The Blackburn Challenge is the longest open-water race on the East Coast, a 20+ mile marathon circumnavigating Cape Ann. And I did it, in my ultra skinny, skin-on-frame kayak that Dave Isbell designed and built for me, which I have since named the Isabella. I have to admit I had my reservations about whether I could even finish the race. I had only done one long open water practice run in the Isabella and I was having problems at the end of the day with the beam waves. With a 14" waterline beam the Isabella is very tippy. So the last two weeks before the race I spent most of my time fine tuning the seat and learning how to roll it. I started out as a whitewater paddler so I have a pretty good C to C roll. I just needed to modify the roll to include a layback finish on the back deck. Monday night, a week before the race, I was still practicing my roll in the Chesapeake Bay. And Wednesday night, the night before I was to drive up to Boston, I was cutting and carving out a new foam seat back to match the seat Huki had built for me.

To say that I was nervous and feeling a little unprepared for the race would be an understatement. I knew that the Blackburn was a serious kayak race and all the best kayak racers and surfski racers on the East Coast would be there. As it turns out this year's Blackburn attracted more than 250 rowers. The racing kayak division had the largest turnout ever with over 45 entries. Even Greg Barton, two time Olympic Gold medal kayaker, entered the race in an Epic 18, finishing first among a sea of longer and supposedly faster surfskis. There were four women in the women's racing kayak division. And I had assigned myself last place even before the race began. But none of that mattered. I just wanted to finish and I was hoping to do the course in under four hours.

I arrived in Boston Thursday night and settled in at my cousin's house in Needham, MA about an hour south of Gloucester. Linda and Seth had graciously offered to let me stay the weekend with them. Friday morning I left Needham around 10 am to drive to Cape Ann and scope out othe course. I drove first to Gloucester High School which is the registration and start of the course. In the parking lot I ran into some of the surfski racers. I was hoping to get some first-hand accounts of the course but all of these racers were first timers for the Blackburn. They did warn me that the worse part of the course was the southern tip of the island, the last seven miles. A few of them were putting in and paddling out to the southern tip but I decided to drive around the island and scope out bailout points along the shore. That may sound a little pessimistic but I had read the warnings about the course. The organizers of the Blackburn are very direct that participants should not enter the race unless they have "solid experience in difficult conditions in the boat plan to use."

So I drove around the island stopping whenever I could see a beach and a clear view of the ocean, making notes on my map as to whether the shoreline was rocky or sandy. Most of the coastline around Cape Ann is rocky and inhospitable to kayaks. My last stop was at Niles Beach, just north of Dog Bar Breakwater, the entrance to Gloucester Harbor. The water looked pretty placid and I was tempted to launch the Isabella into the harbor and check out the last section beyond the breakwater. I'm actually glad that I didn't. Because if Friday's surf swells were anything like the swells we had on Saturday I never would have done the course. It was the last section that was beyond anything I had kayaked before. It was probably better that I went into it blind.

I drove back to Needham that afternoon and met Seth at the house. Seth works from home when he's not at his office at National Geographic in DC. The hydration system still needed some work so Seth helped me move the Isabella off the car and onto the front lawn. I had two hydration bladders and I was still trying to decide which one to use and whether to place it forward of the feet or behind the cockpit. The problem with the area behind the cockbit is that it's very small and crowded. Dave Isbell had installed an electric bilge pump back there. So there was the bilge pump and the waterproof casing for the battery. I wasn't sure I could get the larger hydration bladder stuffed back there as well. Seth listened to me explain all the design and planning of the Isabella then he left me to figure out the hydration system alone.

Once Linda returned home the three of us had a quiet dinner of pasta and chicken and I mapped out my strategy for the race. Seth wanted to know how long it would take since they weren't planning to come to the start. They wanted to time it so they met me at the finish. I told him to expect me four hours after the launch of the racing kayaks which was scheduled for 8:20. As it would turn out I hit the time almost perfectly. Linda and Seth were waiting for me at the beach past the "greasy pole" finish around noon and Seth was saying to LInda, "She said she'd be here by now." And almost as soon as he said it Linda said they caught a glimpse of my kayak in the distance. I was right on time!

Race day started early for me. I was up at 4:30 am and on the road by 5 am. It was about an hour drive to Gloucester. I got to the parking lot a little before 6 and saw Kathy Kenley's van parked at the start. Kathy is another kayak racer I met last year and she had left a message on my cell phone late Friday evening to look for her at the race. I knew she would be asleep in her van so I tapped on the window and saw her roll over on her makeshift bed in the back. I probably got a good seven hours sleep the night before. Kathy was probably lucky if she got five. Some racers are tougher than others.

We helped each other unload our kayaks onto the grassy area at the start. Then around 7 we joined the other racers in the cafeteria for the "captain's meeting." I had been under the impression that there wouldn't be any chase boats for the course but I found out at the meeting that there would be five chase boats. There was also a cell phone to call if we got into trouble. Why they didn't give us a VHF frequency I don't know. Cell phones aren't much use if you're drifting out to sea.

The kayaks are grouped by class and the Isabella is classified as a racing kayak because she has a beam of less than 20". The Isabella is fast but because the frame is flexible it doesn't have the top speed of the kevlar and carbon kayaks. The Isabella is a traditional skin-on-frame kayak, or SOF, and it's construction includes a wood skeletal frame covered by nylon fabric. The construction of the kayak is called "traditional" because it mimics the construction techniques used by the original Inuit kayakers in the 1600's. The main difference is they used seal skin for the cover and not nylon fabric, which had yet to be invented. The design and construction of the Isabella is thoroughly documented in the blog so I won't repeat it all here. I will say that in designing the Isabella we had this particular race in mind. I knew I couldn't do it in the surfski. The Huki S1-A is fast, faster than the Isabella. But it's really unstable and I don't have the skills yet to take it out in open water. So the Isabella was designed as a racing kayak which could be rolled.

The course started in the Annisquam River at the railroad bridge. The first three miles are in the river before you dump out into the Atlantic. My strategy for the race was to get into a good rhythm and stay with it for the course. I had two Garmin GPS units on the front deck. The Garmin 305 was programmed with the GPS coordinates of the course. And the Garmin 301 was set up to show speed and elapsed time. I was aiming for 5 mph overall ... which is slow for racing kayaks. But given the nature of the course and my limited experience in ocean waves and current I thought it was a reasonable goal for a first Blackburn.

For the first three miles I averaged about 5.7 mph. But once I hit the open water I drifted down to my original goal of 5 mph. The sea kayaks had started a few minutes behind me and for the rest of the race I saw the faster men kayak past me one by one. My one consolation was the Dories which had launched almost a full hour before the racing kayaks. Dories are two man fishing boats that were lowered over the side of the schooner when the fishing grounds were reached. And it was a dory that Howard Blackburn was rowing in 1883 when he became lost at sea. So the Dory has special significance to the Blackburn Challenge and despite it's particularly slow speed will always be a staple at the race. But what made the Dories fun for me was it was one boat I would be catching and passing throughout the race. I started to think of them as Pac Dories ... like Pac Man. I would look for the Dory in the distance and aim for it. And there were lots of Dories.

Around mile 10, I passed through the channel between the shore and Straitsmouth Island. This was a designated checkpoint. I waved to the boat moored in the channel and passed through. It was around this time that I started to feel the effects of fatigue and low blood sugar. I knew I hadn't been drinking enough for the first 10 miles of the course and now I was hungry and feeling stupid. I knew I needed more carbs but all my snacks were still in wrappers and the the water was starting to get choppy. To grab a power bar or gel pack meant stopping, if only briefly, and balancing in a tippy kayak while I tore open a snack. Easier said than done. I did get one power snack open and laid out on my spray deck but after a few braces into the surf I lost it all in the ocean. Oh well. I had mixed a stronger than normal mixture of Cytomax in the hydration system. I would need to get my power from that.

The next few miles I remember as variously calm and choppy. The wind was coming from the starboard side and the swells were coming from the port side. Around mile 12 the wind picked up considerably. The sky darkened and I could see storm clouds off in the distance. The wind attacked in squalls. I had to lower the angle of my kayak paddle down to where it was almost parallel to the water to avoid being flipped by the squalls. Around this time I saw the first of the upside kayaks. Some people wouldn't make it past this section. In the distance I saw a pair of kayaks turn around and head for shore. I briefly contemplated my options. The shoreline I had just passed was sandy but the shoreline ahead I knew to be rocky. If I continued on and the storm moved in I would have to surf land on rocks. I continued forward.

Around mile 13, I ran into David Moore, a fellow kayaker out of Annapolis who was running the course in a friend's Thunderbolt. David was in the water beside the racing kayak bailing water out of the cockpit. I slowed down and paddled closer. Over the roar of the wind and the blasting of my IPOD (essential racing gear) I yelled over to him and asked him if he was ok. He said he was fine but he couldn't reenter his kayak. Unfortunately the Isabella is only stable when she's moving and particularly unstable in swells. I paddled towards him and around him but I couldn't risk stopping. Looking back I saw some sea kayaks coming towards us. I knew the stable sea kayaks could do an assisted rescue so I paddled on. Later I passed more sea kayaks heading out to greet the racers from a local kayak club and I sent them back in his direction. And for those who are wondering ... he did finish the race.

As the surfski racers had warned me it was the last seven miles which would be the worst. The wind kept squalling on the beam and the swells seem to grow with each mile. As I came upon Dog Bar Breakwater, which protects the harbor, the swells were at least four feet. I had never been in swells that high. A few times my legs started shaking and my paddle strokes deteriorated into what I call bracing strokes. It's when I'm not really paddling but hitting the water with my paddle. KT Tunstall was playing on the IPOD. I had programmed my music selection to end the race with happy upbeat tunes. It helped calm me down. I also knew that as soon as I passed into the harbor the swells would subside. So I paddled hard to get past Dog Bar.

As I paddled into Gloucester Harbor the swells subsided but the last two miles were straight into the wind. My pace slowed to a terminally slow 3.7 mph. I could barely get the Isabella over 4 mph. I still couldn't see the finish and wasn't sure which way to go. There was a double sea kayak in front so I asked if we were close. They said to head for the white building in front and look for the greasy pole. As I got nearer I saw it ... the greasy pole and the time boat moored at the finish. I scanned the beach for Seth and Linda. I spotted Ivy, their huge Bernese Mountain Dog, before I saw them. As Linda held the dog Seth ran out in the water to stabilize my kayak so I could slide out of the cockpit. I had finished my first Blackburn in four hours and seven minutes. And as we walked up the beach they congratulated me ... for getting there "right on time."

-Susanita