Lake Samish Race 2007

The boat races seem to be bunched pretty closely together at this time of year, with every race director trying to get one in before wintry weather makes it unpleasant to be out on the water.



Merely one week after the Paddle the Shores event I drove to Bellingham, WA to participate in the Sound Rowers Lake Samish Salmon Roe. The skies were thick with gray clouds. The temperature was around 50 degrees and the forecast was for showers.

Hopefully the rain would hold off until after the race!


I arrived at Lutherwood Park at the north end of Lake Samish at about 8:30 AM. There were numerous people dressed in bright orange safety gear directing traffic to and from the boat staging areas and parking areas. It all seemed vaguely familiar when it hit me. The people running this event also run the Mt. Baker Ski Resort, and they were using the same sorts of techniques to squeeze people, cars and boats into small spaces as they did on the mountain to handle people, cars and skis.

All in all it went very smoothly.

I dropped off my boat, rolled it onto an out of the way spot on a nearby dock, and returned to park my car in a distant parking area.



Upon returning to the registration area I went to collect my pre-registration packet. These guys were so efficient it was scary - except they somehow lost my online pre-registration.

Oh, well.

Filling out the form on race day only meant that they did not have my T-shirt size available. I had to settle for a large and hope for the best when I washed it later. There was no additional cost for day of event registration.



By the time of the pre-race meeting the place was filled with boats and people. There were 108 boats entered, ranging from plastic kayaks to carbon fiber rowing shells and carrying from one to six people. Racers ranged in age from perhaps 10 years to late 70's. This surely was going to be the biggest Sound Rowers race of the year!

The course was to be the same as in the previous couple of years. It starts just beyond the bridge in the main section of the lake, heads southward to a buoy, heads along the eastern shore to another buoy, returns under the bridge to the far northern shore and finishes shortly after making a turn at the last buoy. The total distance is about 5.5 miles.



As the Sound Rowers club photographer I decided to repeat my slightly longer version of the race. This meant that some time before reaching the first buoy I would instead cross the lake to the eastern shore and follow the course backward around the first turn buoy until I passed the last boat in the race. At that time I would then cross the lake to the buoy on the eastern shore and continue along the course as normal.

This would add anywhere between 0.25 and 0.5 miles and 2 to 5 minutes to the length of my race, but I feel that is a small sacrifice for the far greater number of photo opportunities it presented.





After the pre-race meeting completed I went back to the dock. After swapping my pants and shoes for woolen leg warmers and sandals, sealing the camera in its waterproof bag, launching the Cadence and stowing the wheels in the rushes along the shore, I got under way. There was not a lot of time between the end of the meeting and when the race was supposed to start, and the starting line was about a mile distant.




All in all the trip to the starting line served as a nice warm up. The Cadence was working pretty smoothly and my body was starting to warm up enough that I decided to stow my nylon jacket. The insulation of the PFD and the two long sleeved nylon/synthetic shirts quite adequate in keeping me warm.

When I reached the starting line the 5 minute warning was given. Great! Now I could wander about and take some starting line shots.







There were so many boats here that the organizers suggested that if you were a slower racer that it was preferred that you start in a row behind the faster boats. Even so, the starting line stretched across the lake.



At long last the starting signal was given. We were off!

There was quite a bit of mayhem, with paddles and oars splashing, some minor collisions, and folks trying to make their way down the course.

A surf skier next to me splashed me a couple of times, dousing the camera bag with spray. I extracted a cloth from a pocket in my PFD and attempted to dry the optical port on the camera bag, all while pedaling madly and trying to steer a straight course. Sheesh!





I didn't bother trying to draft anyone. The faster guys were already fairly far ahead and I was able to keep pace with the boats around me. These guys were trying to find their way around each other, positioning behind one or another or trying to catch other boats just ahead. For me it seemed to be a better strategy to just snap photos every so often and keep on moving.



After passing a safety boat that was sitting in the middle of the course towards the first turn buoy it looked like it was time to cross the lake to meet the first racers. I snapped a parting shot of a fast six person dugout canoe with which I had been keeping pace and headed off at an angle. Hopefully no one was drafting me as they would be going the wrong way!


The timing was almost perfect. Just as I reached the far side of the lake the first boat, a two man shell, crossed just ahead of me. I think they were surprised to see me, but they just kept on rowing.





The same couldn't be said about a few of the next boats. I did my best to give them room and yet still be close enough to shoot them. For the most part this seemed to work pretty well.










A little while later I reached the first turn buoy. There were racers still coming towards it as far as the eye could see.

Unfortunately, however, the camera couldn't quite keep up writing photos to the flash memory as fast as shots were taken. It was not as bad as in previous years as I was now acquainted with the problem and tried to space the shooting accordingly. There were still a few times I ended up having to wait, missing some excellent photo ops while doing so.


A minute or two later I encountered Todd in his yellow and white carbon fiber Cadence. He seemed to be doing pretty well and was pedaling pretty strongly. Go Todd!



There were a lot more kayaks, surf skis and even rowing shells still coming. I was starting to wonder how I would be backtracking in order to take everyone's photo!


Eventually the last two boats appeared. One was the four man high kneel canoe paddled by a bunch of young kids from the Cascade Canoe & Kayak center in Seattle, accompanied by their coach in a kayak. These intrepid young paddlers seemed to be a little unsteady at times, but they kept on going. Hurray for them!



I made a bee line across the lake towards the second turn buoy. The GPS was indicating a speed of about 7 mph, and the wind was mostly to the side.



There was a large group of boats just finishing making turn past the buoy when I arrived. The group included a couple of OC-1's, an OC-2, several kayaks, a couple of surf skis and a rowing shell or two, with about twelve boats total. Aha! Targets!



This stretch pedaling back towards the bridge was not quite as easy as I thought it was going to be. The wind driven waves were just big enough to jostle the boat so that the camera wouldn't sit still on the deck behind me. The camera would flop over to one side and yank on my neck in that direction, or flop to the other side and yank in the other direction. Flopping either way also interfered with my balance against the wave action. If the camera was on my chest it would interfere with my heavy breathing. There was just no comfortable place to put it!



I ended up doing some zig zagging so that the boat was either parallel to or perpendicular to the wave direction. This worked OK, but prevented me from making headway and catching up to the other boats.


Getting closer to the bridge the waves decreased in size. I was able to put on some speed and caught up to the tail end of the group.


At the bridge I passed a couple of kayaks, one of whom asked if I was going to catch the OC-1's. I told him "Maybe, but not likely" - and then put the pedal to the metal. He tried to stay on my tail but was having some difficulty in drafting.

I was pretty much at my aerobic limit, having been pushing pretty strongly throughout the race. Still, this was almost at the finish line and there were maybe nine boats just ahead. If I could hang on just a bit longer it would make a big difference in the standings.

Towards the finish I normally snap a lot of photos, but this time I decided to race. After one last sip of water I grabbed both steering handles to brace myself and poured it on. Trying to pedal in circles as best as I could and as fast as I could, the distance between the blue and white OC-1 paddled by Rocky grew smaller. We rounded the final turn buoy, and the finish line was less than 200 feet away.

I was right on Rocky's stern as he paddled as hard as he could. With all the strength I could muster the bow of the Cadence crept forward, now even with the cockpit of the OC-1, now even with the bow and, just as the horn for the finish sounded, about a foot ahead of the OC-1. Hurray!



Rocky asked "Were you trying to catch me at the finish? 'cause I was trying my best to keep ahead of you!"

I confessed and said that yes, I was indeed trying to beat him.





After a bit of a rest and some photography I tied up at the dock and retrieved the outriggers for the boat. Terri, the wife of one of the surf skiers, had wanted to try out the boat with outriggers and this was her chance.

A few other folks tried their hand at pedaling Todd's boat as well as mine, and were generally pretty impressed with how easy they were to handle and to propel.

Last call was being made for the BBQ salmon lunch, so we took the boats from the water and headed over to the picnic area.


There was still a line for getting food, but it wasn't long before I had a steaming plate of salmon, mashed potatoes and coleslaw. It was very tasty!



I walked around the tables while eating, talking to folks and snapping more photos.


Eventually I found the table full of door prizes. These were contributed by a number of firms in the Bellingham area, and also included season lift passes to the Mt. Baker Ski Resort.


It was a while before the drawings for the prizes were made. As usual I didn't win anything.

It was still longer before the ribbons were awarded for the race. The fastest finish was by two guys in a rowing shell, with a time of 36:17. They were cooking!

Awards were given out to everyone but the three pedal boats, as we seemed to have been forgotten. This was brought to their attention immediately, and I received a first place ribbon with a time of 52:42. Not too bad for pedaling an extra quarter mile and shooting photos!

Todd received a second place ribbon with a time of 1:01:34. Todd's wife Lucia finished first in the women's pedal boat class with a time of 1:02:43. Way to go!

Thank you, Amy, Duncan and Peter for putting on such a great event!



The rest of the shots taken can be found here.