CP5 - We took the south river split which was very clogged (we heard the North split was better). We dropped boats and trekked to the CP with Nature Calls, and also had trouble finding boats on return trip. The total trek distance was about 300 meters out and 300 meters back.
CP7, 8, 9 - A lot of teams had trouble here. We found 7 easily and then just tracked the curves of the river to CP8. We doubled back past CP7 and found CP9 with no issues. The trick on CP9 was to keep close track of the distance - the curves on the map were a lot more subtle than the actual river. There were multiple channels at the split - the largest went east and north and that was the correct one. There was also (unmapped) a channel continuing east and a second channel heading south.
CP19 was tricky, the actual road curved east. This is a little difficult to see because the CP mark on the map is just above the curve. After a couple of odd attempts we found the old mapped logging road, totally overgrown. Once we found that road we took it to the marsh - and after after finding the marsh it no problem. (time spend search - 23 min)
CP14 took us the longest time. The unmapped cross trail gave us trouble (I marked it in yellow and you can see it in the areal map). Our original track was from the south along the dark red mapped trails. We ended up at the correct location - but did not find the control. While looking for it the first time I started down what looked like a path that was blocked by trees - so turned back. After trying out a bunch of different trails we used the "Last known point" part of AR - which is return to your last know point. So we returned to the last known point where the Florida Trail came out about 1 km south of the CP (and just north of CP12) and used the Florida Trail on the second attack. This time we ended up in the exact same spot. This time I pushed through the wax myrtle trees that I had stopped at on the first try - and found the CP - right where it was mapped. (time elapsed from first time at correct location to finally finding the control 1 hr, 10 min)
The last orienteering leg was a lot of fun too. We had the fastest time there - 1:02 and yes we did run it, mostly with Team Mojitos on Monday.
Overall - we had a great race, with only one real navigation hiccup (CP14) - making that leg cost us 2 hrs, 43 minutes - in comparison Team Northwest AR completed it 1:37. What helped us was having a great second bike leg - we completed that in 4:24 and the next closest team was Canyoneeros in 6:04.
Full results and splits are at http://pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2013-nocturnal-challenge-ar
Also pictures of this and all the races are at https://www.facebook.com/pangeaadventureracing
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