[Paddlewise] Trip Report (Doug's Logbook)

_Long post warning_

[A note to novices/intermediate paddlers. Solo paddling as undertaken in
the adventure below is inherently risky, and should not be attempted
without requisite skills and adequate conditioning and training, preferably
with an equally skilled partner(s). My failure to navigate effectively, as
you will deduce, is an exact consequence of lack of proper planning and
consideration of thinking through ALL possibilities in advance.]
 
-----------------------------Start Log--------------------------

Juan de Fuca Strait: A SOLO CROSSING
April 1983

A bee had been placed in my bonnet. The Victoria Canoe and Kayak club
declined to let me tag along with their Voyager Canoes during their annual
spring crossing to raise charity money. I was set further a buzz at
Eastertime, when Derek Hutchinson was out here for the Victoria
International Sea Kayak Symposium. He asked curiously if the crossing had
been done by a modern-day sea kayak. Given his predilection toward
crossings, I figured I'd better do it before he did, otherwise he'd add
that to his list of things the Brits did first in Western Canada. He was
already claiming to the world that he invented killer-whale-watching by
modern glassfiber sea kayak along the remote shores of Western North America!

Anyway, the exuberance of Spring was in my blood. So, with an essential,
youthful zeal coursing through the veins of my leather-like arms, I left
Victoria one Saturday for Port Angeles. The going-over proved easy - for I
was aboard the ferry MV Coho. Getting off, however, was not so easy!
Passengers must disembark down a zig-zag gangway. Negotiating the downward
route with 18 feet of heavy, pointy sea kayak making 180-degree turns  with
a gear bag and paddle in the other hand was adventurous enough, but there
was an additional difficulty in not decapitating returning ex-patriots.
This was undertaken under the keen surveillance of gun-clad, stern-looking
customs officers who especially frowned on such activity.

Pre-dawn departure time on the following morning came early, but it was
welcome after having to move my tent twice in the night due to the rising
tide and subsequent soakings. (I had arrived at night, paddled over to the
"hook", and camped wherever). As I crossed what looked like a road, a
cyclist on his way to work swerved nervously, narrowly missing the strange
apparition before him.

Slithering down over slippery-wet, big boulders, I had three consideration
to chew on. Should I leave immediately, and face a large ebb tide for a
goodly portion of the twenty-two miles? Or, at mid-morning, and catch
slack-tide part way across - but at the risk of dealing with noontime winds
predicted from the east to twenty knots? Or, I could leave after lunch with
the flood, if winds proved light and more favorable? This last option would
mean failing to meet an obligation in Victoria that afternoon.

As I gazed out across the cool, shimmering expanse, Vancouver Island's
southern coast beckoned. It was outlined under an ebon sky by moonlight,
the glow from Victoria, and by numerous tiny lights of smaller hamlets -
all looking like beacons set by armies. I lowered my HS Nordkapp closer to
the water, thinking how she would soon be poetry in motion. Suddenly a foot
slipped, and the bowline pulled free from my hand. There she went, cutting
a nice, narrow furrow out to sea - without me! Needless to say, since I was
wearing only poly underwear, the chill of the water far exceeded the chill
of the morning air, as I took the unavoidable plunge.

After completing drainage procedures and finally departing, the ebb current
facilitated a fast ride away from "P.A. Town." Figuring my troubles were
actually behind me, I gave a cursory glance backward toward the
shoulder-shrugging Olympic Mountains. Rather suddenly, a medium-sized
freighter pulled out, bearing down on me rapidly. I had left the flashlight
below deck, but the angle of the bridge in relation to me left the kayak
out of view anyway. I had underestimated her speed, and had my
collision-bearings negated when she unexpectedly turned toward Victoria,
rather than down-straight as I had assumed. It was a close encounter
indeed, as the ponderous menace glanced by, emanating churning water that
bespattered my spectacles. I cleaned them for the second time, and wondered
if I was taking on too much.   

But things improved: Soon a bigger-than-life colored ball rose in the east,
and my senses stirred as early twilight gave way to vivid rays just behind
Mount Baker. The rising sun cast an incredibly lovely beam seemingly right
at me, following alongside with each paddle stroke. Something really came
alive. No longer did I feel like some kind of sluggish, idle guest upon the
sea's surface. I was making tracks at over four knots. Looking over my
shoulder, I watched the Olympic peaks blush, then suddenly burst out into a
blaze of amber diamonds. The sea glittered with gold sequins, as I grabbed
for my sunglasses and rose upon a chorus of "Tears for Fears" lines ringing
in my head.  

The transition was quick, but every nuance of change, every subtlety of
color turned into a mini-feast of discovery. Then, a hour of hypnotic,
rhythmic paddling passed. I scanned the panorama again. As the sun rose
higher, radiation fog was forming - hanging low and starting to cloak all
the land in a 360-degree perimeter in a thick, misty mantle. Where were my
land-reference points going? No problem, I thought: just follow a slightly
more than north heading. Within another hour, the Coho passed to starboard,
but barely visible on the horizon. I was supposed to be on the same direct
route to the Victoria harbor. I was so looking forward to waving at the
sure-to-be-amazed passangers. I'd failed to make enough allowance for the
increasing drift-rate. With an adjustment made, would I be back on track?

Looming ahead within the next hour, a shipping channel marker bouy became
visible through the thickened air. Dang, it was tilted over at 30-degrees!
As I approached, the kakak shot past sideways at well over 4 knots. Turning
to paddle and catch the bouy proved utterly futile. Minutes later, I was in
a huge offshore tidal-race. I did not understand why I was experiencing
such movement and turbulence out near the shipping lane. I thought the
"Race" was restricted to Race Passage, much closer to shore.

I had come 15 miles in 3 1/2 hours, and the next 3 miles took well over 2
hours of continual 40-degree ferry gliding at an angle to the current. With
a not-so-well tracking standard hulled Nordkapp (no fin-skeg) and no
rudder, and already suffering from shoulder tendonitis from the winter
storm season, and with that damn commitment in town to consider (couldn't
just turn and run with it), I felt like a true ignoramus. By the time Race
Rocks Lighthouse came into view, my shoulder was throbbing with
intermittent, but excruciating pain. Cold water splashed heavily into my
face about every tenth surge-wave. Every reflexative brace I knew, even
some I didn't know about, were utalized within that vast exposition of the
moon's influence on earth. With my fatigue level fairly high, edging was
increasingly difficult to perform. I asked myself if I was still having fun.

As I closed with the shore finally, the back-eddies gave a boost back
toward the "Capital City." Seagulls loudly acclaimed my return to home
waters. A sensation of relief flooded over me - or was it that there was a
sensation to relieve myself before I flooded? Because the latter was
unquestionably true, I tried to land on some rocks near William Head
Prison. And there he came: another gun-clad, stern faced authoritative
figure in uniform, unimpressed with my activities. Waving frantically, he
emphatically entreated me to leave at once, lest I be arrested. I got the
drift, and kept on drifting. 

After finding a suitable spot further east, I quaffed a big diet Coke. I
was on my way back - or so I thought. As I rounded a headland, a stiff
breeze blew steadily offshore. As I closed on Victoria, the intensity of
the wind increased disproportional to the forecast, and normal patterns for
the area. A zig-zagged course of 28 miles without nary a puff of wind, and
now this, I blurted out. Apparently, I was getting aquainted with "Murphy",
vividly portraying his "law". A huge struggle ensued to make port, and not
be blown back out into the Strait. I vowed to add a rudder like the one
Paul Caffyn had showed us at the Symposium.  Every inch of me ached with
pain. My shoulders burned red-hot with impingement-syndrome. I avoided
customs - a normal protocol, but under the circumstances...

I ran the hull of my kayak right over the front hood of the car, onto the
roof-racks, then picked my mother up from the stupid flee market with all
her useless paraphernalia that didn't sell. She asked me how the crossing
went, commenting on the sudden, nasty wind. I said: "Oh, fine, no problems
Mum, never need to worry about me!" She wondered why I couldn't lift four
boxs like usual. Sitting at home later, melting ice cubes on my shoulders,
I debriefed myself. Obviously, following a set compass heading only works
when there is no tidal influence. My allowance was a guesstimate at best. I
had relied too much on clear visibility for my ranges. As well, when course
corrections by triangulation are made, accurate estimates must be made for
tidal-flow rates on both sides of the crossing. This must be done out in
pencil, not just haphazardly in one's head, as I had done. And a flexible
time schedual is mandatory. The freak wind - well that's just part of
kayaking.

Postscript: The next day, the local papers in both Victoria and Vancouver
ran front page articles, describing the massive rescue efforts that tasked
all available vessels and hovercraft to both Haro and Georgia Straits, and
in Howe Sound, in order to retrieve Hobby cats, small day-sailers, and
other small vessels after unexpectedly high winds to 45 knots blew
shallow-draft craft out to sea. The headlines said it was the biggest
"spring clean-up" in the Coast Guard's history. Nice day to pick for a
crossing.

---------------------End Log----------------------------

BC'in Ya
Doug Lloyd (who makes the mistakes so you don't have to)
   
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