Cheapside to Cuero 236 — 15 miles

Shannon woke us up at 6:00 a.m. after a very solid four hours of sleep. But once again we spent way too long getting up, getting the boat packed, and eating breakfast. By the time we put the boat back into the water under the Cheapside Bridge, it was 7:15 a.m. During the night we would lose eleven spots, and fall back to 79th place.

There was still a light fog hovering on the water, the morning was still cool, and the water and the air were as still and calm as a postcard. My favorite time to paddle is just before and after the sun rises or sets. We paddled the two miles to the Cuero Dam effortlessly and slowly, letting our muscles warm up and stretch out from the arduous workout from the night before.

We pulled our canoe out on river-right, and saw another team carrying their canoe towards the dam wall. There were several large fallen trees obstructing the path to the dam, but fortunately, one of them was at just the right height to slide our canoe across and rest it on both the tree and the dam wall at the same time.

We lost about 15 minutes on the dam waiting on the team in front of us. They did not have a rope tied to their canoe, and were trying to find a way to lower it (about 20') without dropping it. After they cleared the dam, Marty and I worked together to lower the boat down so that the bow was resting on the ground below, then he scrambled down the conveniently placed ladder and walked the bow out as I lowered the stern with the rope.

We carried the boat about 50 yards down river before we put back in. The canoe in front had not started paddling, and we passed them as soon as we put paddles to water. The remaining 13 miles to the Cuero 236 checkpoint were uneventful. The water below the dam, while not standing still, was much slower than we had anticipated. We made better time than we thought though, and reached the checkpoint at about 10:00 a.m.

Feeling refreshed and strong, we made our shortest pit stop of the race, only stopping long enough to grab two fresh water jugs. We both stepped out of the boat for about 5 minutes to stretch. I told Shannon to meet us at Thomaston with two more water jugs, and we were out of Cuero 236 at 10:12 a.m. Our split for the Cheapside to Cuero 236 leg was 2:57, which was the 32nd best split time overall. Despite our best split time so far, we only passed two boats, moving up to 77th place overall.

Cuero 236 to Victoria City Park — 40 miles

Ever since we left Luling, we had been running river that neither of us had ever seen. Having done the Texas Water Marathon in 2002, it felt good to be on a section of river that I was somewhat familiar with. Prior to TWS 2003, I had run Staples to Luling many times, Tivoli to Sea Drift once, and Cuero 236 to Victoria City Park once.

Again, this section of the river was largely uneventful for us. We passed four boats before we reached the Thomaston Bridge, where we stopped for about 5 minutes-just long enough for Shannon to give us two fresh water jugs. We told her that we didn't need her to stop at Nursery, and that we would just see her at Victoria City Park. We asked the other teams how far the next boat was in front of us, and they said about 20 minutes.

Shortly after leaving Thomaston, the wind started to pick up a little, which helped with the immense heat of the afternoon, but was slowing our progress considerably. Off in the distance we could see large clouds forming.

We saw the boat (Mike and Shannon in boat #66, Tandem Unlimited) that was ahead of us, and passed them while they took a break on a gravel bar. One of the guys was lying down on his back with his arm covering his face. He looked wiped out, while his teammate looked anxious to get back in the water.

I had been maintaining my energy levels quite well so far in the race…eating plenty of food before I crashed, and drinking fluid constantly. However, somewhere between Thomaston and Nursery I hit a huge wall of fatigue. I sucked down a GU and a bottle of Gatorade, and then ate my last pack of cheese crackers.

But my arms still felt like dead weights. Finally, I told Marty that I needed to get out and walk for five minutes. We found a long, flat gravel beach on river-right, and pulled out right next to the partial remains of a rotting cow carcass. Had we not already passed 20-30 other dead cows, we might have been disgusted.

We got out, and Marty used the bow line to pull the canoe through the water while I walked slowly behind on the rocky shore. We walked about 200 yards, and were just getting ready to put back in when boat #66 passed us. The 10-minute break seemed to help me tremendously. I don't know if the carbohydrates had finally kicked in, or if I just needed to quit paddling for that short spell…but I felt much better as we paddled away.

We re-passed boat #66 after about a mile; they would stay about a ¼ mile behind us until Nursery. I hate being passed by another boat, so having #66 trail us so closely was a great motivator to keep paddling hard.

When we passed Nursery, I was surprised to see Shannon there. I yelled at her as we passed that we were fine, and to meet us at City Park.

The final 13 miles to City Park were much more difficult than I could have imagined. The water had slowed, with fewer fast sections than the last several miles. Also the wind had increased to about 20-25 miles an hour, and was hitting us directly in the face. We tried to use the banks and trees to shield us from the wind as much as possible, but found little relief.

This section of river provides some of the best scenery of the entire race, including some steep limestone ledges, remnants of an old Spanish dam that was built in the early 1700s, white water, and giant cypress trees.

About 3-4 miles from Nursery, we rounded the bend and were about to pass under the last bridge before Victoria (not sure what bridge it is), when we were smacked in the face by the approaching storm. The initial gust of wind nearly stopped the boat completely. However, as we approached City Park the wind seemed to die down.

Somewhere between Thomaston, Marty and I had started to sing. Loudly and mostly off-key. We sang songs we knew every word to (George Straight's The Chair), songs we knew most of the words to (Jimmy Buffet's MargaritaVille), and songs we only knew the chorus to (Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire). We even did some improvised rapping in our best Eminem imitation. It had to be quite comical to hear/see us coming down the river in our bright yellow matching jerseys, our big red boat, and our horrific renditions of songs we barely knew.

We sang our way into Victoria City Park at 6:00 p.m. We asked who the team captains for boat #66 were, and told them that they were about 5-10 minutes behind us. Either we really poured it on after we passed them, or they really slowed, as they floated up to the boat ramp about 30 minutes behind us.

Our goal when we started was merely to finish. Reaching Victoria City Park and the 200 mile mark 17 hours ahead of the cut-off deadline, we knew that we would finish. The only question was 'when'. We discussed our strategy from this point: how much further did we want to paddle today. Before reaching City Park, we thought we might stop there for a couple of hours for a nap, and then paddle through the night to the Salt Barrier Dam checkpoint.

However, there appeared to be some very large and dark clouds still approaching, and we didn't think we'd be able to get any sleep at Victoria. Besides it was still too early for a nap. So, after about a 45-minute break at Victoria City Park, we loaded back into the canoe, and shoved off. We asked Shannon to meet us at the Highway 59 Bridge 9 miles down river to give us some fresh water.

It was 6:43 p.m. when we left the boat ramp. Even with the 45 minute break, we had completed that leg in 8:31, which was the 29th fastest time overall between Cuero 236 and Victoria Park. I attribute our best showing to numerous other boats stopping for a longer rest at Victoria than we did. We had moved up another six spots to 71st overall. It felt good to pass boats; it made it feel more like a race and less like a personal exercise in pain and humility.

Victoria City Park to Dupont— 27 miles

Marty and I decided that we would paddle the 27 miles to Dupont, and rest there for the night. We figured the trip would take us 5 ½ hours, putting us at the next checkpoint around 12:45 a.m.

Boat #66 had pulled out about 5 minutes ahead of us, but we caught them quickly. However we were not able to shake them, and they followed us closely past the Hwy 59 Power Plant, and were right on our stern when we approached the Hwy 59 Bridge. Neither team could believe how long that 9 miles had seemed. It took us over 2 hours to reach the bridge, and it was nearly completely dark.

We nosed into the bank, where Shannon had to throw our water jugs to us. We had planned on stopping here to mount our night-light and eat dinner (we didn't eat much at Victoria). But there was not a good spot to stop beneath the bridge, so after less than 5 minutes we shoved off to look for a flat bank to stop.

We found a flat, smooth, sandy beach on river right about 300 yards down river of the bridge. We stopped here to get ready for our night paddle. We made sure we had fresh batteries in our headlamps and that the spotlight was securely mounted and functioning. While we were eating our hot MREs, Mike and Shannon passed us in the dark.

A couple of miles after we started paddling again, the fog was starting to get thick on top of the river, and our lights were having a hard time cutting through it. We rounded a bend to the right, and couldn't tell which way the river continued. In the dark and fog, it looked like it could flow to the right, left, or down the middle. The current seemed to be flowing strongest to the left, so we went that way.

We had only paddled a couple of hundred yards when I told Marty that I didn't think we went the right way. The banks were too narrow, and the water seemed too shallow. We would later learn that we had paddled into the Cornfield Cut, which would have eventually led us nowhere. Luckily we figured it out quickly and paddled back out to the main river channel. If you've never been in the Cornfield Cut at night, we can testify that it appears to be the breeding ground of all the Gar on the Guadalupe. We seemed to smack a gar with every paddle stroke, and had a small gar jump over the boat, hitting my lap with its tail.

Within minutes of getting back into the river, we came up on Mike and Shannon, who were pulled over on river right. They asked if we knew where Cornfield Cut was, because they were anxious about accidentally taking it. Up to this point, we had never heard of Cornfield Cut, and still did not know that's what we had just taken.

So, we paddled slowly behind them for a few miles, but eventually passed them again. I felt confident paddling in this section of the river, as it was mostly wide, and moving slow enough to avoid any hazards that we might find. We didn't find many at all.

We had been told about the serpentine stretch of river that would lead you towards and near the sounds of the Dupont Plant, then away from it, and then back towards, it then away again. But we didn't realize how much of a mental game the growing-then-diminishing roar would play on our minds and morale. Every time we thought we were getting close, we would make the next bend and paddle until we couldn't hear it anymore. It was odd to paddle with the moon directly in front of us, and then two bends later, it would be directly behind us. Had we made two consecutive lefts or rights, I would have sworn we were paddling in a circle…but as it was, the river kept turning predictably left, then right; left, then right.

Somewhere during the serpentine, we came up on another team...it was a father/son team in either a kayak or a Tandem Unlimited boat…I can't really remember now and it was too dark to tell for sure. They did have a much better lighting system than us though, so we followed behind them for several miles. They were paddling at a very slow pace (I think the dad, paddling in the stern, was having trouble with his back, and was not paddling much). We were glad to slow down our pace a little and just take easy, long strokes and let them lead the way. However, the pace soon grew too slow, and we moved passed them, and told them we would lead for a while. After two bends in the river though, we lost complete sight of them.

We rounded another bend to the left, and were in a section of river with very strong current. When we made the nearly 90° left turn, I looked back to the right and thought I could see the river also flowing strongly to the right. Boat #66 had warned us to not take any cuts to the left; to always stay to the right. So I panicked. I was uncertain, and thought that we might have taken the wrong cut. So Marty reluctantly humored me, and we swung the boat around. This is when we realized the strength of the current we were in. But we paddled hard upstream, defying common sense and logic. I kept looking for the cut to the right that we had come from but couldn't see it. We paddle hard for about 10 minutes, not realizing how little progress we were making until we saw the headlight of the boat we had passed earlier coming out of the cut about 200 yards ahead of us. When their light swung around in our direction, we were convinced that we had previously been heading in the right direction. We swung our boat around and cursed ourselves for being foolish enough to try paddling back up stream.

After this incident, we formed Rule #4, which stated: "When in doubt paddle down stream not up."

As we rounded another silent bend in the dark, I told Marty that we had about another 4 miles or 1 hour to go. But, much like my miss-estimation at Hochheim, the very next bend found us staring smack at the lights of the Dupont Swinging Bridge checkpoint. It was 1:00 a.m.

The boat behind us pulled in about 5 minutes later, and we laughed about our upstream paddling adventure. They said they were a little freaked out when they saw a headlight coming back at them, and even doubted themselves for a moment, thinking maybe they were headed in the wrong direction.

We were worn out and tired (although not nearly as much so as the night before). Knowing that we only had to paddle 35 miles the next day, we told Shannon to let us sleep until 6:00 a.m. again. After eating another hot MRE, changing into our dry clothes, and pulling out our sleeping pads, it was about 1:30 a.m.

Of the three checkpoints where we would sleep during the race, Dupont was by far the best. We were able to find a grassy spot about 100 yards from the river and boat ramp. This meant that the comings and goings of other teams wouldn't bother us. Also, the gentle and constant hum of the Dupont plant was the perfect background noise to drown out the busy thoughts running through my head.

Total Distance paddled on Day Three: 82 miles

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