Locator: 51828TX.
For more on open ocean paddleboarding see this link. Link: https://share.google/aimode/RppBQQuU2af7eorL0.
Our adult daughter, Kiri, 40+ years old, is in a standup paddleboard race off Stewart Beach, Galveston, TX.
To say the least, it looks very, very daunting, even doing this will friends. Going out against the tide must be incredibly difficult, but perhaps easier when coming in with the tide.
YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb4-JngmLhU.
The course is one-mile long. They kayak or paddleboard out to the buoy one-half mile off the coast, come around and back to the start/finish buoy along the shore, for a one-mile lap. Racers choose the distance they want. This is Kiri's first time on the open ocean so she is racing a short race, only three miles. Her experienced friend is racing five miles. I didn't ask the expected time, but based on first one-mile lap, this looks like an hour per mile. [I was way wrong. About 20 minutes per mile but switched from standup to prone after first half mile.]
The granddaddy of US river/lake racing is the Chattajack in / near Nashville, TN -- a 31-mile race on the Tennessee River Gorge -- start-point Chattanooga, TN, -- which Kiri has done for the past four years (?). On the fifth completed race, they earn a huge belt buckle which she should earn this year.
The race start: I missed it. I was moving the car so it wouldn't get towed!! The race started about 11:15 a.m.
11:43 a.m.: all racers have completed the first half-mile, circled the buoy and coming back to the start/finish line. Some of the male kayakers have rounded the start/finish buoy (one mile), the women kayakers are now starting to round the one-mile buoy, and the SUPers (standup paddleboarders) are not yet in sight. [Again, timing is way wrong. Moving at one mile every 20 minutes or so.]
12:03 p.m.: many kayakers are rounding the start/finish line -- can't tell if this is their first mile or second mile. [It turned out to be their three-mile turn.] I don't think I've seen any SUPers completing the first lap yet. Some kayakers are coming with good strength --- so at least one mile, maybe two miles. [Way wrong; three mikes and five miles.]
12:05 p.m.: many folks still on the water. But many have finished.
