[Lonny]

Thanks Todd - I appreciate it! Next time we will both skim it!

Doing the race on my skimboard was an awesome experience. I really wanted to challenge myself and see if it could be done, and push the boundaries of skimboarding. I do 3 hours straight all the time, but it's a totally different ball game being in 4 ft chop 8 miles offshore. Kent had been egging me on to do it for weeks before the race started so the challenge had already been issued!

Since the prevailing wind was 12 - 16 MPH I would normally ride my Cabrinha 12 CB 3, but it was being repaired for a leading edge Matheson love tear. Kent was kind enough to loan me his 10.5 CB 3.

We started the race at approximately 11:40 on a slack tide. I knew that the tide was going to start ripping in hard towards the Key Biscanye cut. If you look on the map it seemed like a reach out and a reach back with the prevailing wind direction, but the map does not take into account the current!

On the way out most everyone passed me, but many of the riders were already below the lay line necessary to make Fowey in one tack. Even though I was underpowered much of the time, I pointed as hard as I could and managed to round Fowey at 12:25 PM in one tack.

As Todd had mentioned, on the way back the wind did lighten up a bit. However, of greater consequence was the tide that was now ripping in hard, which equaled a tough beat back to Crandon. At this point my only concern was making it back to land and not worrying too much about where I was going to come in or losing ground.

I managed to make it into Cape Florida (the tip of Key Biscayne) at around 1:30. I was pretty happy to see the flats after the riding all the chop. To Christophe's credit he pulled the boat up next to me to see if I wanted a ride back, but at that point I would have to had to lose a leg not to try to finish the race.

For the next 1.5 hours I worked hard to get back to Crandon, avoiding going too close to the beach and attract the attention of life guards, but I did not want to go too far out. At approximately 2:55 PM I finally reached the finish line, and it was a great feeling. When I got back to the beach I learned that only 12 people had finished the race, and of course I was the 12th person to finish. LOL!

Overall it was an awesome and adrenaline pumped experience! I look forward to the next race!