Pass Picada to Spanish River

Saturday, March 18, 2006 brint.adams@us.army.mil

Roland and I wanted a two hour paddle workout and decided to try a course along the Causeway and up into Delvan Bay. We met at Riverdocs at 2:30 PM hoping the wind would die down a little. The wind started to pick up to about 15 knots from the north under cloudy skies, 68 degrees, a full pool with the tide just past high and starting to fall.

Roland decided to use his plastic boat and dropped behind early. I picked up the pace and decided to go for six miles out, no matter what the time was. The chop wasn't too bad until we passed the Tensaw River and turned north up into Delvan Bay. We were heading straight into the wind and a falling current, which killed our pace. On the way out, my splits were 10:03, 10:09, 10:31, 11:22, 10:55 and 11:10 for a six mile split of 1:04:13.

When I turned, I couldn't see Roland and figured he came up about five miles before turning around. On the way back, with the wind to my back, I surfed all the way back down Delvan to the Interstate bridges. My return splits were 9:02, 9:10, 9:14, 9:41, 9:53 and 10:51 for a six mile split of 57:51 and a total twelve mile time of 2:02:05. We both felt pretty good afterwards and ready for the next Mississippi race, the BluzCruz in Vicksburg, MS next month.