Thursday March 12

Today SandyBottom is continuing to paddle through the Wilderness Waterway in the Everglades National Park today. She is beginning the day by breaking camp at the Broad River Campsite which is about two miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico.

Cellphone service is almost nonexistant in the Park, but the SPOT satellite messenger system should continue to allow you to follow SandyBottom's minute-to-minute progress almost instantaneously via her SPOT "share with friends" webpage. As soon as feasible, these same data will be bounced to the 'Challenge Mapper' section of the WaterTribe website where the positions of all the SPOTed challengers can be displayed simultaneously to see their positions relative to one another.

Thursday morning SB turned on her SPOT at 7:50 AM at the Broad River Campsite and was paddling toward the Gulf before 8:00 AM.

As of 7:30 PM, SB was paddling down the Joe River towards CP3. She had covered 35 miles since starting out at 7:50 AM. She was 10 miles from CP3.

At that same time (7:30 PM) KW and KB were paddling about an hour ahead of SB. KW and KB had already paddled past the Joe River Chickee and the South Joe River Chickee and seemed to be headed nonstop to CP3.

As of 7:30 PM it was not clear from the SPOT data whether or not SB would be stopping at the South Joe River Chickee. But with less than 10 miles to CP3..........

KB and KW reached CP3 before 10:15 PM.


SB came in to CP3 at about 11:30 PM.

The figure at left shows here GPS track last year. SB is again following the Wilderness Waterway.

SB is now 35 miles from the Finish Line at Key Largo.