Hobie Treasure Island Ocean Paddling Series 2 Race 3

by Lex Raas
Sunday 26th February dawned in Treasure Island, Florida with a cold front rolling through. All paddlers were woken at dawn with lightning and thunder preceding the cold front and the squall line.... many paddlers decided that this was a day to stay off the water. However, I had been monitoring Windguru.com and they accurately predicted that the rain would stop by 9am and that the weather would start clearing by start time at 10am. Bulls eye !!

However, the seas on the Gulf were choppy and we elected to start the race on the Intracoastal offering paddlers 2 long courses, one to stay in protected water and the other long course would go offshore via Johns Pass with a rapid down wind leg to Blind Pass and back upwind in the Intracoastal to start. A day of wind, waves, currents and varied scenery.

The Start was an all in affair. The new wave of young surfskiers from Florida on Fenn's jumped to the front hotly pursued by the incredible John Edwards on a Hurricane OC1 and Kip Koelsch on a Huki Ski. Johns Pass offered some challenges and exiting onto the Gulf the bar south of the cut offered all some exciting breaking surf to encounter. A fast trip to Blind Pass led back into the Intracoastal and back to the finish upwind. The rest of the fleet followed with Jean Raas making a great improvement over prior races on his Hurricane OC1. The most impressive action of the day came from Veteran Stan Holoquist being the only Sea Kayak to take the offshore course, WELL DONE STAN, we all want to be like you when we grow up ! It was also great to have an OC6 from Florida Outreach join the race, Claude Arnoult did a great job of steering through the narrow sections of the Intracoastal.

In normal form, Reid Hyle cleaned up on his ski overall followed by 3 skis and a bevy of OC1's. OC1's dominated the field with John Edwards firmly stamping his domination once again.

Tonya Streinz was not happy with the 8 mile course and passed Blind Pass (Tonya now knows what the name means..) and ended up doing a 12 mile race leaving us all anxious awaiting her finish, Tonya was clearly the most travelled paddler out there :-)

Once again, thank you Hobie and all the other sponsors of this great series, please mark your calendars for race 4 to be held at Honeymoon Island on Sat 25th March followed by race 5 on Sunday 26th March at Treasure Island. So come on over and book your rooms at Island Inn and have a fun weekend of paddling. If you require accommodation, call Island Inn at Treasure Island, special rates for paddlers apply !

See you on the water !

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Posted by keizo on Fri, 03/03/2006 - 11:55am