Day One: prologue and paddle

We have completed the first day of the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge.

We started with the blisteringly fast prologue, which is like a
stand-alone sprint race. Bike first and we managed to quick with the
main bunch. After 12km we were in the Palace Grounds and on foot to
run around and down to the Theatre, which juts out. We went there on
Wednesday and saw pimped out cars. The day was anniversary of the
formation of the Emirates 38yrs ago. People had covered their cars in
wash off stickers and spray paint. I took cool photos which I will
post after the race. Very fun.

From the Theatre we swam back to the start to get our kayaks. We took
the swim easy. As Francois admits, he sinks like a stood so we took
turns towing him and it worked out brilliantly. [I just lost the
message I was typing - I was almost done. Retyping now].

From the beach we paddled to Lulu Island and made up some places and
them a short run and back to the finish. We placed 29th. We had an
hour to eat and prep for 30km paddle.

I do get sea sick so I took Valoid earlier. Alex developed it. We
passed loads of teams anyway. Leaving the one and only CP Christo and
I got so much water in our boat (splashies were not yet on) that we
had to turn back to the beach. We figure we checked in in the mid to
late teens and after losing 30mins in total we reached the finish,
overtaking 4 teams on the way, in 26th place.

Alex went through ups and downs on the paddle. Battling nausea. The
sea was rough the whole way and we had the sails completely down. We
paddled against the current and into the wind. His alone sugar had
been good the whole day.

Christo says the triathlon was awesome but that the afternoon was
long. If likes our overnight camp on this little island.

Francois is already asleep. Comments from him tomorrow.

I was very proud of the team today, especially as we are looking so
good on the water.

Tomorrow paddle is longer and there is an optional we have to get to
avoid a 6hr penalty. The shallow water sections are really hard
because of the drag. Looks like a lot of shallow water on the Google
Earth maps. There also seen to be deep channels cut by the crazy
Emiraties. We will aim for these.

Time now for sleep.