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< May/June 2002
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The WaterTribe Challenge: Ultra-Marathon on Steroids by Brandon Nelson

Feel like you’ve got what it takes to pull off an expedition? Got a sailing rig or canoe design you want to test against the best? The WaterTribe Challenge Series might be your chance. "The idea behind each Challenge," says Steve Isaac, better known as "Chief," "is to compress all the physical, mental and emotional challenges of a full-blown expedition into eight days."

Isaac’s brainchild is a trio of unsupported 200- to 400-mile races in and around Florida and the Great Lakes. Open to all forms of kayaks, canoes and small sailing craft, a given event might expose you to storm-ravaged seas, sharks, gators and marathon portages. Then again, you might catch a hot meal at a cozy restaurant, schedule a couple of layover days, or find within yourself a level of endurance you never imagined.

The most recent event, the 370-mile Okefenokee Challenge, began last summer in northeast Florida at Ft. Clinch. After crossing Cumberland Sound to the mouth of the St. Mary’s River, racers faced a 90-mile upstream paddle. The first real test, however, occurred when darkness fell and temperatures plummeted. The resulting theme of the night: overcoming hypothermia. Though he held a substantial lead, K1 racer James "DevoMan" DeVoglaer, having blown off his 5 p.m. "layer-up," was hit hardest. "I couldn’t stop shaking–couldn’t think straight," he says. "I finally stopped to make a fire, but when I got up on the bank, I couldn’t remember what I was doing."

When DeVoglaer woke the next morning, warmed by the blaze he couldn’t remember building, he figured he was out of the race. "But the voice in my head kept screaming, ‘Get in your boat!’" At 8 a.m., having holed up for nearly ten hours, he finally did. By then, however, father and son K-1ers Paul and Tony Short had stolen the lead. Team Short was first onto the Challenge’s crux: a 40-mile portage from St. George to Fargo, Ga. Racers were allowed to

use any muscle-powered means they desired–as long as their equipment traveled with them.

Both expert skaters, the Shorts strapped on inlines and, with stacked kayaks in tow, blazed through the portage in 4 hours 33 minutes. DeVoglaer copied the method, but after twisting his ankle while climbing out of the river, wasn’t nearly as graceful–or fast–as the leaders. "Hours of pain," he says of the haul. "Pain to the bone."

It was Mark "Manitou Cruiser" Przedwojeski and Jonathon "Kopian" Eggerichs of Team Kruger Canoes who set the standard. The duo, paddling a load-swallowing Kruger Sea Winds C-1, hauled mountain bikes and carts through the event. The reward: a pain-free portage record of 3 hours 26 minutes. The Challenge was then back on the water for 220 miles of the alligator-infested Suwannee River. Days before the race’s start, Florida Fish and Game issued a warning on WaterTribe.com: "There have been six gator attacks

(one fatal) in the past two weeks in the Suwannee vicinity."

"Every racer," says Isaac, "reported some form of gator encounter." Though the predators didn’t injure anyone, "they definitely got the adrenaline going," adds Przedwojeski, who was chased off the bank while trying to nap. "About twenty minutes after I dozed off, some gators started tail-slapping right next to me. The safest place was in my boat, so I just kept paddling."

Gators aside, low water in the tannin-blackened Suwannee made for rough, slow going. "There were probably 50 to 75 mini-portages in that stretch," says DeVoglaer, whose feet and hands were by then covered in blisters and duct tape. It was during this leg, however, that he regained the lead over Team Short.

As he neared the Gulf of Mexico, and the final leg, DeVoglaer capsized his kayak on a chunk of limestone. "I was swimming for my life," he says of the 2 a.m. carnage, which resulted in a lost spray skirt and two hours spent wrestling his boat from under a log. When he finally reached the Gulf, it was shrouded in thick fog. "I couldn’t see a thing," he says. "I just stared into my GPS and put the hammer down all the way home."

"DevoMan" claimed victory as he reached the finish line on Cedar Key in 4 days, 13 hours and 33 minutes. After a final 40-hour, 150-mile push, Przedwojeski took second in 6 days, 8 hours and 1 minute. The Challenge’s only other finisher, Dr. George "Sandspur" Stovall, posted a time of 7 days, 20 hours and 55 minutes. "When you start out," says Stovall, "you want to win. But out on the course you realize, just finishing would be a great achievement."

—Ready to join the ‘Tribe? Register for the next Challenge at www.WaterTribe.com.