Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi, paddles in the bow seat with his son Thaison just aft. The pair were the first to cross the finish line in the "Battle On The Bayou" canoe & kayak race at Ocean Springs yesterday.
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The "Battle On The Bayou" canoe & kayak race takes place each March on Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The inaugural event was in 2010, and it's happened every year since except 2020, when it was called off in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. That made yesterday's race the 16th installment of the event. I missed last year's race, but have attended all fifteen of the others.
Coming into yesterday's race, I had been the overall winner only three times, most recently way back in 2014. There's almost always been somebody there to give me tough competition for that honor. Yesterday my main challenger appeared to be a tandem boat paddled by Gulfport, Mississippi, residents Jeb Berry and his 16-year-old son Thaison. I mentioned in last week's photo feature that Jeb was recently diagnosed with cancer of the colon and liver. He began his treatment just last week, and decided that he was feeling good enough to go ahead and race. He seemed hale and hardy when I spoke to him before the race and I knew I couldn't take him lightly.
After the pre-race meeting I got in the boat, did some warmup paddling, and settled onto the starting line. As I sat there with some five minutes to go, Jeb and Thaison paddled into the starting area, and I knew they would have to move quickly to get their long tandem boat turned around and into position for a fair start. Before I knew it, the starting official gave us the 30-second warning, and what seemed like less than 30 seconds later, the starting horn went off.
I wasted little time getting my boat up to speed to put some distance on the pack in the opening meters. I glanced right and left, fully expecting to see the Berrys nearby, but they were nowhere in sight. They must have not been in ideal position when the race started, I thought, and I was a bit concerned because I wanted our competition to be fair. But I told myself to worry about my own self and I continued working to move my boat as quickly and efficiently as possible, knowing that they were entirely capable of reeling me in over a 70-minutes-plus race.
I paddled hard but mostly relaxed as I covered one kilometer, then two, then three. All the while I kept my ears open for the sound of Jeb's voice or any other clue that I had company up at the front of the race. There was plenty of race still to come, but once or twice I dared to think that maybe this was the year I would finally claim another overall title here in Ocean Springs.
Then, about five kilometers in, those hopes went down the tubes.
Old Fort Bayou is a narrow creek that meanders through a broad swath of marshland as it approaches its mouth in the Back Bay of Biloxi. There is one spot on the race course where it is very easy to make a wrong turn. Here's a satellite image of that spot:
That's Bayou Talla coming in from the north. The green arrows show where racers are supposed to go, and the red arrows show the wrong turn that is so tempting to the unwitting paddler.
I have now been that guy three times. In the 2021 race I was one of about four boats in the lead pack, and when we reached this part of the course I started to make the turn indicated by the red arrows. Fortunately, one of the other boats in the pack was a tandem paddled by Jeb Berry and Ocean Springs local Nick Kinderman, and Nick alerted me to keep going straight. Tragedy averted.
The very next year, I was sitting in second place overall, a minute or so behind the father-daughter tandem of Mike and Savanna Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas. They made the red-arrow mistake, and I followed them. When I rounded the little sliver of island in the middle, the Herberts were paddling back toward me, and I knew we had screwed up. Happily, we managed to get back on course quickly enough that the final results were what they probably would have been anyway: Mike and Savanna cruised to a comfortable victory, and I took second place overall.
That brings us back to yesterday. It's easy to sit here and look at the satellite image and think, "Well, DUH... just follow the green arrows!" But down at water level, the right way to go is anything but obvious. Yesterday I was all by myself in first place, with nobody around to guide me, and certainly not any green arrows painted on the surface of the water. What's more, at that time of morning the sun was right in my eyes, making the correct route look like a possible dead end. And so I made the infuriatingly-easy mistake. The race organizers really ought to post a person there to keep racers on the right course--not just a buoy, not just a sign, but a person. They have never done so, and all I can say is that unless they do, wrong turns will happen here again.
I had about reached the end of that last red arrow when I heard some voices yelling at me. I believe it was the Berrys, who had spotted me through the little passage marked "A" on the satellite photo. I looked around and saw another paddler, Don Hicks of Cabot, Arkansas, who had followed me on my march to folly. At this moment I could not see the slot marked "A," and I thought the only way to paddle back on course was to go back to the beginning of the red arrows. I took a gamble and paddled over to about where point "B" is marked, hoping maybe I could portage over the marsh to the race course. But I couldn't get a visual on just how much ground I would have to cover, or if I could do so without sinking ankle-deep in mud. By this time Don was paddling toward the "A" slot, so I got back in the boat and followed him.
By the time I was back on course, somewhere between ten and twenty boats had overtaken me. I figured running down the Berrys was probably a lost cause, but I felt pretty certain I could still take everybody else. The challenge now was to stay calm and be patient, and not try to put the hammer down and catch everybody right away. I still had some 60 percent of the race left to go, after all.
Little by little, I worked my way up through the field. I rounded the big island by the Fort Bayou apartments and entered the second half of the course, retracing the route back to where we'd started. Along the way I saw familiar faces: Nick's wife Kelly Kinderman; Karen Kesselring of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas; Billy Howell (friends call him "Chilly" Billy) of Coahoma, Mississippi; Robert Brooks of Biloxi, Mississippi; double surfski paddlers Nova Cross and Nate Payne of Ocean Springs; the Gulfport outrigger C2 team of Penny and Lynn Sanburn.
Off in the distance I could see the last person, other than Thaison and Jeb, still in front of me. It was Don Hicks, and that made sense, seeing as how he'd been the next-fastest paddler behind me when I made my wrong turn. He had a good lead, but I could tell I was whittling away at it. I set my sights on him and finally pulled onto his wake as we passed beneath the Washington Avenue drawbridge, about 1300 meters from the finish. I rode his wash for several minutes to gather myself for a strong final surge.
With 700 meters to go, I dug in and pulled away. I could see Jeb and Thaison paddling their post-finish cooldown as I sprinted the last several hundred meters. I crossed the finish line with a time of one hour, 13 minutes, 47 seconds, and it turned out that was just a little over two minutes behind the Berrys (1:11:30).
Don finished the race 28 seconds behind me. A short while later Team Sanburn crossed the line with a time of 1:15:23.
The fastest solo female finisher was Kim Arnold-Bridwell of Gulfport. Her time was 1:23:47, two minutes and three seconds faster than Karen Kesselring.
The complete results are available here.
My G.P.S. device measured the course at 12.27 kilometers. My best guess is that I added two to three hundred meters to my distance with my red-arrow blunder, so I would say the course is about an even 12 kilometers. That's not quite seven and a half miles. The course, altered slightly from what it had been in previous years, had been advertised as "8-ish" miles.
Looking back, I'm satisfied with how I did. It feels good to have come back to take the title among solo paddlers after going off-course and wasting four or five minutes. I'm just sorry I didn't get a chance to compete with the Berrys for that overall title. I expect they're sorry about that as well. But I hope they can savor their victory, especially considering the off-the-water challenges that Jeb faces in the coming months. (Once again, I hope folks will consider helping out with his expenses by chipping in a few bucks here. Even with insurance, having a serious illness is an expensive state of affairs.)
The weather was beautiful, and I enjoyed visiting with friends before the awards were handed out. Once all business was concluded I set sail back north to my humble hometown on the mighty Mississippi.
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My week began with some dry-needling treatment at the chiropractor's office. The chiropractor warned that I would probably feel worse before feeling better, and that's been the case as my muscles react to being stuck with those needles. I've been living with this pain in the right side of my neck for close to six weeks now, and it's making my whole body feel out of whack. Like I've said before, it doesn't directly interfere with paddling, but the discomfort is pretty severe nevertheless... it makes me feel like I'm not paddling well even when I probably am. I've got an almost OCD-caliber desire for balance and symmetry in all my affairs, and I'm feeling anything but balanced and symmetrical these days.
Meanwhile, I'm signed up to race down at Ocean Springs this Sunday, and I'm trying to go through my pre-race motions this week. It was cold and miserable outside on Monday and Tuesday, so I took those two days off. The forecast for Wednesday was a high temperature around 65 degrees Fahrenheit, but it was still in the low 50s when I went down to the river that morning, and a fierce south wind made it seem colder than that. I paddled into the teeth of that wind toward the mouth of the harbor, and then turned around to do a few 12-stroke sprints with the wind at my back. I did ten of them at two-minute intervals, and at some point I managed to tweak a muscle in my right lower back. Wasn't that just all I needed...
Yesterday morning I did some back stretch exercises that I think eased the lower back pain. I went back to the river and got in the boat, and this time I did eight of those 12-stroke sprints. The wind wasn't blowing nearly as hard and that helped me feel more comfortable, though the neck pain was quite an annoyance. It's hard to feel like I'm ready to go out and compete with an ailment like that nagging at me.
By this morning the back pain was about gone, I think. I went downtown and did six 12-stroke sprints. When I got back home I tried putting some ice on my sore neck muscle. It hadn't occurred to me to do so until last night when I got to a part of a book I'm currently reading where the narrator, a doctor, talks about putting ice on a trauma victim's edema. I figured it couldn't hurt to try it on my neck. So far I've done it just once, and maybe it's helped a little... hard to tell. I'll do it once more this evening and again tomorrow, because why not... right?
The plan for tomorrow is to do several more of those sprints in the harbor, and then load up the boat and embark on the six-hour drive down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
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It's 2017, and that's me on the right, locked in a tight contest on Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Pushing me hard is Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi.
When I return to Ocean Springs to race this coming weekend, Jeb would likely be my stiffest competition. Sadly, he was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and will probably not be racing (though I know better than to count him out entirely).
The bright side is that Jeb has many friends and they are rallying to his cause. If you'd like to chip in to a fundraising effort for his medical expenses, you can do so here.
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My neck continues to be a source of misery. The chiropractor adjusted it again last Monday, and for the next couple of days I could tell that the discomfort had eased, but by the end of the week it was feeling as bad as ever. When I return to the chiropractor's office tomorrow, she's going to perform some dry needling in hopes of stimulating a more lasting healing process.
After paddling just an easy 40 minutes yesterday, I planned to do something more substantial today: a lap around the Loosahatchie Bar. Right now the Mississippi River, at 21.2 feet on the Memphis gauge, is high enough to do it for the first time in at least six months. (The bare minimum for doing it is around 16 feet, but at that level there's a big sandbar at the north end of the Bar that you have to paddle around, and even then you're either scraping the bottom or getting out and portaging.)
Yep, that was my plan. But the weather had other ideas. Today there's a fierce south wind blowing, with some strong thunderstorms and maybe even a tornado or two moving through this evening. On top of my neck woes, that made it seem unwise for me to be out all alone on the big river. Paddling around the Bar is something I feel like I ought to do at least once a year, but the year is young, and surely this isn't the only time in 2026 that the river will be high enough for me to do it.
Instead, I paddled for 70 minutes, mostly in the harbor. I pushed the pace at times, especially while coming back north with the wind at my back. I did an impromptu bridge-to-bridge sprint for time, and clocked 2:11. One might think that with such a strong tailwind I should be much faster than that, but it's been my experience that there are limits to that advantage. When the wind is dead calm I have a smooth surface to paddle on, while with the wind blowing like it is today the surface is very bumpy, and I think those bumps slow the boat down just like bumpy dry-land terrain slows down a car or a bike or a similar vehicle.
After that sprint I got a good full recovery while paddling easy, and then I timed myself over the second half of the bridge-to-bridge course (the approximate halfway point is noted in the video). In my workouts this winter I've been covering this distance in 64-65 seconds, but this time I wanted to see if I could do it at or below 60 seconds. I pushed the stroke rate up over a hundred per minute, and reached the Hernando DeSoto Bridge right at 60 seconds.
After that I paddled mostly steady for the rest of the 70 minutes. My neck ailment, while not directly impeding the act of paddling, continued to make me blue. I really hope tomorrow's dry-needling session will help me turn a corner on that.
I do have one bit of more positive health news. If you've read this blog's posts from last fall, then you know I came down with a case of shingles shortly after my return from the Grand Canyon. I haven't mentioned it here in a long time, and that's because the symptoms were pretty much gone by mid November. But I could still see remnants of the rash for a long time after that. Just in the last week, however, it occurred to me that the rash is now all gone. Well, almost, anyway--there are still faint traces of it. But I doubt anybody who doesn't know I had shingles could look at it and tell there was ever anything there.
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We've had a good bit of rain lately, and that rain has moved across the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio River watersheds, so it's translating into higher levels on the Mississippi River. When I did a steady 60-minute paddle Tuesday morning, the river was flowing at 15.2 feet on the Memphis gauge. When I got back on the water for a workout today, it had risen to just over 19 feet. As of this writing the river is forecast to crest at 21.8 feet next Monday or Tuesday.
I paddled in the afternoon today because of some nuisance stuff I had to deal with in the morning. With just ten days to go before my race down at Ocean Springs, it was about my last chance to do a workout that's likely to have any bearing on my race-day fitness. I did four bridge-to-bridge sprints, starting every 8th minute, and clocked 2:14, 2:15, 2:15, and 2:15. My times were a bit slower than when I did the same workout two weeks ago, and I think the main reason was a light headwind today as opposed to almost no wind then. I didn't use my cadence sensor two weeks ago, but today I used it and tried to keep things under control by targeting a stroke rate of 90 spm. I think that helped me stay consistent over all four sprints.
The afternoon's effort has me feeling pleasantly tired this evening. Knowing that I can cut back the volume a bit between now and race day has me feeling upbeat as well.
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That nerve/muscle pain in the right side of my neck is a real adventure, and not an enjoyable one. My chiropractor has adjusted it twice now, last Monday and the Monday before that, and she's scheduled to do it again tomorrow. Each time I thought I could detect some relief, but as the week wore on the area seemed to settle back into a painful state. On any given day it's typically felt better in the morning and worse in the evening, probably because I manage to relax while I'm asleep at night but get stressed and tense during the day.
I guess the good news is that I can still paddle; the neck pain makes my general existence unpleasant but doesn't interfere specifically with what I do in the boat. This past week I got in steady sessions with lots of stroke practice on Monday, Thursday, and today, and performed workouts Tuesday and yesterday. On Tuesday I did three 8-minute pieces at anaerobic threshold, with 4 minutes recovery. Yesterday I paddled for 80 minutes total, and for the hour from 0:10 to 1:10, I did five-minute intervals in which I paddled two minutes at 64 strokes per minute, two minutes at 72 spm, and one minute at 80 spm. In both workouts I was feeling it in my muscles by the end, but my lungs handled the load just fine.
The unseasonably warm weather has continued over the last week; by late in the week we were flirting with record highs for the date. When I checked the Internet radar yesterday morning, I could see that heavy rain was on the way, so I got myself down to the river early and was in the boat by a few minutes after 8 o'clock. I got drizzled on a little, but the serious rain didn't move in until just after I'd gotten back home. The water level, which has been very low for the last five or six months, has been coming up in recent weeks in a two-steps-forward-one-step-back kind of way. Yesterday morning the Mississippi River was at 4.8 feet on the Memphis gauge, and today it was up to 8.2 feet. The rain that fell yesterday was part of a large system that moved across the upstream watershed, and by next weekend the river is expected to rise to over 21 feet.
The race down at Ocean Springs is now just two weeks away. My plan is to continue my preparation and keep trying to find some relief for my neck pain.
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It was brought to my attention on social media that on this day seven years ago, the Mississippi River was flowing at 40.8 feet on the Memphis gauge. At this very high level, thousands of acres of real estate over in the state of Arkansas are flooded and accessible to paddlers. In this photo I'm paddling over the Big River Trail, a bike-pedestrian path directly across the river from downtown Memphis.
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I made this video almost two weeks ago, but I'm only just getting around to sharing it here. It covers a session we did over on the Atlantic side of the Cape Peninsula.
It was Day 2 of our camp, and we were hopeful for some good downwind conditions, but the south-southwest wind we'd hoped for didn't materialize until after we'd finished paddling. The groundswell, meanwhile, was quite impressive to this guy who lives hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. But a Go Pro camera isn't very good at capturing the scale of such phenomena. So it's hard to tell in this video that we're doing anything that special. At least the scenery was lovely.
The music is an a cappella version of the Mothers of Invention classic "Any Way The Wind Blows," performed by the Persuasions. It's an allusion to the fact that we went ahead and paddled even though the wind wasn't blowing the way we'd hoped.
Anyway... here you go. I hope you enjoy watching this, and if you don't, at least I warned you.
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It's been nearly three weeks since I've posted something here. In the early part of that three-week period I was slow to recover from the trip home from South Africa: when I flew over there I had activities right from the get-go, and that helped me get over the jet lag quickly, but when I got back home I had nothing pressing to engage my attention, and so I sort of just sat around the house and had trouble re-adjusting to Central Standard Time here in North America. On top of that, I found myself dealing with some health struggles. On Monday the 9th of February, I went and got the second of two shingles vaccine shots, and just like the first one last November, it triggered a severe reaction from my immune system. I spent all day Tuesday feeling pretty sick--headaches, body aches, and intense chills. I was mostly feeling better by Wednesday morning, but there was lingering pain and tightness in the muscles on the right side of my neck. It's a condition I'd had numerous times before, and I figured it would loosen up and work itself out over the next several days, but it didn't. I suffered with it for the next couple of weeks, and eventually accepted that it wasn't going to go away on its own. I scheduled my first appointment with my chiropractor since before an MRI revealed my impinged nerves back in 2023.
The chiropractor saw me this past Tuesday, and while she didn't have any miracle cures, she did make an adjustment that I'm hopeful has put me on a road to relief. As of this writing there's still a fair amount of pain in the area, but it's somewhat less severe than it had been. I'm scheduled to be back in the chiropractor's office tomorrow morning, and I'm hoping for another positive step.
Meanwhile, there's a race coming up in three weeks down at Ocean Springs, Mississippi--it's the annual Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race. I missed it last year, but before that I'd participated in every installment of it since its inception in 2010. Amid all the discomfort I've been dealing with in the last several weeks, I've been trying to do some decent training in the boat. This has included a lot of work on stroke mechanics, tempo sessions near aerobic maximum, and some interval work. This past Thursday I revisited a workout I did several times before my trip to South Africa: bridge-to-bridge sprints. I did a set of four, starting every 8th minute, and clocked 2:11, 2:11, 2:11, and 2:17. As you can see, I sort of fell apart on the last one after three very consistent efforts. The weather was sunny with very little wind, and the water was almost dead flat.
I was back in the boat yesterday morning, paddling a loop out on the Mississippi in unseasonably warm weather. The current forecast indicates a continuation of warmer weather than we're used to in the first week of March.
Ordinarily I'd have paddled again this morning, but today I had to go perform with the handbell group I play with. I'll make it up later.
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In Fish Hoek the week before last we had plenty of paddling and plenty of seagulls. Paddling a double surfski are Dawid Mocke of Fish Hoek and Craig Taylor of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. And over to the left, that's me.
Photo courtesy of Cape Town Sport Photography.
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Since my flight touched down in Memphis last Thursday evening, I've been sluggishly trying to get re-settled at home. When I arrived in South Africa I had things to do right away, and I think that helped me get over the jet lag fairly quickly; here at home I haven't had anything pressing on the schedule, and so my recovery has been slower.
After seven days off the water, I finally made my way down to the riverfront yesterday and paddled for an hour. It was a steady, medium-intensity paddle, and it felt good just to get the blood flowing.
One thing I've done since my return is look through the video footage shot during my camp. I wasn't particularly conscientious about shooting video myself: I took my Go Pro camera out exactly twice: once on a Miller's Run and once during our paddle along the Atlantic side of Cape Town.
I'll share some of that latter video later, but here's an edit of some Miller's Run footage. It includes clips from my camera and clips from Dawid Mocke's:
Whenever you hear yacht rock, you're watching me paddle in a double surfski with Dawid's brother Jasper. That's Jasper in the bow seat and me in the stern.
The video also shows that coaching style of Dawid's that I talked about a couple of posts back.
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Sunday morning I left Fish Hoek and went to the Cape Town airport to pick up my rental car. Thus began an adventure more intimidating than anything I might have encountered out on the ocean: in South Africa, the driver's side of a car is on the right, and people drive in the left lane.
Actually, it didn't take me that long to get the hang of it. I just kept telling myself to imagine the mirror image of everything I do while driving at home. Even the roundabouts didn't bother me much. There's a roundabout I drive regularly in Memphis--it's on the route between my house and the riverfront--so I probably understand the concept better than the average American. The only thing that persistently gave me trouble was remembering that the turn signal arm is on the right side of the steering column. Over and over I would try to signal a turn and the windshield wipers came on.
The driving also got easier once I was out of the Cape Town metro area. I headed north for several hours, during which the surrounding landscape became rolling plains, similar to what you see in western Nebraska. That gave way to rockier, more rugged and mountainous terrain that looked somewhat like New Mexico. The tree species were the main indication that I was in fact someplace else.
And where was I? The Cederberg Wilderness Area, whose semiarid climate is another similarity with New Mexico. I'd booked lodging at Driehoek Farms, a working farm that supplements its income with a campground and cabins. I checked into my cabin and turned in soon after.
My plan was to spend two full days, Monday and Tuesday, exploring a little. Thoroughly worn out from the camp, I wasn't planning any ambitious backcountry treks; several short day hikes would be enough to make me happy.
Further limiting my choices was the closure of some areas to hiking because of wildfires in the area about two months earlier. Apparently frequent fires are important to the regenerative cycle of the fynbos ecoregion that includes Cederberg. The scrubby vegetation is uncommonly flammable to encourage fire every few years. The Driehoek Farms property was among the acreage that got burned:
The lady in the office there told me they knew fire was inevitable and were glad to have it over with for now.
Monday morning I opted for one of the day hikes on Driehoek. The trails there are marked by simple homemade signs like this one:
Other signs along my Monday morning route promised "bushman art," which I think is what we call petroglyphs, but I didn't see any. My experience with petroglyphs in the American West is that you can be looking right at them and not realize what it is you're looking at, and it's possible that's what was happening here. I certainly spent a lot of time studying every rock face I saw that seemed a likely place for bushman art. I guess I just don't have the eye for it.
Monday afternoon I drove over a ridge to the community of Kromrivier. I hoped to explore a little, but my main objective was to patronize the only restaurant in Cederberg. I was well stocked on breakfast and lunch food, but not knowing what sort of kitchen I would have in my cabin, I didn't buy a lot of supper ingredients. The restaurant at Kromrivier was primarily a breakfast and lunch place, and closed at six o'clock, so I had an early supper there. The restaurant was part of a park management office that had some displays with interesting information about the local history, so I educated myself a little. Then I drove back to Driehoek on the network of roads that are all gravel and have some pretty bad washboards in places. I took it slow: all I needed was for the rental car company to slap me with damage charges. Most of the other vehicles I saw in Cederberg were much more off-road-worthy than the subcompact Suzuki Swift I'd been issued.
Tuesday morning I drove to a spot just outside the community of Dwarsrivier, where there's a trail into an area called "Lot's Wife/Window Rocks." Just a short distance from the parking area is Lot's wife herself. That's her on the left:
Here's a closer look:
The thing about Lot's wife that makes me go "hmm" is that The Bible doesn't mention her name (although, according to Wikipedia, she is called "Ado" or "Edith" in some Jewish traditions). She's just "Mrs. Lot," and that's all readers of The Bible need to know. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it strikes me as a bit patriarchal, just like when I was growing up our society thought it was appropriate to address my mother as "Mrs. Elmore Holmes" even though she had a perfectly good name of her own (Sara).
Anyhoo... I continued on into the Window Rocks area, and saw all kinds of nifty formations:
My last outing was Tuesday afternoon, back on the Driehoek property. I followed a trail that took me up onto a big hill that's visible from the front porch of my cabin. It afforded me commanding views of the valley of the Driehoek River:
It's easy to see the areas that burned. The green areas are the marshes along the river that either didn't burn or greened back up quickly.
Here’s a look down at the main Driehoek farm. My little cabin is circled:
And finally, back down on the farm, here’s some of the livestock:
Wednesday I packed up and began the drive back toward Cape Town. My flight out was not until almost midnight, but I had to have the rental car back by three o'clock. The car was very dirty after a couple of days of driving those gravel roads in Cederberg, so once I was back in the city I stopped at a car wash and got it looking as spic-and-span as could be. Then I continued on to the airport, half expecting the Budget/Avis Car Rental personnel to exclaim over how nice the car looked. Instead, they found a scuff mark on the right front wheel cover. Was that my fault? Well... probably. I think I did rub against a curb or two while driving the car. I'd been very concerned about not scratching the car's paint, but the condition of the wheels hadn't even occurred to me.
I turned in the car and proceeded to the airport terminal, where, a short while later, I received a rather schoolmarmish email from a Mr. Clayton West with Budget/Avis informing me that I would indeed be assessed a damage charge for the scuffed wheel cover. "There is no indication that the damage had been there before receiving the vehicle," Mr. West wrote. "We have gone through the previous vehicle condition and vehicle history in which the damage was not noted and would not have been sent out for rent if the damage was there prior to the rental."
That last sentence makes me shake my head. Anybody who knows me well knows that the car I drive at home is a beater, and that car-vanity is completely absent from my DNA. For me, a car is a tool for getting from A to B, simple as that. I'm aware that many rental-car customers probably would make a fuss over the slightest blemish on a vehicle, but I also think that somebody who cares about stupid stuff like that should be required to spring for more of a luxury model than a Suzuki Swift.
Anyway, I had to ask Mr. West several times to tell me what the charge would be, and he finally quoted me R1210.87, which is around 75 U.S. dollars. And, you know what? Fine. Like I said, I probably did put that scuff mark on the wheel cover, and even if I wanted to fight, I doubt I'd succeed. When I got the inevitable email from Budget/Avis asking me to rate my experience, I shared the same opinions I've just written above, and informed them I would probably try a different company the next time I rent a car, and I'm just going to leave it at that.
Once I'd turned in the car, I still had some nine hours to kill before my 11:45 PM flight. So I planted myself in the airport and entertained myself the best I could. I read my book, I poked around on the Internet, and I sought out something to eat for supper (it was terrible). The Cape Town airport is not the worst airport I've ever been in, but it's far from the best.
On my trip over from the U.S. I took a direct flight from Atlanta to Cape Town, but the best I could do for the trip home was fly to Amsterdam first and then Atlanta. When my flight to Amsterdam finally took off around midnight, I tried my best to get some sleep. But I've never slept well on airplanes, and I doubt I got more than maybe four hours during this nearly 12-hour flight. It was a KLM flight, and they didn't start serving breakfast until after 9 AM (Amsterdam time), and the breakfast wasn't very good. I had time to find a decent cup of coffee in the Amsterdam airport before boarding my plane for Atlanta. On this nearly-nine-hour flight I finished my book and watched three movies. In Atlanta I cleared customs and got on one last plane for the short hop to Memphis. I arrived home having spent, all told, some 37 hours on airplanes and in airports. Whew... I must really love these trips to South Africa to put up with all that.
It's now occurring to me that this post on my canoe & kayak racing blog barely mentions paddling at all. If you've read this whole thing hoping for such content, I hope you'll accept my apology. But one reason I like paddling so much is it gives me a reason to go places and see the world. None of what I've written about in this post would have happened if not for my paddling activities.
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Get a load of these guys, hey? They've just completed five laps of a course in Fish Hoek Bay, mixing it up with the South Africans on their turf!
The occasion is the 13th installment of the 2025-26 Sea Dog Race Series. It took place Friday evening.
In the middle of the photo we have Bjørn Kristensen, who I think is from Sweden, but don’t hold me to that— he could be from one of those other Scandinavian nations. On the far right, that's me! And yes, I'm still a little annoyed that I couldn't outsprint Bjørn up to the finish line, but hey, the cookie doesn't always crumble my way.
As for the guy behind us: my best guess is that's Mark Allen, who, according to the results, was the next male finisher after me. I'll gladly make the correction if anybody recognizes him as somebody else.
Photo courtesy of Cape Town Sport Photography.
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Friday turned out to be an action-packed day for me: two Miller's Runs during the day and competition in the Sea Dog race at Fish Hoek Beach in the early evening.
All week I'd been paddling a Fenn XTS surfski. Many of this blog's readers are familiar with Epic skis, and the XTS is in about the same class as the V9. With conditions somewhat on the light side Friday, I decided to try a longer, less-stable ski: the Fenn Swordfish. I'd long had the impression that the Swordfish was Fenn's equivalent of the Epic V10 Sport, but I discovered that it's actually quite a bit less stable. For the most part my two Miller's Runs went just fine on Friday, and I had a wonderful time, but there were numerous unstable moments where I missed a stroke or two because I didn't quite have my balance. I flipped once during the first run. In the end, I was just happy to have tried out something new.
As usual, I was good and tired by the end of my second Miller's, and I had a perfectly valid excuse to skip the Sea Dog race. My three fellow campers all begged off. But I had raced Sea Dog on my previous two trips here, and to me it just feels like an important part of the Fish Hoek experience. So as six o'clock approached, I rallied and got myself to the starting line.
If the Sea Dog race has taught me anything, it's that back home in good old Memphis, Tennessee, I am your classic "big fish in a small pond." If I lived in the greater Cape Town area, I probably wouldn't even be in the top one hundred racers here. Friday evening about 130 craft were lined up on the beach, 65 of which were of my class, single surfski. We waded into the surf, and when the horn sounded we mounted our skis and got down to business. The course was the same as it had been on my two previous visits: five laps of a triangular circuit that included an upwind leg, a downwind leg, and a beam wind leg. The first lap was chaotic with some stressful moments at the buoy turns, but eventually the field got strung out and I was able to work my way forward. There were a few elite athletes in the field, people who have represented Team South Africa in various age groups, and by lap 3 I was getting lapped by some of them, including Dawid Mocke, coach of my camp this past week. But I put that out of my mind and just competed as well as I could. Eventually I was on lap 5 and gunning for the finish line. I reached the beach just a step behind another international, a Mr. Bjørn Kristensen, who I think is from Sweden. I tried to outrun him to the finish line, but he held me off, and so I settled for 27th place out of those 65 single surfskis. The results of the single surfski class are posted here. For some reason I'm listed as being in the 60+ age group, but I assure you I'm a spry 58 years old, thank you very much.
As for my overall position, the posted results have me in 72nd place out of 129 total racers. But some of those 129 were on lifesaver boards and raced only three laps. I was actually 58th out of 111 boats that completed five laps. Thirty-one of the boats ahead of me were double surfskis.
Anyway... it had been a long time since I'd raced! My last race had been way back in July, on the Mississippi River up at Alton, Illinois. It felt good to be out there and be competitive, if not triumphant.
I was also gratified by how well my body handled the demands of two Miller's Runs and a Sea Dog in one day. But yesterday, the final day of our camp, it all caught up with me.
We waited until after lunchtime to get started yesterday, as the wind was light in the morning. By the time we were driving up to Miller's Point, some nice conditions were developing. I knew I was tired, and I was on no mission to set any speed records, but I was hoping for a relaxed, enjoyable time on some downwind swells. I was back in the XTS and as we got started, I was feeling reasonably good. I was waiting for good solid runs that I could get on without killing myself, linking onto some other runs, riding them as far as they would take me, re-gathering myself, and repeating the process. I was tired, like I said, but all in all, times were good.
Then Dawid came over to give me some individual attention.
I think the world of Dawid, and I can't overstate the positive impact he's had on me as an athlete and a person in the seven or so years that I've known him. But his coaching style can be, shall we say... over-enthusiastic.
My most vivid memories of all the times I've been on a downwind run with Dawid involve me already paddling as fast and as hard as I can while Dawid is off to the side shouting, "All right, Elmore, here it is... NOW! FULL POWER! GO! GO! GO! GO!" not realizing that I simply have no sixth gear to shift into from fifth gear.
With all our paddling in the bank, it was time for a little celebration. After showering and freshening up, we headed up to Jasper's Fish Hoek home for a braai (cookout). Jasper's wife Michaela and sons Reuben and Jesse were there, and Dawid's wife Nikki came over with their daughter Sarah. We enjoyed one another's company one last time and savored our successful downwind camp.
As for my own self, I plan to be a tourist for a couple of days before returning to wintertime back home. I'll let you know how it goes.
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When I woke up yesterday morning, the southeasterly wind had returned. My fellow campers and I headed out to see what fun could be had on the Miller's Run. The Miller's Run starts at Miller's Point in False Bay. From there, the paddler aims for the Roman Rock Lighthouse, and then continues on to Fish Hoek Beach.
The plan was to do a morning run, take a break, and do an early-afternoon run. Dawid had us spend the first part of the morning run doing a couple of drills. The first drill challenged us to catch some runs while taking as few strokes as possible over a five-minute period. A dozen or so strokes would be required to get on a run, but then the idea was to ride the run as long as possible, reading the water and keeping the nose of your boat in the trough as the trough moved around. Dawid had to add the caveat that each of us must catch a run--we couldn't just float for five minutes. He had to bark at me a couple of times for not trying hard enough to catch a run; I, meanwhile, was frustrated by how many strokes I had to cough up just to get on a run.
The next drill had us maintain a constant stroke rate--raising one's cadence in order to get established on a run was forbidden. Instead, each paddler had to keep his stroke rate the same, and simply apply more power during the critical moment of catching a run. Paddling on flatwater back home, I do lots of workouts at various stroke rates and degrees of power, so this drill seemed simple enough to me. But it was trickier doing it in downwind conditions. It often seemed that I simply couldn't put enough power into my strokes to get on a run at the moderate stroke rate I'd chosen.
These drills were very much like the drills I've done in the past for whitewater slalom of for flatwater in the harbor: they were mentally taxing more than anything else. In no time at all, my brain was tired even though my body wasn't.
Once we reached the lighthouse, Dawid set us free to ride the downwind conditions into Fish Hoek Beach. At this point I started having the most fun of this trip so far. I think my body is becoming more and more adapted to the stresses of downwind paddling, and also the conditions were much better defined than they were on Sunday. I landed on the beach feeling good and looking forward to run number two.
Jasper had missed our morning run because he had a prior commitment with another group, but he rejoined us for the afternoon. This second run was to be a good old-fashioned downwinder with no drills or special instructions, though Jasper did say he wanted us to let the conditions do the work as much as possible. In other words, he wanted us doing no hard sprints to get over that extra bump; if a big juicy run wasn't within obvious reach, he said, let it go and wait for the next one.
We set off from Miller's Point, and Jasper moved among us to provide coaching. Noticing that each time I caught a run I was moving both right and left in search of the next one, he told me to move only to the right, because that was where the next one was presenting itself under today's condition. I did as he said, and as the run went on I began to understand what he was talking about. I settled into a good rhythm with the ocean and was linking runs with nice regularity. There were times where I was gasping for breath and had to back off a little, but then I was able to get back in the flow quickly, and I believe that the fitness training I'd done back home was paying off.
From the lighthouse in to the beach the conditions became more concentrated, and at times more confused because of rebounding waves off Elsie's Peak. A couple of times it took a timely brace to save myself from flipping. As the beach drew nearer I chased runs as aggressively as I dared. The moment my bow touched the beach I looked at my watch and saw that it was an even 49 minutes since Jasper had sent us off. This was the first time I'd ever broken 50 minutes on the Miller's Run. I hadn't really been that focused on clocking a fast time--a couple of times during the run I'd stopped paddling altogether to listen to some advice that Jasper was offering. My main goal had been to go out and enjoy the run as much as I could, and sometimes that's the most important element in producing a fast time.
(For context: the all-time Miller's Run record for a solo paddler is 36 minutes, 28 seconds by Uli Hart of Fish Hoek. Mr. Hart achieved that time just a couple of weeks ago, breaking the record of 36:36 set by one Jasper Mocke.)
Needless to say, I was in high spirits. I'd clocked my best time, my body felt good, my cardiovascular endurance was there, the conditions were ideal, the water and the waves and the sunshine were beautiful... it all added up to a super day.
The wind continued to blow hard overnight. By this morning it seemed to have let up slightly, but there was no shortage of conditions out on the Miller's Run. Today the Mockes mixed things up a little by putting a couple of us in double surf skis with them. For the morning run, Jasper was the lucky man who drew me for a partner.
We set off from Miller's Point, and while Jasper, in the bow seat, seemed to have no trouble reading the conditions, he remarked that they were quite tricky. The main reason was that the ground swell was running from our right to our left, toward the shore, while the wind swell was running straight on--in other words, they were at an angle to each other. In the early going our main strategy was to get up some speed on the ground swell and surf it to the right and look for wind swell to catch that would keep us moving toward the lighthouse. We did that again and again; in the stern seat, I simply followed Jasper's lead, and we glided merrily along. Once in a while we would pause so that Jasper could provide coaching to one of my fellow campers, Craig Taylor of Sydney, Australia, who was paddling a single ski. Craig was having his difficulties in the confusing conditions, and Jasper was encouraging him to focus on just one or two things so that he could have some success.
Once we'd passed the lighthouse and set our sights on the beach, Jasper pointed out various aspects of the conditions for me. For a period we rode the same swell, though it was hard to detect because of all the little bumps we were moving over in the process. Jasper pointed it out, and I could in fact see it, but I was doubtful that I would be able to see it while paddling out there in my own.
We arrived at the beach, and though we had thrown in some hard sprints during our run, I felt fresh, because the guy leading my boat is one of the best in the world at navigating downwind conditions with very little wasted effort.
For our second run today, I was on my own in a single ski. The good news was that the wind had shifted a bit so that the ground swell and wind swell were more lined up. Nevertheless, I found the conditions harder to read than I had yesterday. I didn't quite have the power to get onto a ground swell right away, so I used smaller runs to get my speed up with the intention of linking onto one of those big beautiful waves. But too often when I thought I had a good run to link onto, all of a sudden it wasn't there. As a result, I felt like I was taking lots and lots of wasted strokes and I had to back off to catch my breath frequently.
I would say that I had fun during this second run. I didn't feel as miserable as Craig had looked in the morning. But my run was a lot of work... too much work, I'm afraid.
I believe even elite downwind surfski racers are not a hundred percent efficient. They're simply more efficient than guys like me. The best thing I know to do is look at all this philosophically. I didn't come away an elite paddler from my first visit to Fish Hoek; nor was I an elite paddler after my second visit. And I won't be after this third visit, either. But each time, I've learned little things, many of which I can't even really articulate. On my second visit I was able to build on what I'd learned during my first, and on this visit I am once again building on past learning. The key to enjoying these trips is to appreciate that process and knowing that each day I'm a little bit wiser than I was the day before.
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While the Miller's Run was placid yesterday, the Mockes thought they had found an alternative. Forecasts were showing a decent south-southwest wind developing by afternoon, so we headed over to the Atlantic side of the Cape Peninsula to paddle from Oudekrall Beach to the Oceana power boat club.
Sadly, when we arrived at Oudekrall the wind was not blowing as advertised. So we had to settle for a tour rather than a downwind run.
It was a pretty fascinating tour, however. For one thing, the scenery was quite impressive. From our putin we could see the "back" side of Table Mountain, and we passed by Lion's Head Peak midway through. Eventually we were paddling by the core city of Cape Town, and our took out with a great view of the "front" side of Table Mountain.
Meanwhile, out on the water the ground swell was as big as I've ever paddled in. Ground swell is not really surfable the same way wind-driven waves are, but Dawid and Jasper coached us in the art of getting as much forward aid as we could out of it.
Today was another day with little wind in the forecast, so we drove down into the Cape Reserve for a paddle around the Cape of Good Hope and the Cape Point. We would put in at Platboom Beach on the Atlantic side, and paddle around to Buffels Bay on the False Bay side.
While this adventure didn't offer the downwind that we all came here for, it was not without its share of excitement. Platboom Beach features some bigger-than-average shore break that's rather imposing for the paddler heading out onto the ocean from there. Dawid and Jasper spend some time observing the incoming waves, determining the frequency and the number of waves in each set, and came up with what seemed like a good plan: Dawid would put on the water with us campers, while Jasper, in radio communication with his brother, would stand up on the beach and tell us when it was a good time to go.
So we were all sitting in our boats looking at the impact zone, waiting for the green light. As an experienced whitewater paddler, I'm less intimidated by paddling into the shore break than some people might be; but seeing as how the Mockes know more about the ocean and its rhythms and behaviors than this lifelong inland-dweller ever will, I wasn't about to second-guess them. And yet, as Dawid, relaying his brother's advice, told us "wait... wait... wait... wait... wait..." I couldn't help getting hot and bothered, as the waves I was seeing in front of me didn't strike me as a big deal. Then, when Dawid finally gave us the go ahead, I found myself paddling into breaking waves that did seem like kind of a big deal. I paddled as hard as I could and managed to punch through them all, but at least one, maybe two of my fellow campers ended up swimming and had to try again.
Later on the Mockes would admit that their launching strategy didn't quite go as planned, but... in the end there was no hard done. Flipping and swimming is part of every paddler's experience.
As we proceeded onward toward the southern terminus of the Cape Peninsula, we found that the ground swell was even bigger than it had been yesterday. It was moving in from the southwest, so we were paddling against it in the early stages. I for one was in awe of its size. It wasn't really difficult to paddle on, but some of the approaching swells were truly impressive. We were bobbing up and down through a range of, I don't know, six vertical feet (a couple of meters)? As we rounded the bottom of the peninsula, we started to get waves rebounding off the rocks, and while it wasn't too scary, it did command my attention as I navigated through it. As we approached the Cape Point lighthouse, I actually found a few surfable runs within the chaos, and that was fun.
The conditions calmed considerably once we were in False Bay. But there were lots and lots of seals swimming around and apparently finding plenty of food. Fortunately I didn't get as well acquainted with one as I did four years ago. We reached Buffels Bay and had drinks and snacks, and then the Mockes declared that we would continue on up the peninsula until we reached Miller's Point, the start of the Miller's Run. This stretch of coastline features some truly lovely geology, including caves and granite boulders.
Like I said, we all came here for the famous downwind awesomeness. But one must be ready to accept that the wind doesn't always blow. Fortunately, the Mockes' bag of tricks includes some pretty neat activities for those no-wind days, and we availed ourselves of that yesterday and today.
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After working us hard yesterday, coaches Dawid and Jasper Mocke gave us some downtime this morning, during which we did some video analysis of our efforts on the Miller's Run. Dawid, seated at the table here inside the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club, provided kind but firm critique of what each of us was doing.
We were back on the water this afternoon. More on that later.
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My travels went quite smoothly and I arrived in Cape Town around 7 o'clock local time Friday evening. The Mocke brothers dispatched Mr. Aldo Cicatello to drive me from the airport to the beach community of Fish Hoek. Fish Hoek sits on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula, and while it was once its own municipality, it is now part of the City of Cape Town.
I'm staying at the same bed & breakfast (they call them "guest houses" in South Africa) where I stayed on my previous two visits to South Africa: the Tuscan Villa in Fish Hoek. I wouldn't say it's super-fancy, but it's a real B&B, not one of those "Air" B&Bs. The place makes a low-maintenance guy like me feel like he's in the lap of luxury, most notably at breakfast time, when they serve a complete home-cooked meal. The proprietor, a lady named Anita, is as conscientious a host as you'll ever find, and she's a fount of knowledge of this area and can offer advice to her guests on just about any topic. Here in the "high season" (December through March) the rate runs around R1700 per person; at the current rate of about 16.1 South African Rand to the U.S. dollar, that comes to about $105.60. That's a bit higher than I usually pay at the budget motels (Days Inn, Baymont Inn, Econo Lodge, etc.) that I typically stay at in my own country, but you get a lot for the money. And within the last several years the exchange rate has been as high as 20 Rand to the dollar, making Tuscan Villa an even better deal for the U.S. visitor. I certainly want to believe that the dollar will be that strong again sooner or later, but, well... don't get me started on the state of such things in my nation.
I spent yesterday enjoying some unstructured time before the beginning of camp. I walked to the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club, where I caught up with a couple of friends and inspected the new construction that has occurred since my last visit four years ago. I did some grocery shopping and other errands, and otherwise just worked on getting over my jet lag.
Camp began this morning, and it was different from what I'd expected. Normally the first morning sees campers get their boats adjusted before doing an easy paddle, but there was a strong enough southeast wind blowing to create serviceable conditions out on the Miller's Run, and with very little wind in the forecast for the next couple of days, the Mocke brothers decided to get us on out there for a pair of downwind runs while we had the chance.
I worked hard back home to be ready for this camp, but I don't think anything I could have done in advance would have spared me the shock to the system I got today. I laid down one hard sprint after another to get what I could from the moderate-sized conditions, and halfway through the first run I was exhausted. Dawid Mocke told me to stop working so hard and spend the rest of that run letting the runs come to me, and that was what I needed to hear at that moment. I paddled on in to Fish Hoek Beach catching some good runs here and there but not trying to conquer the world. I carried that approach into the second run, which we did after a short break at the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club.
While driving back to Miller's Point for the second run, Dawid's brother Jasper went over a couple of things I could be doing better. There were probably many things I could have been doing better, but Jasper focused on just a couple, and that was wise, because it prompted me to spend the second run working on just those couple of things and not overloading my senses any more than they already were.
Regardless, I was absolutely gassed by the time I was coming in to the beach for the second time. My arms and shoulders were stiff and sore from the lactic acid generated by the not-so-efficient paddling I had done. I'm probably still a little jet-lagged and that was a contributing factor, but the truth is that ocean downwind paddling is more intense and just plain different from anything I can do in Memphis, Tennessee. Right now I'm hoping that my fitness base is solid enough to enable my body to adapt to these new stresses as the week moves along.
I'll write more later, and I hope I'll be able to articulate my insights more lucidly. But for now what I need is to go to bed and sleep soundly.
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I got in the boat Monday morning and did another set of twenty 12-stroke sprints, starting at the top of every minute. This workout was suggested by Jasper Mocke, who will be leading next week's camp in South Africa along with his brother Dawid, as a way to prepare for the physical demands of the downwind paddling we'll be doing. In reality, I don't think any flatwater workout in the harbor can simulate all the stresses I'll experience next week on the waters around the Cape Peninsula. But I did what I can, just like I always do, and my body handled it well. So that gives me some confidence.
I had planned to wait until yesterday morning to paddle again, but when I looked at the forecast Tuesday morning, I saw that while Tuesday was a bright, if cold, sunny day, yesterday was supposed to be rainy and miserable. So I got myself down to the riverfront on Tuesday, and did one more set of twenty 12-strokers.
It was indeed rainy and miserable yesterday, so I was glad to have my last bit of paddling in the bank. Since then I've just been resting, and I expect to continue doing so until the first paddling session of our camp on Sunday morning.
I'm flying out later today, and it looks like I've got it timed perfectly, as there's a winter storm heading this way that's supposed to make things pretty nasty by Saturday. With any luck at all, I'll be basking in some summer sunshine on Fish Hoek Beach.
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Four years ago, either John or Tamsin of Cape Town Sport Photography caught this simply lovely glimpse of me moving onto the sweet spot of a Miller's Run swell near Simon's Town.
Right now I'm enduring another freezing day here at home. But by this Friday I'm scheduled to be back in the Cape Town area, where the summer weather will be a welcome change. I've done everything I can do to have my body ready to perform on those swells once again.
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