Left Estero around 7:45 am. Good winds out of NE and doing 6-7 knots. Hoping to make the favorable tides and day time arrival at CP2 in Chokoloskee.

Thank god for Monster

Made it all the way to Estero Bay. Met DonKeyHoTey’s wife to pick up a backup rudder. It was lively sailing and when we took off the original rudder it was starting to come apart again.

Location on mobile app

Sanibel bridge

DonKeyHoTey

Red sky

Cheese Burger in Paradise

Making progress with damaged rudder.

We made it to CP1 last night around 10 PM. Was very hungry and ate hot soup provided by the checkpoint managers. Found a spot to sleep out of the rain but temps were low 40s! Thank god for hand warmers.

Trying to limp down to Sanibel to pick up a back up rudder today. Should be a moderate down wind sail.

More to be done at CP1

Got knocked down as the front went through with 35 mph gusts. Broke the new rudder head 8 NM north west of Venice. Took the main down. Heading in to attempt repairs repairs.

Made it to the start line. Huge field this year.

Our pre-race dinner

Start will be fun. talked to SOS they are in it to win.

Yesterday on Facebook Danito posted he was going for a night paddle. I have been following his training for the EC through Watertribe and Facebook for a while. He lives not to far from me and paddles the Winter Haven chain of lakes. I have always wanted to get down there and give it a try and things just happened to work out this time.

Weather was perfect. Low 60s dropping into the high 50s. Little to no breeze. Just right to keep you moving at nice pace to stay warm. I arrived as dusk was slowly turning into night. I met Danito at the Lake Summit boat ramp. He was ready with his boat by the water. I hustled to get my boat out of the truck, turn on my SPOT, send an OK, and load up. Although the SPOT Tracker doesn’t show it to well we followed the shoreline in a counter clockwise path from Lake Summit to Lake Eloise and Lake Winterset. Total paddle was somewhere just shy of 10 statute miles (fresh water ;-).

I really enjoyed the perfect weather for a night paddle. The Winter Haven area is not too populated so that the night sky and stars are washed out. I enjoyed looking up at the moon and stars while we had the entire chain of lakes to ourselves. Lots of time was spent chatting about all things paddling, sailing & Watertribe. We finished up in about 3 hours maintaining a 3.5 mph pace (fresh water ;-). Plans have been made to do it again soon.

Ape statue at end of canal near Legoland on Lake Eloise

I drove down to DonKeyHoTey’s place to hang out and work on Hare on Fire his 19′ International Lightning modified for the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge. Lots of strategy and logistics were talked about. A few modifications to the boat too. We moved the oar locks for better ergonomics (Is that the right term?). Maintenance on the aft through hull and cover was performed. The big item was addressing the rudder. After breaking the rudder in the 2012 EC we have been sailing with the stock Lightning rudder. We need a kick up rudder for the 2013 EC and shallow water sailing. This weekend included building a mock up of the rudder head. A mock up was a great idea because some of the minor details could be worked out on the fly.