Carolanne was helping organise this 23km kayaking race so we decided we’d give it a go. Ron kindly loaned me his Beachcomber and Seán decided to take his Downriver Racer. As he was the only one he was put in with the fastest category of all, the Multisporters. We loaded up our van with those two boats and Uncle Steve’s Beachcomber and set off on Saturday afternoon to stay in Cambridge for the night. Sunday morning we found most of the Oosty family and some others at the race. Ron was going in his Tasman Express, Steve in his Beachcomber, Dave and Nic in one double, Greg and Debs in another double and my fellow competitor; Chris in a Beachcomber.
I got the best start in a race I have ever got, only to be stopped just around the corner by a kid in a sea kayak claiming to have broken his rudder and lost control. I managed to hit him right in the middle and had to wait for him to move a bit to get past! Not to worry, I soon caught up with Chris and we worked together until he got cut off from following me and I was out on my own. I caught up with a few guys and hung on to them for as long as I could but my shoulders decided I was only allowed to paddle for 1 hour without them getting really sore. Problem was that it was a 2 hour race… I carried on slowly and eventually Chris caught up with me again and we managed to go over the finishing line together, though I think I was a good deal sorer than him!
It was to be my lucky day though. I never win things, through effort or luck! But this day I won a spot prize of a book about sea kayaking and a paddle leash (maybe I’ll have to take up sea kayaking with a nice shiny new Beachcomber sometime) and I managed to win my category: Women’s Open Plastic Sea Kayak. Nice!
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