Ski 2 Sea {Race}

Another spill in the canoe!

At the end of the 18 mile course Tim paddles to shore, where the mountain bike leg begins.

Adding excitement and danger to the 2011 Ski 2 Sea race, Tim and Josh's canoe flipped.  Shocked by the extremely cold Nooksack River, but able to keep their wits about them, they held on to the canoe and their paddles.  With limited assistance from the rescue units posted at the known danger zone, they were righted, bailed out, and back on the course with a only a 30 minute delay. Losses included one crock and a pair of sunglasses, neither of which was missed as much as the 30 minutes!

Strangely, a heckler with a megaphone was positioned on the shores of the river at the sight of the canoe flip (a predicted hazard along the Nooksack River), and appointed himself the sarcastic narrator for the play by play when canoes overturned. His unkind and not-too-funny comments put an added dose of humiliation upon our shocked and frozen canoeists as they regained their composure before shoving off to complete the race.

Peter, Joseph and our little friend B. await Tim's arrival in the canoe on the shores of the Nooksack River in Ferndale.

Friendly competitors, Alain and Darin bring home their canoe as their mountain biker takes the wristband to begin his leg.

On water so choppy the kayak course was cancelled shortly after her departure, Tanya (#144) reaches the final finish line at Marine Park in Bellingham; completing the final miles of the 100 mile, 7-leg Ski 2 Sea Race.

On his Ski 2 Sea debut, Zachary (16) ran the 8 mile, 2,200 foot drop between the skiing legs and the road biking leg.  Ezra also competed in the run, placing 98th out of 500 runners! His photo here.

Our 2011 Ski to Sea Team:

Mark, Tanya, Tim, Eric, Kristy, Josh, Will and Zac 

The party after the race, hosted by Tim's parents, provided the 8 members of our team with a chance to share their adventures and memories from each leg, and to compare bruises and sore muscles.   Already the talk turned to which leg each person would (and would not) be interested in doing next year, in the 101st Ski to Sea race. 

Team captain Eric gave a nice recap for the team's performance in this year's S2S race:

Well, that was great fun (despite another canoe dunking and a mountain bike course I would consider sadistic) and lucky weather (with the exception of rough winds for the boats). We're nicely in the upper half of teams, 226th of 500 overall and 60th of 157 in the rec open division. We moved that wristband 100 miles in 10 hours, and I say that's pretty good by any standard.

I will second that. 
Great work team!