Only 11 days until the start of the Everglades Challenge, an expedition style small boat race down the west coast of Florida. The race starts at Ft. Desoto near the mouth of Tampa Bay and ends about 300 miles south at Key Largo. I will the only one to enter the race on a windsurfer, the Expedition Windsurfer®. You can follow the action in real time by logging onto the www.watertribe.com web site, and clicking the link "map" that corresponds to the Everglades Challenge. My tribal name is WindWalker. Post a message to help keep me motivated, my shore team will relay the message to me as I check in.Here are a couple of photos of the Expedition Windsurfer® packed with all the gear I will need for 6-8 days of camping…and then some. I have some adjustments to make before I am comfortable with the set up. I need to reduce weight (as usual I am over packed) and organize the windsurfing gear on the deck to improve paddling performance and comfort, all minor things at this point.
Tomorrow, no make that today, (I cant believe it is this late already) I will be at Ft Desoto to do some sailing and see how the board sails when it is fully packed. I will also par down some of the un-needed gear to lighten the load.
I heard from Gary in Dunedin who also built a board similar to the Expedition Windsurfer® back a few years ago. This is totally cool because when I started this project I thought I would be the only one who found the expedition style exciting and fun, but now I see I am not the only one. I hope to see a few more of us at the start of the Everglades Challenge next year. Or better yet we could just have some fun doing multi-day camping trips around Florida. Who knows!
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