Adventure Ride in the Green Swamp

Exploring on adventure bikes with WaterTriber Bill Fite aka Jarhead around the Withlacoochee River.

A leisurely paddle on the Withlacoochee River in central Florida with friends.

2017 Everglades Challenge - Check Point 1

This is the delayed start of the 2017 Everglades Challenge. I worked as Check Point 1 Co-Captain and helped with the delayed launch.

Chasing Bubbles

Great movie about a man who wanted to see the world by sailboat. Well worth watching.

2016 Ultimate Florida – Post Race Reporting

A little over a week ago I finished the WaterTribe 2016 Ultimate Florida Challenge. It was the trip of a lifetime for someone with a family and a corporate career. To drop everything for 30 days in today’s fast paced society was not a trivial thing to do. I was very fortunate to have a supportive job and wife who not only let me go but took care of all the responsibilities that were still there while I was chasing a personal goal.

There are a lot of things to write up and share from the trip. As I write this I think I am going to write and publish one item at a time. Possibly following an outline that will loosely create a books worth of information. My emphasis will be to help future challengers and adventurers assemble information that is helpful for them.

So with that. Here is a first post. Thank you in advance for taking the time out of your busy life to read my stuff. I hope you find it helpful and/or inspiring. I always like to hear feedback and stories about others adventures. Especially ones where you have incorporated something I might have said or written. Safe Travels!

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The Facebook Blog……..

During the 2016 WaterTribe Ultimate Florida Challenge I posted almost daily updates on Facebook. I did this on what they call a “fan page” which means its publicly accessible and I don’t have to be Facebook friends with everyone. I found it a great way to keep trips organized and in segmented from the rest of the fast paced Facebook world. I was very impressed with how fast video uploads took on Facebook. As long as I had some mobile connectivity I could always get an update published.

To see my daily posts and get a feel of what my trip was like you can check it out here:

https://www.facebook.com/MicroTom-2016-Ultimate-Florida-Challenge-1333007946725339/

Stove Kit

Part of doing a WaterTribe Challenge is making your gear organized, efficient and as light as you feel is needed. The importance of this varies for me but doing it some of the time keeps the total weight of my gear down. I just happened to stumble into creating this cooking kit a week or two before the race and it served me very well. I can’t take credit for all of it. Some came from other adults in my son’s Boy Scout troop. The stove came from my fishing and camping buddy Scott. I stumbled into making it all fit together.

Here is the gear list:

– Condor H2O Pouch (No bladder or water container)
– Stanley Adventure Camp Cook Set 24oz Stainless – Steel (Only the stainless steel pot is used)
– MSR PocketRocket Stove
– Large fuel container for stove.
– A stainless steel or titanium spoon.
– An Altoids tin container
– Lighter
– Tinfoil
– Paper Towel (Wrap up stove inside pot to keep it from banging around and to use for wipe downs)
– Hot Sauce

It was very convenient to keep this kit accessible during the trip. There were occasions where I needed to cook on the go or cook without unloading the boat. For example. SandyBottom and I got stuck on a shoal when the tide went out near Highland Beach in Everglades National Park. We used that time to cook. My stove was easily accessed and we ate hot meals while we waited 3 hours for the tide to come back in. Comeing up the St. Mary’s River I needed to put in several hours of night time paddling before stopping. I stopped for 10 minutes to break out the stove and boil water. Then went back to paddling while my meal re-hydrated. An organized and quickly accessible stove kit makes
this possible.


Pictures of the kit:

Measurements on the pot are very helpful

Action shot on the St. Mary’s River. Its important to note when you are doing long distance adventure races you will start feeling tired. A lot of times this isn’t a signal that you need sleep or rest. Its a signal that you need fuel. Once you learn that you will be able to travel further and faster.

Other notes:

– I like a single piece metal spoon with a long handle. A metal spoon is easier for me to clean. I can also hold it over the flame to disinfect it if I don’t think my previous cleaning was enough. A long handle makes eating from freeze dried food back much easier.

– The “large”: fuel containers lasted almost 3 weeks during my trip. Usage was a little less than once a day due to stops at restaurants on the water from time to time.

– The MSR Pocket Rocket stove and Stanley pot is not as efficient as a Jet Boil. It seemed to take almost twice as long to heat up water but I still like how everything goes together and will continue to use this kit. 3 1/2 minutes vs 7 minutes was not an issue for me.

New Project Boat – MX-Ray

This is not a very WaterTribe oriented updated but its small boat sailing and its starting off with some boat repairs. Everyone can learn something from others repair jobs so I figured I would share.
So over the summer I have somehow gone on a small boat buying spree. First it was a great deal on a recreational version of a Laser 2. When I brough it out to my local sailing club I immediately hooked up with another Laser 2 sailer and got the opportunity to upgrade to full racing version of the Laser 2. Then a week later a MX-Ray was posted on Craigslist for $200. I had been looking for an asymetrical spinnaker for the first Laser 2 for a while. There are no used ones available. Its about $800 to buy a new one from a similar sized boat which was just a little less than I had in the whole rig so I kept looking around. Thats how I found the MX-Ray. I wanted a used kite but this one had a full boat attached and it was $200. Yep, to cheap to pass up. Turns out the only thing wrong with it was a cracked mast where it joined the two sections. Not bad at all.


Here is a picture of another MX-Ray on the water for reference.

Here is the cheesy original marketing video showing how fun and fast the boat can be.

The boat has some fans who apprecite it for its speed and fun factor but gennerally serious racers are pretty harsh on the boat for its overall sailing abilities. It was the very first single handed sailboat with an asymetrical spinnaker. That was a radical concept and ahead of its time. Others soon copied and improved on the idea like the RS-100 and Musto Skiff. I am expecting it to be a challenging boat to sail and hope it performs well enough to be enjoyable so I will hold my opinion on the MX-Ray until I get it out on the water a few times.

This is my mast.

Here is the damage I am dealing with. Several splits where the two piece masts joins together. This is the base section.

My plan is to add an additional internal ferrule while repairing and extending the length of the original one. Here is a pic showing how that would work. I will make the ferrule out of carbon fiber and place it where I have the PVC.

The lower section of the mast already has additional carbon wraps where the boom attaches. I am planning to use a carbon sleeve to strengthen it where the mast is damaged.

Here is what I found that was somewhat applicable to my mast repair. Neither of them deal with fixing the joint on a two piece mast so I will be doing many things different.

These are my outstanding items.

1. Still need to come up with a plan to build the additional ferrule.
2. What is the right way to sand down the existing mast where its damaged and reinforce that section.
3. How thick can I make the lower section reinfocement without it getting to bulky.


Going to get to work soon!