Re: [Paddlewise] New Kayaking experience

Rick Sylvia wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
> [snip] 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).
> 
> 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?

Without more knowledge of the geometry of the islands' placement, it is tough
to nail this down.  One poster said "tide rip" which might fit.  Another said
"an area where the waves constructively and destructively interfere ..." (or
words to that effect).  I suspect the second explanation is correct.

It is likely the area of confusion is an area where the dominant swell is
focused from two different openings between islands (or, around one island) to
coincide at the rough spot.  If you check out some of the books on sea kayaking
(I think Dowd has this) or Willard Bascom's Waves and Beaches (best source, if
you can find it), you will see diagrams of how this focusing occurs around an
island to make the in-shore (away-from-the-wave-source) side of the island such
a rough spot .... rougher than the swell-side of the island!

See if you can recollect the geometry of the islands and maybe you have a
"textbook esample" of such a situation.  (Aren't waves cool!)

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
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