The start of the last leg of the race is perfect. Laurel is still sick as a dog but she manages once again to keep us upright on the start. We have the best start of the race and end up at the front of the pack for the first time. I see the Belizian women to our right and then focus on the smooth water ahead. All we need to do is paddle. Like Jacinta says.. it is just another Saturday practice with Art.
This turns out to be the hardest day of all. I am definitely dehydrated. Laurel is obviously sick and doing the best she can keeping it together. Jacinta is doing a great job keeping us motivated and focused. I think we are doing well, paddling strong despite our difficulties until Jacinta informs us that the Belizians are ahead of us. I can't believe it! How did they get up there. We had such a great start and I saw them to the right of us... I am in disbelief but as long as I have known Jacinta she has always been right about everything. I do not have my glasses on so everything ahead of me looks like a blur. We take her word for it and start paddling like we did the days before... knocking boats down one at a time.
I set my sights on what I think is the Belizian crew. We catch up to one pack and I realize it is not them. I ask back which one is the girls. Jacinta says she can't see them anymore and my heart sinks... How did they get that far in front of us. Now the race strategy changes. Instead of going steady and maintaining our lead we need to sprint to secure our time. There is no way we can catch up to them now so we need to make up time.
The weather is in our favor as it begins to downpour. The rain is so heavy that Laurel needs to keep bailing to keep us steady and afloat. Every time she stops to steer or bail the paddling becomes grueling. My neck is worse than ever. We are facing a head wind and we can't seem to catch up to the Belizian women no matter how hard we paddle. In the middle of the downpour see a crowd of spectators on far right of the river. We are struggling but in the distance I hear "IMUA".. I know Andre is there. In fact I know where Andre has been because every now and then we hear - "that's the Hawaiian" from the shoreline.
We start getting our groove back and begin gaining on more canoes. At this point we are paddling with the same group of paddlers as we did the previous days - teams like Grumpy Old Men, Junkanu, the guys in the black shirts.. they are our friends. They start in front of us, we catch up, and then pass them somewhere during the race. The same thing happens on the last day. Again we think we are doing OK though we are concerned at how well the Belizians are doing. I see 2 crocodiles off to the left and remember that this is croc country. Their tail whips create big splashes in the river. We stay to the right and follow the path of the other canoes in hope that we don't accidentally hit a "live" log.
We get closer to civilization which is a good sign. Belize city is close. We have about an hour left in the race and we are feeling pretty good despite the circumstances. I have learned to call out obstructions better... like log to the left... branch straight ahead... canoe down. We approach a dock area that has no wake buoys sticking out of the water. They are bright orange. I call them out ahead of time and Laurel acknowledges that she sees them. We clear one but then make a straight line towards the second. I yell "buoy straight ahead" and again she says that she sees it. In an outrigger you would simply kahi if something was in your way. In the Maaga Ting you don't move unless your steersman tells you to. As we approach the buoy it becomes clear that Laurel does not see the buoy straight ahed and I quickly kahi to the right and have time to push the buoy the my left hand. Then Newton's law takes over and the buoy comes back to whack the back of the canoe... and then... slowly...we huli again. This time we have a crowd to watch us flounder in the water. My heart sinks again because now we are not only behind the women but are floating in the water and losing precious minutes as the pack we passed an hour before floats by us (again).
The rescue boat appears in no time and gets us upright much quicker than before. We ask how much longer we have and they inform us we have 15 minutes until the channel. By our calculations the finish is an hour away... 15 minutes to the channel, 30 minutes in the channel, and 15 minutes to the bridge. We can do anything for an hour and now we have to sprint.
Since we lost our positioning we are once again behind the Grumpy Old Men and Junkanu and the guys in the black jerseys. We manage to catch up to them but not pass them as we enter the stinky swampy channel. There is no passing in the channel as it is just wide enough for our canoes to glide through. There is also no bailing (huli) in the channel because it is gross and lined with crocodiles. We are lucky that we are behind the men. We ride their wake for a half hour and basically get a rest before the final sprint home. One canoe has hulied in the channel. We hear loud crackling on the banks which can only mean grumpy crocs.
The channel widens and we are finally out of the muck. We begin our sprint as we have 15 minutes to go... We can do anything for 15 minutes. We take off and our friendly group of men cheer us on. We pass 3 canoes and chase down one more to the bridge. We are sprinting - just like the end of Molokai. We cross the bridge and I look for the women's canoe. I can't find them. Another paddler, Connie of team Bel-Can holds up her hands and waives a number to us. I cannot see if it is one or two... until we get closer. Then she clearly tells us that we won.... In fact the women were behind us the whole time!!! Jacinta was wrong.. VERY wrong. I am not sure wether to hug her or squeeze her neck. Andre tells us that we were about 8 minutes ahead of them AFTER the huli. Jacinta smiles and says "well, at least we finished sooner, it just hurts longer if you paddle slower". It is a paddling truism and even though she is right I can't help but think we could have done without the added torture.
Anyway, we survive but more importantly we are all still friends. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Laurel and Jacinta. I am honored they asked me to join them on this once in a lifetime adventure. They knew all along we could do it... more importantly that I could do it. As the clear rookie at adventure racing I learned a lot about myself and what a true team effort is. Our support crew (Kim, Andre, Joan Jennifer), our advisors (Bob an friends), our sponsors (Merrell, Da Life, Mion, Kaenon, Chaa Creek, Bear Mountain, Koop Geotechnical Services), and our well wishers all made this happen. Laurel's dream came true and thanks to her planning and determination we all had an adventure of a lifetime. I am not sure if I will do anything like this again but it is something I will treasure forever....
Mahalo,
Marleny
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