NYCkayaker Back to the Chase, i.e. the race

[ralph diaz]

MIMS is a great event.  It is mainly for the swimmers. But the kayakers,
being in close and in the water and muscling through, share the experience
in a very personal way that cannot be matched by anyone else.

As I mentioned, I never escorted MIMS but was there at the Downtown
Boathouse starting a few days before helping paddlers get their boats into
slots in the building, talking over likely conditions, going out for a bite
to eat, etc.  In the pre-dawn of race day, I would help open up the place,
pass out juice and donuts, kibbutz the folding kayakers as they were
assembling their boats, assist in getting kayaks down to the water, and
finally wave the last kayaker off.

Then the boathouse would draw quiet and I would just sit looking out at the
water with a cup of coffee as the sun started coming up.  At that moment and
throughout the day, the feeling was like in WW II movies when ground crews
waited for the return of the Spitfires or B-17s.  You knew something was
going on out there on the water but would have to wait to hear the details.
As the race drew close, sometimes the marine radio would crackle but the
sounds were largely unclear talk among the escort motor craft.

Then, you would make the first sighting, the unmistakeable pairing of slow
moving motorboat, a flash of paddle at its flank; only with binoculars could
you see the rhythmic splash of the swimmer's stroke.  Then another similar
pairing would appear and another.  In some races that turned out close
several pairings meshed.

In a while, someone would bike up from the finish line with race results.
Then, a motorboat would pull into the Boathouse embayment with one or
several kayaks awkwardly sitting on its rear quarter.  Kayaks and kayakers
would be dropped off.  Then the war stories, well earned ones, would start
to be told in elation.  I never tired of hearing these, even though year
after year they were familiar.  And, even though, over time, I knew that the
size of the wakes, the turbulence of the seas and the element of the danger
would grow in direct proportion to how long it was since the race. :-)

MIMS was and remains a glorious day for the kayaking community and the good
it can accomplish in helping others achieve their goals.  Sure, it has its
shortcomings and plans do go astray at times.  But stop to reflect a moment
about the Big Picture, then the glitches and setbacks become just an
interesting sidebar to the memory.

ralph diaz