2024 Buffalo Bayou Regatta
The weather was fabulous. The river was high from the recent rains. The friends were all there. Patty Geisinger, Trudi Smith, Bruce Bodson, Everybody. Along with 500 of my favorite boating buddies, all revved up and raring to go on the 2024 Buffalo Bayou Regatta in its traditional route.
You may remember that last year, the Regatta had a different route, starting from downtown, going downstream 4 miles, and then paddling back upstream to the start. It really wasn’t as much fun. This year, we once again started at the San Felipe bridge, just off of Voss, and went the full 15 miles to the Allen’s Landing Park, just past Main Street. Everybody was psyched.
The launch under the bridge was just as steep as I remember it, with several gullies that still held water from the recent rains. By the time I tried to navigate them, they were ankle deep mud, and I managed to slip down in one, and got completely caked with mud down my right side, and acquired a couple inches of mud on my shoes.
Did I mention that 500 of my best paddling buddies were also there? And also trying to get to the river and put their boats in? As a designated “Sweep Boat.” I was appointed to launch just after the first wave of recreational kayaks, but was no where near the river when the second wave of recreational canoes was supposed to start. As I elbowed and slid my way to the water, some of the other paddlers did finally allow me to get to the river and get in. Luckily I did NOT capsize, although several other boats did. Honest, I didn’t have anything to do with that.
Soon after I got situated, and started downriver, the competitive single kayaks heat started, and they went through the assembled crowd of recreational boats like buckshot through a flock of chickens. They weren’t stopping for anybody or anything, and if you didn’t get out of their way, they were entirely capable of going over you. This did cause a couple of other boats to capsize right out of the gate, and I helped steady a boat or two along the way. There were also some motorized boats from TEXSAR putzering around to help out and keep people safe.
I passed Bruce Bodson, who was helping a couple get their boat emptied and back together. And I passed another couple who were emptying their boat and wringing out their clothes. They were complaining that their cell phone and wallet had fallen out when they tumped, and were now on the bottom of the bayou. Ouch. Tie your stuff to your boats, kiddies, and keep your phone in a watertight container that is tied to you.
Some time later, at around mile 3 of the 15 miles of the Regatta, there was an abandoned boat slid up onto the bank, half full of water, but no paddles, or PFDs or people around. It did have a current Regatta competitor’s sticker on it and a boat rental label, though. So it had started out in the Regatta, but the paddlers decided they didn’t like it anymore, probably tipped over, and beached it, and decided to walk to the nearest road and call an Uber. It happens.
This year, the Sweep Boat and TEXSAR crew actually had a fairly good organization, with a central clearing house for people to call in and report incidents and things like abandoned boats and accidents. I called it in, and they said they would take care of it.
There was a Mimosa bar about halfway, which was very popular.
The crowd had thinned out a little, or mostly passed me by, so things got a little boring for a while. A couple of times I’d see a boat that was careening from one side of the river to the other, and the folks in the boat obviously having problems figuring out which end of the paddle to put in the water, so I would ask if they wanted some advice to help them steer better. And I would give paddling lessons – the person in back is the one mostly responsible for steering; if you paddle on one side, it pushes the boat toward the other side; and if you back paddle on one side, it pulls the boat toward that side; Try to keep the boat on top of the water, and the bow heading downstream. Stuff like that. All too soon, we passed the Sabine Street Bridge and entered downtown and knew the Regatta was just about to end.
Some of the helpers at the docks helped me get up out of my boat, and helped carry my boat half way up the hill.
I went over to say HI! to the Club members who were staffing the Houston Canoe Club table, when I noticed the Shuttle bus back to the launch was just about to leave, and ran to catch it.
When I got back to the launch parking lot and my truck, I remembered that, in order to keep my keys dry, I had put them in the dry compartment OF MY BOAT.
Which was still back at the finish.
OOOOPS.
I called Terry to see if she could swing by and bring me the extra set of keys to the truck, and I got to wait 45 minutes for her to get there from Humble. By the time I got back to the take-out, pretty much all of the tents and food and everybody else’s boats were gone. There were only three other boats still there, and folks were working on putting those boats on their cars. The homeless folks who normally live under the Main Street bridge were back and had set up their living areas again. I packed up my boat and went home.