The Everglades Challenge

I love the colors and the names! View large. These were some of the many boats we saw setting up for the Everglades Challenge.

"The Everglades Challenge is an unsupported, expedition style adventure race for kayaks, canoes, and small boats. The distance is roughly 300 nautical miles depending on your course selection. There is a time limit of 8 days or less. Your safety and well being are completely up to you."

This challenge is organized by the Water Tribe -adventurous people doing adventurous things! For Steven and Dave Lucas it is all about the very different and interesting specialized boats - that is why we went down the night before they started to check them out. This challenge takes about a week and I would say it is quite a challenge. Many of the boats are handmade, but not all. My husband Steve and Dave Lucas know some of the participants, like Chuck the Duck from duckworks magazine. There were so many cool boats I made a whole set of photos that you can view here if you are interested. One of my favorite photos I took is a mascot on one of the boat's shroud of a little bear with a life preserver. It just made me laugh!

You can track the boats progress here, live. The boats left St. Petersburg, Florida on March 2 at 7 am and most some are traveling approximately 300 miles to Key Largo, FL. The map will show you their track via SPOT gps. They have 8 days to accomplish this. Some of the boats are doing the Ultra marathon, which left at the same time but is concluded at 67 miles. Even that seems daunting to me! Hope you enjoy.


If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
~ Seneca