Konstantin Gortinsky, Sid Taylor and I are planning a trip to the Pacific Coast of Baja and wanted to get together to meet some of the other people who are coming. Sid wanted to paddle in the Salt Point area near me. We started arranging a trip this weekend until we checked the weather. The Navy WAM forecast was predicting huge waves! Since several people had to drive or fly great distances to meet us in the Bay Area, the "shakedown paddle" was canceled. Sid was still going to be in the Bay Area, shopping for kayak gear, and we talked about getting together for a paddle in the San Francisco Bay safe from the waves. George Miller, one of the other potential Baja paddlers, discovered that he had a business meeting in San Francisco and could join us. Paul Roggensack, another Baja paddler, decided to drive down from Sacramento as well. The wave forecast calmed down to a six foot swell for Sunday morning. At the last minute Sid decided to do the paddle at Salt Point State Park as originally planned.
The forecasts were not quite right again. Instead of calming down to 6 feet, the swell only calmed down to 9 feet. (From a high of 28 feet several days before!) Sid and I were aware of this but I don't think we did a good job of communicating it to George and Paul. Due to scheduling issues this Baja trip can only happen in April which is probably the worst time of year with average swell height of three meters (ten feet). When I mention this to several of these people, they tell me not to worry, we'll probably have great weather. But I figured a nine foot swell for the shakedown paddle would be a good experience. This is what it is going to be like in Baja in April. The latest forecasts were for the swell to remain 9 feet for most of the day. But you can never count on those forecasts.
We four (Konstantin was unable to join us) launched from Stillwater Cove with no incidents. The swell were large but we could see the deep water channel down the middle of the cove where the waves rarely broke. Outside the cove there were some waves breaking far from shore over submerged rocks and we went way around them. We paddled north into a mild breeze on a nice sunny day. We ducked in close to Gerstle Cove to check it out because it was one of the places we had considered launching. Waves broke around the point and into the north side of the cove, but it looked like a landing could be made there in an emergency. North of Gerstle I turned close to shore to look into Stump Beach. This narrow cove faces north and waves were breaking clear across the opening. This did not look like a good place to try to land today. As we continued north, Sid considered landing at Fisk Mill Cove to get some gear out of his boat. But he decided to wait.
As we approached Horseshoe Point we got closer to shore again. One large rogue wave rose up in front of us in the shallow water south of he point. We paddled for all we were worth and crawled our way up and over it! Sid, George and I were a little ahead and we made it over the wave before it started to break. The wave was rippling on the peak and starting to make noise like it was about to break. I told Sid later that I refer to this as the wave "talking" to me about what it is "thinking" and he liked the metaphor. Paul was a little behind us and the wave actually started breaking on him! He blasted over the top as this happened, got sopping wet, and fell down onto the back of the wave. He is very lucky that he made it, as the wave roared off towards a rocky shore and would have carried him with it. He referred to this as "The Perfect Storm Wave".
We poked our noses around the north side of Horseshoe Point and looked into that cove. This is a large cove with poor protection from a northwest swell and we didn't see any good way to get to shore. So we turned back to Fisk Mill Cove, giving the shallow water around Horseshoe Point a wide berth. During the trip north I had watched Fisk Mill Cove and the waves there looked mild. I watched it again as we approached and they continued to look OK. Sid turned close to shore early looking for a place that would get better protection from Horseshoe Point. He waned to land there but came over to look at the cove with me. Although it had been calm for a long time it suddenly became very rough. Although Sid didn't want to land here, he thought I did and assured me that the rough waves I was seeing now were probably just a big set. It will calm down in a minute. We never actually made a decision to land here. Sid would pull ahead of me and I would assume "Oh, he must have changed his mind and decided to land here". I would catch up and then pull ahead of him and he would assume "Oh, I guess Mike really wants to land here". Eventually the two of us ended up inside the break and another large wave broke behind us.
It was a very steep broken wave. Sid was facing left so I broached sideways to the right and leaned into the wave as it slammed into me. I was completely submerged in the water but a few seconds later my head rose up out of the froth. My brace held and the wave roared to shore with me on it. There was a steep gravel berm at the shoreline and my boat slammed into it. Then the wave rose up the berm and took me with it! I was lifted almost three meters straight up and deposited on the top edge. The wave withdrew and left me sitting up there high and dry! Sid made his own landing lower on the berm and dragged his boat up and over.
We figured the other two guys would not want to repeat our performance but one at a time they came in. Paul timed the waves perfectly and came in nose first on a mild breaker. George got stalled in the shallows and broached sideways as a medium sized breaker came in behind him. Sid shouted "BRACE!" but over the noise George thought he heard "ROLL" and figured it meant to exit his boat. But he came out of his boat just about the time it side-surfed into the berm.
When everyone was settled down for lunch, I rolled my boat over to check for scratches. What I saw was almost incomprehensible at first. A large piece of gravel was sticking out of a slit in the side of my boat! Apparently the seam between the top and bottom halves of my boat had failed, it had broken open during the landing and grabbed a piece of gravel! This had apparently happened in the last few hundred milliseconds of the landing, and there was very little water inside the boat, The crack started at the bulkhead and ran back 40 centimeters towards the stern. I knew that bulkheads create weak points in the hulls of kayaks and here was a dramatic demonstration of that! I removed the rock and washed the salt off the hull with fresh (drinking) water. I buffed it with my towel and left it in the sun for half an hour and then stuck a strip of duct tape down the length of the crack. I cut the corners round with a knife to discourage peeling. This tape stayed on and waterproof for the rest of the day and worked well. As you will see, the rest of the day was pretty rough and it is actually quite amazing that the tape lasted through everything.
Since I bought this boat I have been doing something that I should not have done. I have been trusting the rear bulkhead to hold air in the back of the boat. The boat came with a float bag for the bow. With floatation in the front and an intact rear bulkhead and hatch, the boat has flotation on both ends and will ride horizontal even if the cockpit is full of water. But bulkheads and hatches can fail (or seams can split open) and if the rear compartment filled with water, the boat would float nose up and be practically impossible to save. So I should have put another float bag in the rear compartment but I had never bothered. Since I couldn't trust the duct tape to stay on, I moved my forward float bag into the rear compartment and inflated it there. If the tape failed then the float bag would keep the rear of the boat afloat. But now I had no flotation in the front! If I exited from my boat, the nose would sink and the boat would probably be lost. I had to make sure to stay in my boat the rest of the day!
During lunch we watched the waves. There were large sets where tall steep breakers roared towards us and looked impossible to resist. Then there were calm periods where small waves sloshed over the same distance. All we have to do is time it right. We were all nervous about the launch and fluctuated between putting it off and wanting to get it over with. I wanted to get it over with and wanted to launch as soon as possible. But I figured that it might take some of us several tries to get past the break. I didn't want to spend a lot of time sitting in a damaged boat taking on water while I waited for everyone else. So I cringed internally and volunteered to be the last to launch. Everyone but me would get a shove off the beach and have someone waiting to catch them if they failed to get past the breakers.
George launched first and was washed back up onto the berm out of his boat again. But on his second try he made it out to sea. Paul went second and had incredibly good timing again, paddling over a mild set. Sid went next and had trouble on his launch. As he slid into the water with a shove from me, the wash from the last wave turned him sideways. He was unable to turn his long Arluk III boat back into the next wave so he decided to broach back to shore. But because he had been turned sideways he slipped in front of a cluster of large boulders before the wave grabbed him and slammed him back. His boat hit one rock, bounced up, landed between two others, then twisted until it was facing out to sea again. I ran down and grabbed the end of his boat to pull it up higher. But Sid saw another calm set in the waves and wanted to launch again. He shouted at me to shove him out! I grabbed the toggle of his boat to pick up the tail and do this, but the toggle came off in my hands.
I looked down where the toggle was supposed to attach and there was a crack across the top of the kayak. The toggle had pulled out through the shattered fiberglass. A wave came in, picked up the bow of Sid's boat and he paddled himself off the rocks without my help. Dumbstruck, I watched as the tail of Sid's boat slipped over the last rock. Instead of riding up and over the rock, the tail of the kayak bent and flopped back and forth like it was made out of wet cardboard. Sid paddled out through the roar of the surf and could not hear me shouting a warning. All I could do was launch myself and paddle out to tell him about the damage to his boat when I got there.
I sat on the very top of the berm above all but the largest waves. I put my spray-skirt on and watched the waves, looking for a calm set. I stopped myself from hyperventilating, although I figured some extra oxygen might be useful if I ended upside down in the water in the near future. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears and feel it beating in my chest. My body was preparing for battle, running at full tilt. I saw what I guessed to be the last medium sized wave before a calm set and shoved off the berm to meet the wave half way up. I scraped down the wet slippery gravel of the berm and picked up speed. I caught the wave as it arrived and slipped up and over it. Then I paddled like mad towards the next wave. My timing was good and the next few waves were the mild set and I made it out to sea without incident.
I told Sid about what I saw during the launch and inspected the tail of his boat. There was a crack along the right seam for about 30 centimeters and two cracks running over the top of the top of the boat and ending before the seam on the left side. I recommended that he should not use his rudder because it might pull the tail of the kayak right off! None of us wanted to land or launch from that beach again, so Sid decided to proceed with a damaged boat and land as soon as possible. Stump Beach was still closed out so we headed towards Gerstle Cove with the wind and waves pushing us along.
Sid noticed that his boat was getting sluggish and weather-cocking to the right. It was apparently taking on water through the cracks in the tail. His boat has bulkheads fore and aft, but his rear bulkhead had deteriorated and separated from the hull. Just the day before he had purchased a new block of minicell foam to replace the bulkhead, but there had not been time to install it yet. So when water got into the rear compartment, it was able to get into the cockpit as well. Like me, he had been trusting the integrity of his bulkheads for so long that he didn't have float bags inside the compartments. Normally Sid paddles his boat full of camping gear inside drybags. Drybags work just as well as float bags. But without camping gear or float bags, his boat was in danger of sinking tail first and becoming difficult to save.
When Sid discovered that he was having difficulty steering, he asked me to attach my tow rope to his boat and pull just enough to point him in the right direction. This worked well for a while, but it turned out that the direction Sid wanted to go was out to sea to avoid getting too close to Salt Point where large waves were breaking. This was almost exactly the direction his boat was weather cocking on its own so the tow rope was probably totally unnecessary at this time. And the tow rope was causing other problems.
The swell was quite large and would have been a load of fun if we didn't have a few damaged boats to deal with. The swell was large enough to surf kayaks from time to time! These waves would catch me and surf me forward until I was jerked to a halt by the tow rope. This almost pulled me over several times and I decided to backpedal and decline surf rides when I could. When a wave surfed Sid's boat forward the rope would go slack. The slack rope would slither under and around his boat and tangle in his paddle. Then the same wave would surf me forward and pull the rope tight again. Sid was aware of this and kept his paddle out of the rope for a while. But on one wave his boat slid sideways and the rope slid under from one side to the other where he was not expecting it. His paddle tangled in the rope, the wave pulled me forward, tightened the rope, and Sid was pulled over upside down. With his paddle tangled in the tow rope and his boat sloshing with water in it, he was unable to roll and had to exit.
I was disgusted with the tow rope and started wrapping it up while George assisted Sid to get back in his boat. I think Sid figured his boat was taking on so much water that a T-rescue (which would have emptied all the water out of the boat) would not work. George helped him get back into the boat full of water. George and I rafted up on either side of the swamped boat. Sid and George seemed to have come to the decision that attempting to pump out this swamped boat would not work. I suggested the trick of sticking the bilge pump down the tube of your spray skirt, but Sid didn't think this was necessary. Sid ordered us to "canoe paddle" towards Gerstle Cove while he held onto our two boats. This appeared to work well and we paddled out to sea to avoid the rough point and then turned in to head towards the cove. The biggest drawback of this technique of rafting and each paddling on one side was that George and I kept hitting Sid and each other with the high end of our paddles. I was wearing my helmet so it took most of the blows for me. I was using my wooden Greenland paddle so I was occasionally pummeling the other two guys with a blunt instrument. But George had a sharp edged fiberglass paddle and when he hit Sid it occasionally drew blood.
We safely made it around the point and started towards the cove. Gerstle Cove is a marine preserve, with a yellow stripe marking the boundary on the southeast side. We crabbed across the mouth of the cove and got within 15 meters of this yellow stripe. Then despite our best paddling efforts the yellow stripe started moving the wrong way. According to the Bodega Buoy, the wind rose up to 28 knots about that time of the day and was blowing us backwards away from the cove. There was a strong current going south near shore and it grabbed Sid's submerged boat and pulled it south as well. Paddling as hard as we could, we slipped farther and farther from the cove.
I threw Paul my tow rope and he tried to get into position to help. But every time we stopped for a second to try to attach a rope, we would loose a lot of ground. At one point Sid grabbed the end of the tow rope in his mouth and waited for Paul to pull forward. But by this time Paul was facing south and discovered that with only 10 meters of tow line he didn't have enough room to turn around in the strong wind! We had to give up on getting a third boat working on towing into the wind. I thought that the waves were going to push all of us into the rocks, so I ordered Sid to get out of his boat so we could tow him into the cove without the boat. Save the people first and worry about the equipment later! Sid did not want to abandon his boat but eventually exited out of it. We were worried that he had been sitting in cold water for a long time and might be in danger of hypothermia. So he tried to climb up onto the stern of George's large plastic Eclipse Sea Lion kayak. George lost his balance and fell over. He exited from his boat right away and then we had two kayakers in the water.
At this moment I decided that we had fallen over the slippery edge of too many things going wrong. I went into a mode where my only thoughts were to get all of us off the water as soon as possible. I figured I could probably balance my boat with Sid on the back of it, so I sent Paul to assist George getting back in his boat while I towed Sid. A small voice in the back of my head cried out that I was in a damaged boat, I should be able to take it easy and let someone else do all the hard work. But there wasn't anyone else to tow Sid so I ignored that voice. I saw George starting to inflate his paddle float (a self-rescue device) and then Paul and George rapidly drifted south and disappeared from my view. At first I tried to tow Sid in the water (not up on my stern). I paddled hard and was able to make the boat stand still or move a centimeter or so up-wind towards the cove. But I couldn't keep this up for long. I tried grabbing a strand of bull kelp to hold my boat in place while I rested. But the strong wind and current pulled me backwards and the kelp slipped through my fingers while I lost several meters of ground.
Realizing that I would not be able to tow Sid into Gerstle Cove, I turned south with the wind and current to look for another solution. Sid decided to haul himself out of the water onto my rear deck. I was not ready for him and fell over like George. But instead of exiting like George I was confident in my roll. I also had my "teddy bear" in my hands: My Greenland paddle that makes me feel secure because I believe I can always roll up with it. Without thinking about it I extended the paddle and set up to roll back up. Extending the paddle caused it to tangle in something, perhaps some kelp, perhaps the rigging lines around the bow of my boat. I pulled back on the paddle until it slipped around whatever it was, then completed the sweep and rolled back upright! I kept the paddle extended and did a sculling brace, leaning on it while I swept it back and forth to generate lift. I told Sid I was ready for him this time and he was able to haul his upper body out of the water onto the stern of my boat without knocking me over. Sid suggested that I tow him to shore and let him climb onto a rock, anything to get out of the cold water. There was a rough looking point (the end of South Gerstle Cove, called Wreck Point) ahead of us so I turned out to sea to avoid that. I planned to duck behind it and find a protected place to get close to shore.
About this time George and Paul passed us going north towards Gerstle Cove. George had successfully re-entered his boat and pumped it out with Paul rafted up for support. I told them that I was taking Sid south to crash anywhere we could find a place to get him out of the water. I don't recall discussing it with them but I was glad that George was back in his boat and glad that they were heading for safety. I assumed they would call for help but didn't mention that either. It never occurred to me to ask them to hang around and assist me. I was still thinking that we should get everyone we could off the water as soon as possible. As I paddled south we passed Sid's swamped boat and my tow rope which I had told Paul to abandon.
When we passed the rough looking point, I tried to turn left and tow Sid to shore. My boat, a Coaster, is not a large kayak. It has a lot of volume in the front, but not much in the rear where Sid was lying. The bow of my Coaster must have been sticking up high out of the water and the wind pushed it south no matter how hard I tried to turn left. By paddling as hard as I could on one side with Sid kicking with his legs I could get the boat to turn a few degrees left. But the wind, current, and the eastward turn of the land kept the shore from getting any closer! A small boulder beach went by and I doubled my effort to get close to shore with no effect. A rock that I remembered paddling behind on another trip came by and I tried again to get close to it. I was frustrated to discover that paddling as hard as I could I could not get my kayak to crash on the shore to (literally) save a life! Sid said that it would seem silly to die only 40 feet from shore without being able to get any closer.
Sid had been in the water for a long time and I worried about hypothermia. When we talked about him climbing up on a rock he mused that his hands might be too cold to manage holding on! Every time a wave broke on us from behind he made a loud groaning sound. He explained that when a wave broke over the back of the boat it pushed cold water up inside his paddle jacket and he felt the cold in his armpits. I groaned as well trying to get the boat to turn to shore and again when I discovered that my right hand and wrist were cramped from only paddling on the right side. This more than anything else sent a chill of fear through me that I might not be able to help Sid much longer. So when the Sheriff's helicopter arrived I was ready for them to rescue Sid.
The crew in the helicopter flew low and made the OK sign by patting the tops of their head. "Are you OK?" I replied by pointing to Sid and then pointing straight up in the air. "I want you to pick him up out of the water!" They signaled OK to say that they understood and then pointed to shore and flew off. I had seen these guys practicing at Tomales Point once before and I knew what was going on. The Sheriff's helicopter does not have room for a winch. They must land, get out, attach a "long line" between the bottom of the helicopter and the rescue swimmer, pick him up, and fly him back to us on the end of the rope. When he arrived I leaned on an extended sculling brace with my paddle again and concentrated on keeping my boat upright. The rescue swimmer asked Sid a few questions "Lost your boat?", "Do you need help?", "Are you wearing a PFD?", "Do you have back problems?" He asked me if I would be OK by myself. Then he told Sid to let go off the kayak and hold his arms over his head. A padded sling was dropped down under his arms, then the two of them rose into the sky. I was too busy keeping my boat upright under changing loads to enjoy the process or even get a good look at the helicopter.
Sid had loaned his spare paddle to George who did not like the rental paddle he had been issued. During the melee, when we had two people out of their boats, we had dropped one of Sid' paddles and George had switched back to his rental paddle. That paddle was tied to the back of his boat with some line I gave him at Fisk Mill. He had trouble untying it and had to pull on the cord with his teeth while holding his breath underwater. Later when he was back in his boat he found Sid's spare paddle drifting and switched back to it again. He tossed the rental paddle and figured he would rather pay for the paddle than risk falling over again while trying to attach it to his boat. Save the people first and the equipment later! But the whole time he had been on the back of my boat Sid was holding onto one of his paddles. When he pulled himself up on my stern he loosened one half of my spare paddle which stuck out at an angle. I saw this through the corner of my eye when I was willing to risk a glimpse over my shoulder. I thought he was carrying two paddles. I was pissed at Sid for saving equipment and wondered if the ends of the paddles dragging in the water were preventing us from making progress to the shore all along. But I never said anything to him about it.
When the Helicopter picked Sid up out of the water, he finally let go of that paddle. I saw it there and frowned at it in disgust. But Sid had essentially risked his life for that silly thing so I felt I should continue carrying it for him. I managed to jamb it out of the way in the rigging lines of my boat. I also re-attached the loose half of my spare paddle. When we met up again later I was able to make Sid feel a little better by presenting him his precious paddle.
Released from the drag of Sid's legs in the water behind my boat, it seemed to leap forward at the slightest stroke of my paddle. I had several choices. I could beat against the wind and current and try to get into Gerstle Cove. I could turn towards Ocean Cove, which was surprisingly close. Or I could return to Stillwater Cove and drive a car back to Gerstle to start collecting our widely scattered kayakers. Attempting to save Sid's kayak did not seriously occur to me. I was still running under the imperative that we had to get everyone off the water ASAP and that included myself. I had to get off the water and we could worry about saving the equipment later. I looked towards Stillwater cove and saw HUGE waves breaking over submerged rocks far from shore. Checking the data from the Bodega Buoy later I found out I was paddling in 14 foot swells. I'd have to go way around those "boomers" so I'd better head into Ocean Cove. I looked at Ocean Cove and it didn't look familiar. There was a new cinderblock structure near the water with a crane on it. The Salt Point Loge had a new orange roof and I had never noticed how close it was to Ocean Cove before. Is that really Ocean Cove? Perhaps I should go someplace that I knew better. I looked back at the breaking waves between me and Stillwater Cove. I figured I could work my way between the offshore boomers. I wanted to get to my car and dry clothes without having to hoof it from Ocean Cove. I turned towards Stillwater Cove with the wind and waves helping me zoom along.
As I approached the boomers I saw a group of people standing on the shore nearby. It turns out that Jerry Rudy, who was in my Baidarka building class here a year ago, was in that group of people watching me. He is a local paramedic and had been paged as part of the response to this "emergency". He grew up in this area and knew that I was heading towards "Bull Rock" a very dangerous patch of ocean. As I got close to Bull Rock, the Sheriff's helicopter flew behind me. It looked like they were circling the area where they had last seen me and did not know I was long gone. I feared that they would see me heading into Bull Rock and would decide that I needed rescuing. They could insist on rescuing me from myself when I didn't want them to pull me out of my boat! But they disappeared for a while and I was left alone to work my way through the waves.
Watching the large waves break I had a pretty good idea that there was one submerged rock far offshore and another near the visible rocks closer to shore. I plotted a path between them and paused to watch a wave breaking. The white water calmed down and disappeared at an unremarkable spot on the water. I headed there. Another wave broke as I passed this spot and I watched it over my shoulder. If the breaking water hit me I was reasonably sure I could brace into it and stay upright. But it calmed down just as I had seen before. Then I was past Bull Rock. Relaxing and looking around I noticed a strange phenomenon: The water between the submerged rocks seemed to be much higher than the surrounding ocean. It felt like I was paddling on top of a large hill made out of water. I guess that the waves breaking over Bull Rock were piling water up here and there was so much of it that it couldn't flow away fast enough to level the ocean back down again.
The Sheriff's helicopter flew low in front of me at this time. I was glad they found me after passing Bull Rock. I signaled OK to them again and pointed at Stillwater Cove. They signaled OK back and flew off.
I stayed a reasonable distance from shore until I could see the deep water channel in the cove. There was a rock on the south side of the cove that I knew I could use as a reference point to navigate my way in. I have seen rogue waves break all the way onto the beach but I figured from this angle I should be able to surf one of those straight up the middle of the cove. Large waves humped in behind me and I stopped to see what they would do. They rose up on both sides of the cove and broke to the right and left of me. It occurred to me it was possible that conditions here could get so bad I could not safely land! But even the largest waves did not break in the middle of the deep water channel and I calmly paddled up onto the beach. There I met a deputy and a paramedic who wanted to take my blood pressure. I told him that was silly and talked with them for a minute. They didn't insist on doctoring me but did carry my boat up to the parking lot for me. The Stillwater Cove Regional Park Ranger insisted on getting a "report" from me but waited until I was in dry clothes and strapping my boat on my car.
When I went to get my car I noticed that Paul's car was missing. From this I deduced that they had already made one trip down here to start picking up their boats. As I was pulling out of the parking lot to drive down to Gerstle Cove to find them, an ambulance and a car with two kayaks went by in the opposite direction. The ambulance was the paramedic team that had checked out Sid. They were surprised by how much Sid was wearing. He was dressed for immersion with two polypro liners, a 2 mm farmer john wetsuit, a 3mm "shorty" wetsuit on top of that, a paddling jacket and a wind breaker with a hood that he had put on after his boat became completely swamped. Not to mention underwear, wool socks, and booties. The paramedics said that he was still dry in places under all that and since he had been in the water for almost two hours his clothing had saved his life. He was shivering (which is good) when handed over to them by the helicopter team and they decided that he really was not hypothermic yet! They still took his clothes off and wrapped him in blankets with hot packs. Sid tried to talk a lady paramedic into disrobing and joining him in the blankets (the most efficient way to donate heat) but she smiled and reminded him he wasn't really hypothermic. That was probably when they decided that he was OK.
They dropped Sid off at his car but we drove him to the nearby Salt Point Lodge where we ordered hot chocolate and hot soup all around, but especially for Sid. Sid and I spent the next morning walking the shore from Jenner to Gerstle Cove and saw none of our equipment. Sid's blue Arluk III with green hatches is still out there somewhere with a lot of gear inside it.