Return-path: Strosaker_at_aol.com From: Strosaker_at_aol.com Full-name: Strosaker Message-ID: <c444f937.24d06264_at_aol.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 09:40:52 EDT Subject: The Trip Nobody Else Wanted To: Strosaker_at_aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 10 The Trip Nobody Else Wanted, by Duane Strosaker This all started as a professionally guided trip. It was to be kayak crossings from Channel Islands Harbor to Anacapa Island the first day, from Anacapa Island to Santa Cruz Island the second day, and then a ferry ride back the third day. Because I had been going on club trips and organizing my own trips, I had never been on a professionally guided trip before. I decided to do it this time, because I thought it would be nice to have someone else do all of the homework, and I also wanted to get a chance to paddle with and to get to know the guide, who is well respected. A week before the trip was scheduled, I was disappointed to be informed about it being canceled due to a lack of interest. I was shocked that there was a lack of interest, because I was excited about it. I was so excited about it that I decided to organize the trip myself, with the addition of a kayak crossing from Santa Cruz Island to Channel Islands Harbor, which was what I wanted to do in the first place. I quickly made a trip announcement and posted it by email on Paddlewise, the California Kayak Friends Announce List, and the Santa Barbara Kayak Association List. In addition, I emailed about everyone I knew who might be interested in the trip. During the week, as I did my homework for the trip, I was expecting many phone calls from kayakers eager to go, but my phone was silent. It was the trip nobody wanted. Maybe the widely published story about a 20 foot great white shark being photographed eating a whale off Anacapa Island a few weeks before scared everyone off. Fine, I'll do the trip solo! Doing a crossing with a group of competent kayakers is one thing. Going solo changes the psychology of the whole thing. Although I knew I was capable of doing this trip solo, I was still nervous. The trip started when I woke up at 1:45am and drove from my home in Irvine, California to Channel Islands Harbor. As I loaded my kayak in the dark at the boat launch, I didn't like the wind that was chilling me. The weather forecast was barely acceptable for a crossing. Things weren't looking good, but I decided to paddle out and take a look. I launched alone in the dark at 5:15am for the one nautical mile paddle out of the harbor and the eleven nautical mile crossing. When I paddled out of the harbor, it was still dark, and the conditions were moderate with significant wind and swell from the west. The oil rig Gina was lit beautifully and was directly on my course. It made a wonderful aid to navigation. I used it to check for deviation in my compass. There was none. As I paddled the 2 1/2 nautical miles towards Gina, I checked for drift by periodically reading a compass bearing to the oil rig. I also practiced checking for drift without my compass by using Gina in front of me and a navigational light behind me at the harbor as a range. Sighting along both ends of the paddle shaft helped me determine more precisely if I was staying on course. With trial and error, I found that a heading of about 10-15 degrees to the west of my course kept me in a straight line. Daylight came quickly and I could faintly see the silhouette of the top of the west island of Anacapa. It was right behind Gina. It wasn't much longer before Anacapa Island and Santa Cruz Island were in clear view. There was a beautiful sunrise behind me, and it made the skies pink and the bumpy water a purplish blue. About an hour off the coast, conditions began to deteriorate. The wind picked up, and waves began to break. The breaking waves were infrequent at first, and within another half hour they were everywhere. My front deck was frequently awash. The conditions were rough, but I felt confident in them. The wind was stiff, but because it was quartering from the front, it wasn't slowing me down as much as a direct headwind would. I didn't have to do any bracing during the crossing, but I did use a lot of hip action, and I occasionally turned into the more threatening waves. Stopping to drink or to eat a Power Bar was tedious. Before popping the spray skirt to relieve myself in a bag, I first paddled quickly and then glided head on into the waves to minimize sideways exposure to the breaking waves with an open cockpit. It wasn't going to be a pleasant paddle, but I knew I was going to make it. About halfway to Anacapa Island, I watched fog slowly envelope Santa Cruz Island and then Anacapa Island. Not long afterwards I was also enveloped by the fog. At that point it was navigation by compass only. After about 15 minutes, the fog passed. It was uplifting to be back in the sunshine and see the islands again. My original plan was to paddle to the west end of Anacapa Island, land at Frenchy's Cove for lunch, and then fish and explore sea caves as I paddled to Landing Cove on the east end. However, when I was about two miles from Frenchy's Cove, I could see that on the north side of the island, there was very little protection from the west wind and swell. Fishing and caving wasn't going to be practical in the rough conditions. I decided to turn east to Landing Cove before the conditions became worse. Besides, if these conditions persisted for the next few days, I needed to conserve my strength to just complete the trip. I arrived in Landing Cove at 9:15am, making for a quick four hour crossing, despite the rough conditions and the detour almost to Frenchy's cove. I was happy to be in the protection of the Landing Cove, but I suddenly felt alone. No one was there. It was only me in a kayak, a platform about 12 feet above the water, a ladder and a hoist. I had read several articles about the hoist, and the authors all said getting a kayak on the platform with the hoist was a two or three person job. The whole thing looked intimidating alone, and for a few seconds I was stricken with panic as I tried to figure out what I was going to do. The two to three foot wave surge and knowing that I had to improvise my own sling didn't help to make me feel better. The first thing I had to do was to figure out how to work the hoist. A big sign on the platform said that absolutely no boats can be tied to the platform, so I tied one end of a 20 foot cord to the front deck of my kayak and tied the other end to my PFD, which I was still wearing. Then in the surge, I climbed out of the cockpit and onto the ladder. Figuring out how to use the hoist was easy. It was only block and tackle. Now came the hard part. Somehow I had to make a sling that could safely hold the loaded kayak level as I hoisted it up. I used my tow/emergency line to make the sling. With my right foot on a ladder step about two feet below the average water level, my left foot on the floor of the cockpit, and my buttocks hovering in the cockpit, I reached forward over the front deck and passed the line under the hull. A few feet in front of the cockpit, I tied the line tightly around the hull. I turned around and did the same thing with the other end of the line behind the cockpit. With the line between the two knots, I tied a loop in the center so that the kayak would stay level as I hoisted it. Then I attached the hook to the loop and hoisted the loaded kayak onto the platform. I think getting the kayak solo onto the platform was a greater accomplishment than making the crossing solo. I walked up the famous 154 steps and headed to the visitor center to find the park ranger. I had called in a float plan with the rangers, and they were expecting me. When I found the ranger, Tom, the first thing he said to me was, "You must be the solo kayaker." The second thing he said was, "You don't look all beat up." The third thing he said was, "You look like you just stepped off a boat." I guess he was complimenting me. My first impression of Anacapa Island was that it is a lot like Alcatraz. It is a big rock, has birds everywhere, and is windy. It also didn't take me long to feel like a prisoner on the island. Although there are beautiful views, there isn't much to do. It takes only about two hours to hike and see everything. Being solo, I didn't have anyone to give a hard time, which made me feel like I was in solitary confinement. I was going crazy sitting at the picnic table at my campsite. The intolerable winds were beating me. All I could do was watch the winds get funneled down the Santa Barbara Channel and form breaking waves. The weather forecast for the next day was worse and included a small craft advisory. I was nervous about the conditions I was going to encounter on the next morning during my crossing from Anacapa Island to Santa Cruz Island. It was one of the most miserable afternoons in my life. The only highlight was when I went down to the platform to get some water out of my kayak and saw some seasick boat passengers puke as they were arriving in the landing cove. They were still probably having a better day than me. I had to carefully plan my escape from the Rock. I knew it wasn't going to be easy paddling west into the winds to get to Santa Cruz Island. Ranger Tom suggested that I paddle west along the south side of Anacapa, because it was protected from the west wind and swell. He also said that the crossing over to Santa Cruz Island should be protected from the wind by Santa Cruz. I heard a lot of stories about how bad the south side of Anacapa Island can be, but as I stood at the edge of a cliff and looked south, I couldn't see a breaking wave anywhere. My plan to escape from the Rock was set. I set the alarm on my wrist watch for 4:30am. To make packing in the morning as easy as possible, I didn't bother to use my tent. My campsite had three railroad ties stacked to help block the wind, and I put my sleeping pad and bag right next to them. Regardless, I still had a lot of wind circulating around me, and it was a cold night in the sleeping bag. Getting the kayak off the platform and into the water solo with the hoist was easy. I tied some easy to untie knots in the improvised sling to make getting the sling off in the water quick and easy. I left Landing Cove at 6:15am. It was a later start than I wanted, but it didn't matter. The winds were already blasting. Just outside Landing Cove were large breaking waves that I had to go through to get around Arch Rock and to the south side of the island. It wasn't how I wanted to start my day, and it was only a taste of what was to come. During the short paddle from Landing Cove to Arch Rock, I had to brace about a dozen times. My kayak was being picked up, surfed and broached without me being able to do a thing about it. A lot of the way, all I was doing was hanging on. One large wave broke on my left side, and I had white water up to my armpit as I did a high brace. Fortunately, the distance from Landing Cove to Arch Rock was just over a quarter mile. It was nice to arrive in the sheltered water behind Arch Rock and on the south side of the island. I thought the five nautical mile paddle on the south side of the island was going to be easy, but there was a stiff headwind. There was no swell and the waves were small, but I knew the headwind was going to slow my progress and wear me down. On top of that, I was getting blasted by fifteen-second gusts of wind about every five minutes. Whenever I stopped to drink water, I kept a tight grip on the paddle with one hand because of the fear that the paddle would get ripped out of my hand by one of these gusts. Wasn't this the protected side of the island? Maybe doing this paddle during a small craft advisory wasn't a good idea. I later heard a report that the gusts were up to 35 knots. I should've turned around, but there was no way I was going to spend another day in the intolerable winds on the Rock. I had to escape. I just didn't know if the island was going to let me escape. Little did I know what it was holding in reserve. As I approached the west end of Anacapa Island, the west swell was sneaking over to the south side of the island. That west swell, and some other force that I couldn't figure out was creating large waves shaped like pyramids. These pyramids were popping up all over the place with no way to anticipate them. Paddling in the pyramids was tedious, and I wondered how long they were going to last. After about a quarter mile, the pyramids cleared and I had a west swell only. The west swell was large and steep, and a lot of the waves were breaking on me, but they were easier to negotiate because they were predictable and I was heading straight into them. It was hard to imagine crossing four nautical miles from the west end of Anacapa Island to San Pedro Point on Santa Cruz Island in this swell, and I wondered how long I would have to be going almost straight up and down in it. Then to my delight, I soon paddled into an area where the swell was moderate and there were only occasional breaking waves. Even the headwind was moderate. I thought I was escaping from the Rock. The western tip of the Rock was just to my right as I headed west. After paddling a short while, I looked to my right again, and the Rock was still there. I thought that I was only imagining that I hadn't moved, so I lined up the tip of the island with a mountain top on the mainland to use as a natural range to gage my progress. A few minutes later and I still hadn't moved. I was caught in a current whipping around the west end of the island. The Rock was doing everything it could to prevent my escape. I seriously thought about surrendering. But I had to give it one final try. I paddled as hard as I could for a few minutes and looked over at the tip of the island and the mountain top on the mainland. I made a little progress. Now I knew I could paddle faster than the current, but I didn't know if I had the endurance to get past it. I continued paddling as hard as I could. Many times I thought of surrendering, but then I would look over at my natural ranges and see I was still slowly making progress. I was tiring quickly and knew I couldn't maintain this speed much longer. After ten minutes of fighting the current, I felt it release me. I had escaped from the Rock. But fighting the current nearly exhausted me, and I still had four nautical miles to paddle across to Santa Cruz Island and another two nautical miles to Scorpion Cove. Fortunately, the conditions during the crossing were moderate. Santa Cruz Island was protecting me from the brunt of the west swell and wind, but I could see breaking waves just a half mile to my right. One little change in the wind could put them on me. I wanted to get across to Santa Cruz quickly. More importantly, I needed to pace myself to recover from near exhaustion and to save enough energy to complete the paddle. Trying to relax became a focused effort. When I reached the south side of San Pedro Point on Santa Cruz Island, I finished the last of the two quarts of Gatorade I had on the front deck, and I pulled the reserve quart of water off the back deck. I was drinking a lot more water than I anticipated, but I was also exerting myself a lot more than I anticipated. I rested out of the wind and waves on the south side of San Pedro Point. I could tell the wind was blasting on the north side of the point by seeing the large waves that were breaking. It was going to be a terrible head wind for the final two miles, and I didn't know if I had the strength left to make it. More than anything, I wanted to be safely on the beach at Scorpion Cove. I paddled around San Pedro Point and couldn't believe the blast of wind that hit me. As leaned forward down towards the deck and paddled as hard as I could, I saw the cliffs passing on my left. I was making progress, but I was also tiring quickly. Large and steep waves were breaking and hitting me head on, and there were strong gusts of wind too. When I was about to give up and retreat, I saw there was a point that was just barely big enough to protect me from the wind and waves. I paddled behind it and rested. I wondered how many points there were like this that I could rest behind along the way. I paddled back out into the wind and waves, and a little ways up was another point. I rested there too. This tactic just may work. During the first mile or so, I rested behind about six points. I knew that around one of those points, I was finally going to see Scorpion Rocks. Finally seeing the rocks was a great joy. Now I had a half mile sprint without any protection from the wind, but I came too far to let anything stop me know. Again, I leaned forward towards the deck and paddled as hard as I could, and eventually I fell into the protection of the rocks. I rested there, and then it was just another short sprint to the beach at Scorpion Cove. When I landed on the beach, I was shocked to see that it was only 9:53am. The eleven nautical mile paddle in those conditions took me only three hours and thirty-eight minutes, which was an average of 3 knots. I have to give all of the credit to adrenaline. The forecast for the next morning was more of the same. There was no way I was going to paddle the 18 nautical mile crossing from Santa Cruz Island to Channel Islands Harbor solo in those conditions. I risked my life enough times for one weekend. I checked in with the park ranger, Toni, who knew who I was and was expecting me because of the float plan I called in before the trip. She said there would be room for me on the ferry boat back to the harbor on that day but not the next. The winds were so strong, I didn't think they were going to subside anytime soon, so I chose to return on the ferry that day. While waiting for the ferry, I ran into Chip from Crestline, who I met at Santa Cruz Island last year on a California Kayak Friends trip. I saw him again and met his girlfriend, Debbie, at the Expo in Newport Beach this June. Debbie was with him on this trip, and they introduced me to their friends, Terry and Ardee, as well as some other friends of theirs. We all had a great time talking. I also met and had a great time talking to Kurt and Susie, who are kayakers from Santa Barbara. A lot of phone numbers were exchanged for future trips. The unfortunate thing about this trip was that I could have paddled the crossing back to the harbor the next day. Little did I know that as I was riding the ferry back, the weather forecast was being revised. Terry and Ardee emailed me later and said that the weather on the next day was calm and they had a smooth ride back on the ferry in the afternoon. That's just how the weather is at the Channel Islands. Appendix Equipment: Kayak: Necky Looksha IV (plastic) with rudder Paddle: Werner Camano 220cm Spray Skirt: Snap Dragon Sea Tour Extreme Compass: Silva Universal Safety Equipment: VHF marine radio EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) GPS (Global Positioning System) Emergency strobe light 3 Red arial flares 3 Red hand held flares PFD (Personal Flotation Device) Whistle Spare compass Portable hand-pump Paddle float Spare paddle Tow/emergency line Deck knife First aid kit Repair kit *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Jul 28 1999 - 06:44:12 PDT
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