The following was a trip report about a harbor paddle several of us did this morning. We were entertained by the Coast Guard, Vessel Assist, a 26' Striper and a 65' Catamaran owned by one of the concessionaires for the Channel Islands National Park. Thought you might enjoy it. Seven of us showed up at Kiddie Beach this morning for our scheduled intermediate level paddle. The participants were, Peter O'Sullivan, Patrick Martin, Lee Shurie, Chris Wood, Taylor Burch, Tom Banks (from Anacortes, Washington), and me. The wind was blowing up a storm and outside of the harbor they were a steady 35 knots. That's a bit much even for the Old Farts. Patrick suggested that since it was 5 NM around the harbor, that we paddle a couple of laps and we'd still get our 10 NM or so in. Peter wisely suggested that we do one lap, but go into every one of the nooks and crannies because it would be tempting at the end of one lap to say we were hungry and just bail and head for Daddy-O's or some other eatery. Winds inside the harbor were about 15-20 knots which was doable. So that's what we did. For about an hour we were entertained by our radios and a skipper of a 26' power boat who was trying for a Darwin Award. He had had three kids on board, and could not handle the rough water. He was either near Anacapa Island or Santa Cruz Island, on either the ocean side or the mainland side, and could or couldn't see the 65' Island Packers Catamaran that was looking for him. He had a GPS, but the coordinates he was giving the CG weren't anywhere near where he thought he might be. Finally he said he was able to see a pier on one of the islands but he couldn't get there because he was only going in circles because the water was too rough. The CG tried to convince him to motor their and tie up to one of the mooring buoys and drop an anchor. He couldn't do it. Finally the Island Packers boat found him and they were going to have a crew member drive the boat back. Their main office got on the radio and said no - too much liability. Then they decided to tow the boat, but the main office said the same thing. They took the boat over to the mooring buoy and the skipper called Vessel Assist who informed him that he could take the Island Packers concession boat back to the mainland and they would go pick is boat up for him - but it was not a covered incident because his boat was functional, it was the skipper that wasn't functioning. Cost was estimated to be about $1,500.00. The final alternative was that he could stay with the boat and wait out the weather but NOT go ashore, because he was actually at Smugglers Cove and landing is prohibited there. All of this was taking place on Channel 16 because he couldn't figure out how to switch channels on his VHF. I'm betting that he puts the boat up for sale when he gets back to the mainland. Later we met up with Jeandrew Brink and George Miller who were also paddling the harbor and not trying to fight the winds. Actual Google Map track of our trip can be found at http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0jnY2nAKqFrlzZHT Yd4Zh1vlCs9DZFRt6 or if your email doesn't like long links you can go to http://preview.tinyurl.com/Steve-s-Spot-Track Steve Holtzman *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Steve Holtzman <sh_at_actglobal.net> wrote: > The following was a trip report about a harbor paddle several of us did > this > morning. We were entertained by the Coast Guard, Vessel Assist, a 26' > Striper and a 65' Catamaran owned by one of the concessionaires for the > Channel Islands National Park. Thought you might enjoy it. > > Great story, Steve. My all-time best Darwin Award contender among my sea stories is about a powerboater who was headed back to his home port on Long Island after a long day on the water with his family and friends. I spent a lot of time on tankers on the east coast of the USA and this story was widely published for mariners. It was getting dark and at some point the electrical system powering his instruments failed so he called the Harbor Master at his home port on the VHF. The Harbor Master was busy and as it was a nice day he told the skipper to go to the sea buoy and just hang out there and they'll send a skiff out to lead him into the harbor as soon as they could free up a hand to run the skiff. Instead of doing that the powerboater drove around looking for more immediate help. He spotted a sailboat and got close enough to hail him. Apparently he could not reach the USCG on VHF (this was 20 years ago, or so, and repeater coverage wasn't what it is now) so he asked the sailboat skipper to call them. Well, the sailboater couldn't raise the CG either so he got on ham radio and managed to get someone to relay to the USCG about the problem. The USCG's advice was the same as the Harbor Master's advice: Return to the sea buoy (visible in the near distance) and wait for the skiff. The powerboat skipper was still not quite ready to take that advice so instead he drove off towards another boat that turned out to be a tug with a tow astern. Again, he drove up close and hailed the boat and the tug master came out and listened to the guy's problem. He, too, called the USCG (on HF SSB) and the word came down to go back to the sea buoy and wait for the skiff. As the tug captain was about to wave good-bye he turned on one of his big searchlights and pointed it at the tow about 1/10 mile astern (the tug was "shortened up" in preparation for entering his own harbor) and admonished the powerboat skipper to not, under any circumstances, get between the tug and the barge as there would be no way for the tugboat to stop in time. The powerboat skipper acted like he understood, waved a cheery goodby and backed right into the path of the barge. His powerboat was run down and several people on his boat were killed. Not, as it happened, the skipper who had a lot to answer for. The USCG published an account of this (it may still be out there somewhere) and in the aftermath they discovered that the "skipper" of the powerboat had an extremely rudimentary knowledge of running boats, had never run at night, thought that there were "300 degrees or so" in a circle, and other shortcomings that slip my mind now all these years later. There were no Darwin Awards then (or Internet, for that matter) so this wouldn't have made it. Besides, the perp didn't die. We can only hope he was too old to breed. Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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