A personal journey: the story
Hello friends, family, fellow watermen and women! It feels so good to compose this email! Stand Up Paddle Against Depression (A Personal Journey) was a SUCCESS! I ended up paddling an eye-popping 45.2 miles across the Catalina Channel last Saturday. Why 45.2 miles instead of the estimated 39.8 mile distance? Lets just say that wind, swell, fog, and GPS had a part to play in it. All in all I have to say that the eventual outcome was so much more inspirational, motivational, and all of those other words that end with "ational" than I could have possible imagined! Truly a life changing experience and here is how it went down...
Friday evening, April 5th 2013, we launched our escort boat into Dana Point Harbor only to find out that we had an unexpected dead battery. After an hours delay and a new battery installation, we were ready to go. About 2 hours of daylight left to make it 40 miles to our overnight stay in Avalon. Id like to say the ride over was smooth but I would not be telling the truth. 90 minutes later, countless wind swell launches, one lost and recovered baseball cap, and a rail ding in my 14' Bark sealed with duct tape and we were there! A note for future Avalon travelers, drop your crew off at the dock and THEN moor the boat. At $4.75 a person, the shoreboat shuttle isnt exactly cheap! A little rest and we were ready for business...
Saturday morning, 5:00am. I wanted to hit the water at 6:30ish but soon realized that we just weren't moving that fast. After packing and athletic taping plus a short breakfast break by the crew and we made our way to the shuttle dock only to find that the shuttle starts operation at 8am. Totally unacceptable for THIS motley crew. We quickly commandeered the nearest dinghy tied to the dock and made our way to the escort boat. Our captain's brother and navigator, Brad, decided that an early morning swim to the boat was a better idea and made the proper arrangements! I finned up and dumped my 18'6 Unlimited 404 ocean cruiser over the side, chose an azimuth, and I shipped out. Captain Clay was nice enough to warm up the boat motor, pick up the rest of our crew from the dock, top off fuel, and meet me somewhere around mile 3 or 4. We reconfigured our azimuth, found a heading, and continued on our trip. Time on deck, 7:45am.
The trip went exactly according to the game plan and training schedule for the first 20 miles or so. I changed boards somewhere in there from the 18'6" to the 14" Bark and even traded out my QB Kanaha paddle for my Werner Double Bend Nitro for a few miles. Around the 20th mile I seemed to hit the proverbial "wall". I couldnt figure out why my energy was sapping and took a short, and my only, 5 minute "sit down and pout" break of the trip. After calculating my average calorie rate per mile, somewhere around 140 per mile, I realized that I was simply overfeeding myself to try and compensate for energy burn and in turn starving my limbs of proper blood flow to continue the pace and cadence that I had set for myself (roughly 5-6 mph average). After an on-the-spot fuel intake adjustment, I was back on track and feeling much better. I continued to receive water refills from my crew and supplemented solid foods with mint chocolate GU Energy packets (non caffeinated) and shots of raw honey. Apparently around this time I also told Kimberly, my crew member in charge of text updates, that I was an "animal". Big ups to those of you who received that text and responded with a humorous quip of your own.
Lets fast forward to mile 30. We are on our heading managing a SE approach. I can see Long Beach in the distance over my left shoulder through the patchy fog conditions and ended up getting a pep talk from Brad. He reminded me that although I could see land, I needed to pay attention to our heading and not stray. My mind was telling me stay true...but my body was saying "Land, Ho"! I buckled down and focused on the horizon, the boat, the swell...anything to disassociate for a bit and stay in the game. Another 5 miles and we started to feel like the swell was increasing. After a quick calculation we realized that we were still maintaining our azimuth however we may have gotten blown around a bit. The crew gave me one more supply change and took off at full speed towards the shore to examine the coastline and find our bearing. Turns out we overshot the harbor by roughly a mile and came in a bit shallow on our approach. Captain Clay turned around to get back to me and give me a final heading. Turns out that the fog and swell was playing with all of us. The escort boat miscalculated my position and blew past me by about a mile north and 3 miles west. If you've ever wondered what it sounds and feels like to be all alone on a stick of foam roughly 10 miles from the shore with a wind swell to your back, message me and Ill tell you all about it. I will say that Ive never had a more real moment nor will I ever feel as alive as I did at that time.
So Ive got my escort boat back and we are making the very last of our adjustments in our final approach to Dana Point Harbor. We are still far enough out that I can cover Downtown Long Beach and the San Onofre Nuclear Plant with my thumb. I am verbally estimating 5 miles to go but do not want to get my hopes up because I know that it could really be twice that distance...and it was! Now I dont know if anyone of you has ever set their heart on something only to realize that after that "something" is accomplished, you have to do it all over again for it to count. This is how I felt after 1.) my GPS watch died and 2.) I realized that I still had roughly 10 miles to go. At this point I ate my remaining GU packet, topped off the 6 oz jar of honey and a Starbucks DoubleShot Espresso can (my ONLY performance enhancing drug during this entire process, by the way) and mustered up all the willpower left in my body for the finish. I powered my way past a dolphin pod on an evening hunt, Captain Dave's Dolphin Safari Catamaran (with my friend and SoCal Naturalist, Martee Shabsin, at the bow cheering me on), the American Flag One Mile Buoy, and around the southern tip of the Dana Point Harbor breakwater.
The last mile up that outer channel and on to Baby Beach, aka "the finish line", happened to be the fastest mile of the entire trip! I felt a fire within me that I haven't felt since standing on the top of the Grim Reaper at the finale of the Marine Corps Crucible receiving my Eagle/Globe/Anchor and being hailed as a US Marine for the first time. Only those of you who have been there would understand that one. 100 yards from the shore and I pulled over to the escort boat to congratulate my crew and shake everyone's hand. Amid cheers from the boat and the beach... I paddled another 25 yards, maneuvered a kick turn, bowed to my heros on that boat (Captain Clay Roberts, First Mate Brad Roberts, Kimberly Young, and Lisa Merek "CaliMom") then headed for land. The most painful moment of the trip? Releasing my body from the pseudo-wrestling stance Id held for 10+ hours and stepping onto the shore. A few gentle hugs and an interview from the local Patch Newsletter and the trip was complete! 45.2 miles across the Catalina Channel to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project.
