Falls Lake Marathon

Sunday was the 2nd annual Falls Lake Marathon paddle. It's not a race or an advertised event. It's a distance challenge made up by the local paddlers around here, all about fun, friends, and paddling. I wasn't able to paddle the inaugural event last year so was pleased I could make it this year. Last year they had 8 finishers, this year there were 5 of us, only 3 who had time for the entire distance (25.5 miles).

And it took some time. We didn't get on the water till after 10 having to wait for the gate to be unlocked then shuttle cars. We took 3 fairly long breaks from the mild but continual headwinds, including a nice picnic.

Then once we hit the Eno River, we had a bit of trouble finding our way. It's not an easy place to navigate normally, lots of winding channels, but with the water levels so high after Tropical Storm Hannah last week, there were no discernible channels. We ended up missing an important turn, and then every thing looked like our next left turn. We paddled right into a swamp, even while consulting our multiple maps and GPS. Dave described it as "this way, that way, not the right way". We finally retraced our path and paddled up to a small fishing boat figuring we'd follow them in. They were lost too, had run out of gas, and were waiting on a relative to find them. We turned around, went the wrong way again, retraced a bit further and finally found the right channel and our way to the take out.

We finally finished just at 7:30, the sun had just gone down, the full moon was already out, but there was lots of twilight left to pack up.

As usual, it was another great day on the water.