Re: [Paddlewise] August Sea Kayaker

Dave Kruger wrote:
>>>PS:  Deep Trouble has a great tale in it of another multiple-paddler 
incident, off Flores in Clayoquot Sound, I think, in which one of the 
principals is either Gronseth or Broze (they don't let on which one). 
You're in good company, Rob!<<<<<

Actually neither George nor I was there at the time. I'm not sure George was
even a paddler yet then. Although I had paddled in the area of the incident
previously so had a little experience with it (and chose not to try to round
the point that day based on those more benign and more visible conditions),
I wrote the article after interviewing most of the dozen or so participants
who got together with me to review the incident so their stories could be
told as a warning to other sea kayakers. 

One similarity to Rob's recent article was the WW paddler(s) on the ocean
who were rather new to sea kayaking. The majority of the Raphael Point
paddlers were good WW paddlers but rather new to sea kayaking therefore they
didn't have nearly the level of experienced sea kayaker back up that the WW
paddler in Rob's article had. They also found themselves in a much more
extreme environment on the open coast. Even the expert sea kayakers were
frightened there. The situation was huge peaking/breaking ocean swell that
had been focused onto a point that was hidden in dense sea fog. The
resulting giant pyramidal waves were breaking in shallow areas and smashing
into the rocks and cliffs nearby but though they could be heard and felt
they were not that visible due to the dense fog (so that the real danger
could not be accessed clearly). This resulted in a perfect situation for the
imagination to run wild and ramp up the level of fear. The recent crew were
in conditions most of them could handle so likely only one of them feared
for his life during that incident. 

Another similarity was both groups also became separated into two subgroups.
In the Raphael Point incident they mostly separated themselves into those
who were willing to risk a dicy crash landing at nearly any cost to get out
of the fearsome situation at sea quicker and those who were willing to stay
in the scary situation at sea longer in hopes of finding a less frightening
landing opportunity.


Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com  
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