We're just five days away from the start of the 36th Annual Texas Water Safari, which will have 66 teams of various sizes and classifications sprinting out of Spring Lake at the headwaters of the San Marcos River. The starting procedure is nothing short of one huge adrenaline shot akin to the Oklahoma land rush. Canoes line up seven across and 10 rows deep in the water above the springs. The air is thick with well wishing and sizing up of the competition as the crowd lines the shores all the way down to Rio Vista. As the 9:00 a.m. start time approaches, judges ease the boats into more or less even rows and racers wish they had gone to the restroom just one more time. Some will remember that crucial piece of gear that they forgot and call to the crowd for help. Frantic Team Captains will run around looking for whatever was forgotten and try to throw it to their team as the seconds tick off.

After a few more interminable minutes a Christian prayer will be pronounced over the loudspeaker, asking for safety and good sportsmanship over the next 260 miles. Then, a bit more adjusting in the ever shifting rows? a reminder that there are 30 seconds remaining for the gun? then, 15 seconds? then, BOOM!

Despite all the months of training, years of experience and carefully planned food and gear, the start is always a surprise. Restraint is the word of the moment as racers try to remind themselves that there are 260 miles of paddling and a sprint will only drain precious energy. But, it's impossible to hold back the urge to get to the first portage at the old icehouse first and cross the island ahead of your competition. Sixty-six boats take off en masse, leaving the usually placid water churned to a momentary froth.

Boats jockey for position in order to line up on the best possible portage route across the wooded island next to the falls. Some less experienced teams will end up sideways or backwards, pushed around by the huge wakes generated by the long multi-person canoes. With any luck, the more competitive teams will get free of one another for a clean sprint across the lake. A worst case scenario will have two or three competitive teams banging gunwales and paddles resulting in all of them slowing down to exchange less than pleasant wishes and referrals to each other's less than legitimate ancestry. Eventually, the boats will be separated, but some will carry the tension for years.

After teams stumble and fall while dragging the boats across the poison ivy infested island, they will drop into the river proper and begin the sprint to get the lead position at Thompson's Island. On the way, some will portage around Rio Vista, while others will go for a photo op moment as they shoot the falls. Most boats aren't designed for this type of maneuver and will immediately submerge. The crowd always gets a kick out of seeing whether some boats can stay afloat and it makes for some good slow motion video seeing the boats submarine under the falls.

Some tight turns slow down the sprint, but not the intensity on the way to Thompson's Island, where racers usually take the deeper and shorter left channel and run down River Road to the bridge that crosses the right channel. Whichever boat puts in the river first after this portage will usually hold this lead until the lake formed by Cummins' Dam at the confluence of the San Marcos and Blanco rivers.

Hopefully, by then nerves will begin to settle into the fact that it's going to be a long haul.