* The name of Brandon’s boat

It was a good water year for the Safari, and we flew down the top 80 miles in the San Marcos River section in Day 1. Our loads of practice paid off with all the good lines we paddled through all of the rapids and dam portages. I haven’t seen our time splits yet, but I felt our training and hard work really paid off.  

We got cooked, though, in day 2 with the heat and humidity and endless slog from Gonzales to Hochheim, but we REALLY hit a low at River Haven in Day 3 when my partner, Josh Sarkardehi from the Eyes of the San Marcos River, sliced off the tip of a toe when stepping out of the canoe and onto a sunken piece of metal. We did the best Safari surgery we could, though, and I can say it involved super glue and duct tape. It worked out well enough that we were able to get ourselves to the next checkpoint where Josh could then get doctored by our amazing Team Captains.  

We had to stop and clean the wound at every checkpoint from there on out, but we never had to quit! It’s also worth mentioning that we met up with two other boats and formed and a group that paddled together from mile 111 all the way out of the cuts to the Saltwater Barrier. It was a great way to pass time and move quickly and safely through the various hazards we’d encounter at night.  

It was really a beautiful race this year. It’s not always pretty, but when you come up on the majestic cypress trees that line both sides of the river around Cuero or see a dolphin pinwheeling menhaden in the Guadalupe bay, I feel so lucky and fortunate to get to have those experiences. Maybe it’s something with how HARD of a race it is, but the lows just make the highs stellar. Mark Taylor was my Safari mentor and used to say this race changes you. I’m still figuring out what exactly he meant by that because it does, but I think about it a lot. It’s hard, can be quite miserable and is especially long, but I love it. This is my second Safari that we just finished and I’m really looking forward to the next!

Here’s a pic my partner found of us in the top 16 section taking my favorite line of the whole race at Rio Vista falls. You can’t see it in the picture, but we threaded a needle with our boat between two capsized boats on the second and third falls. It was absolutely a mess of boat carnage and floating paddlers, but clearing that in the heaviest and slowest of the racing classes, aluminum, was especially fun.

We finished in 82 hours.

Written by Brandon Smith, SMGA Board Member