This past weekend, I took a 3 hour paddle in and around my normal "afternoon paddle" areas. But, something was different this time and I want to ask about it. This is my second year as a kayaker (ie: still a beginner with a lot to learn), and I've been to this one section at least a dozen times. Just off the coast (maybe 1/4 mile) is a series of islands, none of which are bigger than maybe 300 yards across in any one direction. Two of them are about 100 yards apart, and the water gets shallow in between - goes from maybe 10 feet deep up to a few inches (at low tide, anyway). At the time of this story, sea gulls were standing in it, so it was maybe an inch or two. This past wekend, the wind was very strong - strongest I've been in yet, and at times couldn't make any forward progress at all when heading into the wind. I had spray and wind waves galore, it was an unusally low tide, and the wind was blowing from land out to sea, in a direction that would pass right between the two islands. As I got closer to the area that ran between the two islands, the water changed very noticably. Previously, the wind waves were consistantly blowing from left to right (land out to sea), but in a section that covered about 40 yards in all directions, and within maybe 10 yards of the sudden change in depth, the water was MUCH rougher, and was moving in every imaginalble direction. It was extremIey noticable, to the point where you could easily draw an imaginary line around this area and clearly see it's boundaries. As I got into the middle of it, I was being tossed and turned in every imaginable direction. I got out of it as quickly as possible, and then stuck around to watch it for awhile, and couldn't quite figure it out. If it were simply a sudden change in depth, and a funneling effect between the islands, I'd of thought the water would at least be moving in the same direction, but I was getting wet from ALL directions. The best ways I could think of to describe it was that it was like being in a hot tub with all the jets open and at full blast (only rougher, of course). Or, like the water was "boiling", or, like a school of very large fish were having a feeding frenzy on the surface. So, what's the deal here? Why such a confined and definable area, and why so rough in so many directions? Any ideas? Rick *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Feb 12 2001 - 08:40:41 PST
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