It is billed as the toughest expedition-style small boat race in the world. The Ultimate Florida Challenge is an all-out circumnavigation of the state of Florida open to canoes, sailboats, and sea kayaks. Twelve hundred miles of adrenaline and dread.
It is a race so tough that so far it has only been staged once. That was March 2006, when ten intrepid mariners pushed off a beach near the entrance to Tampa Bay and began a round-the-clock struggle to make it back to that same beach -- alive.
To finish within the Florida Challenge’s 30-day deadline, the racers must paddle or sail, day and night, through storms and blazing sun, in boats not much bigger than coffins. At one point in north Florida they will run out of water. That’s when the real fun begins. The race rules require that they carry a cart in the boat and that they use the cart to pull the boat behind them across 40-miles of dry land between the St. Marys River to the Suwannee River.
This is the true story of one of those 10 challengers. His race name is Sharkchow. He is a 50-year-old divorced dad who enters a crazy race around Florida in a sea kayak not knowing if he can make it all the way around, or even halfway. But out there, alone on the water, something amazing happens. He comes to rely not on the strength in his shoulders or his will to win, but on intuition and thoughts of a woman.
I am Sharkchow. This is my story.
