passport and all.
The Customs Officer said the secret to walking on the mud was to keep taking lots of little steps, "a bit like a duck."
Steve came round the corner and we were able to both press our spot devices just inside the 11.15 time limit.
There was some confusion about the time as the US was one hour behind Canada.
It was still bucketing down and we finished the customs formality and paddled the short distance down past Eagle to the B and B.

The land crew were not there so the road must have been still closed. The river was now very low and we struggled up a steel ladder passed a steel 4 meter high retaining wall.
We did see the customs flash his lights again and wondered if the canoe behind us was in.
The B and B was open, so we helped ourselves to showers, dry beds and attempted to dry some gear.
Rain, rain, rain all night, and it was not a pleasant thought getting back into the kayaks in the morning in the dim light and cold rain.
Survival mode again I thought, We put in a very big day the day before so let us just battle on. Every one is in the same situation, but the rest of them did not sleep in beds.
So off we went again after re-strapping Steves back, into a very miserable morning.
The rain did eventually clear a little and we inquired on the river as we passed cruising paddlers if any other canoes had passed that day. "You are the first we have seen" was the consistent reply.

 We passed Circle and again attempted to contact the land crew on the 2 way but no response. They had not been able to get to Circle and in any event the faster water was a good 4 kilometers away down a channel on the other side of the river.

We were now in bear country and required to comply with the local camping regulations which involved camping 100 meters from your food which had to be strung 3 meters off the ground and 3 meters from the trunk of any tree.

Tactically we thought we might again stop early that night and see if the canoe behind passed.
Again we sighted a cabin on the map, and set about running down close to the bank to find it or at least the path that lead to it.

And what a great cabin it was. Fully set up with the basics by the National Park, including a meat safe,
fire, outside dunny and fifty million mosquitoes to keep us company.

 meat safe

The view opening to the river was limited, but while we lit the fire cooked dinner and hung out our cloths we took it in turns to watch the river to catch that passing canoe. We saw nothing, but may have missed it.
The cabin was like something out of Ernest Hemmingway.

We slept up in the loft, cooking by the heat of the rising fire.

We left more or less on time the next morning, but noticed the river had risen a lot. Fortunately we had tied our kayaks to the bank.

A day of hard slog through this complex part of the river, we relied on way points we had pre set into the GPS  at critical turning points. The river basin was up tp 10 kilometers wide with several channels the fastest up to a meter wide.
Every turn we stared ahead and behind to see if we could see a canoe, with many false alarms
With the river higher we thought there might be some hope of finishing without the extra night on the river, but the river again slowed.

Steve was beginning to get really buggered. We were off the river maps and into the google maps. These maps did not indicate cabins etc, It was impossible to know if the cabins we passed were private or public, so the next two nights would be camping,

Camped again early that night on a gravel bank. Steve lit a big fire out of drift wood. My tent pegs would not hold in the gravel, so I had to tie my stays to stumps off the bank.
In putting up my tent I broke a tent pole, I fixed it by shortening it, but it broke again in the night.
Again it was windy and rainy in the night, I did not get too wet, but my tent in the morning was soaked and we were both beginning to run out of even half dry stuff.
Although it was wet once we got going in the morning, I was quite warm.

The river is full of millions of tons of debris. Trees logs etc. Half way through the next day I was paddling up to what appeared to be a log, and I had to back paddle desperately fast to avoid hitting a cougar swimming from one side of the channel to another. Stunned we both watched it swim to the shore, climb out and dive into the bush. It was some big cat.

Based on last years winning team I was able to count back from the finish, the hours to the finish and mark them on the map.

With about six hours to paddle to the finish, we camped again on a gravel island.

 moose

We got away on time, but the six hours did not take into account poor Steve's condition, the slow river and the strong head winds.

If Steve could not paddle any further I was going to tow him home. About an hour after we got going I gaffer taped his right hand to the paddle. He felt much better as it took the weight off his fingers.

A couple of hours before we finished I re did the gaffer tape. Despite the very strong head winds and Steve in obvious extreme pain to Steve's credit he managed to finish all 1600 kilometers under his own steam.