Florida is best known for amusement attractions and beaches, but a little known fact is that Florida has an incredible abundance of wildlife. That’s a fact I’m becoming well aware of as we do more adventure racing in Florida’s wilderness.
A few weeks ago, at my second adventure race in Florida, I learned a universal truth about Florida. Holidays in Florida involve the beach or Mickey Mouse and usually a lot of sun but in the wilderness of Florida…there will always be alligators. We heard of its position in the river not long after we capsized in the mangrove swamp. Thankfully I didn’t know about the gator until after we spent ten minutes thrashing about in the ankle deep water and waste deep mud.
Needless to say, we’re slowly getting used to adventure racing in Florida’s wilderness. Florida’s terrain makes for a different kind of adventure race where the topography isn’t the challenge. Dickinson State Park, the home of this race, is known for manatee sightings, alligators, birds, and any number of other animal and plant species. While Florida beaches may be white sand fit for a postcard, the interior of the state is a bit like a beautiful bayou. Flat, grassy and filled with water during the rainy season. More than the topography, the vegetation becomes the main challenge. Sawgrass is indeed sharp!
This race we added a member to our adventure racing team and for the first race ever we were a trio. It turns out being a trio is significantly different than being a duo. Where two were a well-oiled machine, three just couldn’t get the mojo flowing. Perhaps we should have clued our new compadre into adventure racing 101 BEFORE we loaded him and his equipment into the car on the morning of the race.
Oh well.
We never quite reached our sweet spot on this race, even the orienteering, which is usually our strongest point felt inadequate and more than once we looked at the map several times before realizing a “cut through”/ “trail” or creek didn’t go through. So much for bushwhacking it to save time.
The real bummer on this race was bike checkpoint 17. There’s always one that gets you, but checkpoint 17 really threw us for a loop. Instead of cutting our losses and getting out of there, we spent more than an hour looking for it, convinced it was just behind the next bramble bush. We weren’t the only ones, we saw several other teams bumbling around the woods for checkpoint 17, many of whom we assume gave up rather than press on. I guess there should be some honor in pressing on, but there wasn’t. Add to that a critical map reading error and well… it wasn’t our best finish.
Fortunately we were able to take a step back from our lack of mojo and appreciate the race for what it was- a day in the wilderness. (And our worst ever Adventure Race finish…)
IF YOU GO: John Dickinson State Park is located just north of Jupiter, Florida. It’s a great day trip from South Florida – located a bit inland there’s plenty of biking, hiking and canoeing available. Expect to have a day in the quiet and plenty of animal spotting. The park also has a number of horse trails and rentals are available on site. Alligator spotting is free!
Photo Credit: Photo 1 courtesy of flickr user allspice1 via a creative commons license, Photo 2 courtesy of Pangea Adventure Racing
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