04/23/2019
We are very excited for our Benderdinker 2019 event this Saturday at Riverside Park! However, due to unforeseeable circumstances, we have had to make some changes to this year's event.
The Little River (Betty's Branch) route circles Germain’s Island which is a six-mile loop. We host several food and music stations around the island. Participants paddle past those stations and ultimately finish back at River Side Park where they put in. However, earlier this year Columbia County started work on a pipeline with the estimated completion of the project being early spring 2019. Mother Nature decided to bless us with extra moisture and due to the high-water levels, the project could not be completed by the deadline nor by the time of our event. With that said, we cannot traverse over or around the barge safely. The barge (Pictured below) is currently blocking the navigation of the channel for our safety boats thus making the full loop impossible. We have examined all options and have come to the conclusion that the safest and most effective way for us to provide you with those stations would be to host them at and around the barge.
The option of using the open river was originally discussed but with the unknown factors of high water, unpredictable currents, abnormally cold-water temperatures as well as the lack of skill level for many of our participants we chose to forgo that as a viable option and use the inlet instead.
We have been in contact with officials at Columbia County, Reynolds Construction, and Turnipseed Engineering and they have all approved access for our staff to use the barge as a stage for the event. We have decided that with the cooperation of those parties we will host the event on the barge in concert style rather than a paddle-past event. We felt that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to utilize this structure and to create an event for you to enjoy. We could never recreate this opportunity and felt that we would “Carpe Diem” for 2019.
In addition to route changes we have also had to make changes to our music line up. We regret to announce that Molly Stevens will be unable to be our headline act for this year’s event. There were too many unknowns for her to overcome to travel from Nashville with a full band. We have been blessed to have her for the last three events and wish her the very best. In her place we have been able to acquire one of Augusta’s favorite local artists – Bethany Davis and we are excited to have her on board.
The music line up is as follows:
Launch at 10:00am -
10:15am with Billy S.
11:00am Dave MUZ Mercer
11:45am Jaycie Ward
12:30 – 1:30pm Bethany Davis.
*Times may vary.
Launch times will be set up at the zone drop off on Friday.
Due to the uncertainty of the project and the timeline of things, we chose not to acquire sponsors, or to do excessive advertising. We felt it would be better to have more manageable numbers in the case we had to change our logistics. That proved to be a wise decision. With the more manageable amount of participants we will allow you to drive your boats in and out of the bottom parking lot for this year’s event as well. We will not offer the valet system as we have in the past years event. We will however have traffic direction personnel on site to help keep things moving smoothly & safely.
For those of you who signed up after the Early Bird Special price, we understand that you may be unhappy with not being able to paddle the entire way. Please contact us AFTER the event and give us your confirmation number. We will email you a personalized code for 50% off next year’s event registration.
If you signed up at any point prior to April 22nd, 2019; you will receive a t-shirt, your goody bag, three food options, drink refills and four musical acts.
We thank you for your understanding and will do the very best we can to make it a safe and memorable experience. We will do our best to communicate any changes as well as instructions for the event via email, Facebook and other social media outlets. We can not address any individual email questions at this time and consider registration for the event to be closed as we can only manage so many people in the channel at one time.
Thank you and we hope that you have a great time and enjoy a day on the Branch!
Sincerely,
Founder – Kristina Williams & Event Staff
