Fairhope to Dog River Double Crossing

Saturday, August 13, 2005 brint.adams@us.army.mil

We were fortunate to have almost ideal summer conditions to tackle the double crossing. Roland suggested it last Thursday night for a long workout, so we agreed to meet before 6:00 AM at the FYC beach. I loaded my boat up with six liters of fluid and plenty of glucose supplement. Roland decided to paddle his plastic boat and not risk trying the K-1, due to possible chop later in the morning. The sky was clear and we could see the lights outlining the Dog River bridge 11 miles away, as we put in before sunrise. The bay was virtually flat, as we started out slowly. I set my Forerunner GPS, which was fortunate, as we would discover later.

High tide was at 5:00 AM, so it was falling as we started to cross and would continue to fall throughout the day. This meant we had to aim a little further north than the bridge in order to come straight in. We stopped once briefly at one hour and 5.6 miles out or about halfway. There was very little to no boat traffic, no barges, no shrimp boats, only an occasional small fishing boat. About all we saw out in the middle were an occasional brown pelican skimming a foot above the water.

Roland commented that the bridge looked closer than halfway and it should only take us about 45 minutes to complete the first crossing. I didn't say anything, knowing it would still take us all of another hour and that my GPS didn't lie. During the second half of the paddle on the way over, I decided to try and pick up the pace a little. As we got closer to the bridge, there were a few more yachts and fishing boats coming out of Dog River, as well as several fishermen working the pier at the Beachcomber Marina. I pulled up alongside the pier in 1:58:26, covering 11.11 miles. I waited about a minute for Roland to come in, and we paddled around to the back side, past a couple of green herons along the shore, where we were able to get out and stretch for a little bit.

We loaded back up and started back out Dog River, under the bridge and off to the eastern shore. The Dog River had a little current which gave us a push for awhile, but soon it was apparent the tide and breeze were going to slow us down a bit on the return. The sun was climbing rapidly and the sky started to turn a little hazy, almost like air pollution. It was difficult to make out any recognizable landmarks, although we could vaguely see the shoreline off in the blurry distance. It was a good thing I had the GPS, so we could follow our course on the way back. We decided to try and stay parallel, but somewhat north of our course westward, because the chop started to pick up as well as the current, which pushed us southward.

We stopped again briefly after an hour, but were not quite halfway yet. Again, as before, I decided to pick up the pace a little and we split up for a little while. After another half hour, I stopped for a GU break and Roland caught up and said he was hitting the wall. I gave him a GU also, which perked him up for the last leg home. We still could not pick out the FYC, until we were about 2.5 miles out. The yacht club finally came into view, and I decided to go for it and pulled ahead. The beach was a welcome sight, as I stumbled out of my boat and started to slowly unpack, while Roland came in about five minutes later. He was spent and just got out and sat on the beach for a few minutes to recover.

The total paddle time was 4:06:26 for me and about 4:12 for Roland, covering 22.3 miles in a 5.4 mph pace. The morning was quite successful, as we know we are progressing in our training regimen, to be ready for the Phatwater Race in October.