Canoe Orienteering set-up. Transquaking River Marsh Loop – 3/14/04

OC2 – Tom Wilhelm, Brian Sill

OC1 – Dave Maneval, Dave Hone, Frank Weichold, Don, Mike McCrea

The Canoe Orienteering course is set up and ready to go and the
long-range forecast for this coming weekend look good as well.

Those you who have participated in the Canoe O in years past will be
happy to know that this year's course lay out was performed at low
tide, so you should have no trouble disembarking for markers requiring
a landbourne route. Add to that a steady headwind that blew strong
throughout the set-up portion of the day and it added up to the usual
long, tiring day of course design deviosity.

With the low tide and breezy conditions it took seven guys seven hours
to set out 50+ markers. Actually, to clarify, it took the team that
set up the western leg (Dave, Dave, Frank & Mike) six hours to paddle
their assigned half of the marsh loop, disembarking to set out
markers, take compass headings and measurements and marking the topo
map. Heading back once the course lay out complete that daylong
headwind turned into a delightful tailwind and the western leg band of
brothers surfed their way home in a record 53 minutes.

I say it every year once the course is laid, but this year's course
should be the best ever. Every year we learn a little more about
designing a challenging course, ever year we devise new tricks and
traps, every year we grow more devious, more strategic, more artfully
cunning, more unscrupulous. CWDH would say this is a metaphor for my
life as a whole, but then his moral compass is off by twenty-some
degrees anyway.

Note from the Western Leg Crew:

The western side of the course this year features an international
design flavor, with Aussie Dave, German Frank and Floridian Dave in
attendance. The very first disembarkation showed that just a few years
living in Florida was enough for Dave to forget the deep treachery of
the Transquaking's pluff mud. Dave beached his boat, stepped out
nonchalantly and instantly plunged into 47" of pluff mud. Fortunately
his chest waders were 4' high, but it was a near thing, a matter of
inches. Dave may have won the Silent Otter Canoe O a few months ago,
but this is Duckhead territory. Watch your step boy!

I'll offer a couple of hints about the design of the western leg: the
main slough off the river into the Thorofare Marsh is rich in points.
Rich enough that a winner or two may be crowned with the bounty from
that slough alone – 11 markers worth a total of twenty points. It'll
be interesting to see how the challenger's strategies pan out in the
narrow confines of that slough, with multiple side channels, splits
and bifurcations.

And, having expended all our energies early in the day, the markers on
the south slough, though fewer in number (5 for 13 points) should
prove easier to capture. By the time we had reached that end of the
day's set up I was slaphappy tired and was having enough trouble
remembering to record all of the data (artifact #, point value,
compass heading, distance, hints and clues) much less undertake a long
slog through the marsh.

Riding the wind and wave back to the cars was a fine and fitting
conclusion to a hard days work, and having my International House of
Duckheads buddies along to lend a hand, and a twisted mind, to the
course design was finer still. Thanks to all.