Craig, I don't know the area that well but enough to know any point of land jutting into current means trouble, often more so on the ebb on these inland waterway locations and shorelines. I didn't rightly understand the difficulty manoeuvring away from trouble for someone claiming experience on that particular stretch of coastline and general good paddling skills. I didn't understand how anyone could classify a rocky coast section of that location as too rocky for a landing. Not there. There was a lot I did not understand in the narrative. I didn't understand your point about the weathercocking. Maybe I'm slow. I do understand that there are a lot of paddlers out there who, like this gentleman, need to up their game. There's nothing wrong with solo paddling but the activity of paddling without the benefit of companions or a committed partner preclude inattention to gear maintenance and demand more attention be paid at all levels. At the end of the day, paddlers do end up in the water every once and awhile. An experienced paddler and a savvy solo paddler, in both cases, should be at home both in the water and getting back in. A good roll is fine too, how often we hear that - especially from the whitewater crowd; but in my opinion, there should be a level of comfort and functional re-entry adroitness in cold water. Easy to say in my warm living room, I know. Doug . As Doug Lloyd indicates, it's probably impolite of me to sit here snug and warm on my sofa in my Spongebob jammies and second-guess another paddler's close call. Like Doug, however, that's not going to stop me. <grin> I found this an interesting story partly because it takes place off the very beaches where the old West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium was held every September until 2010 (when it was canceled). The Marine Science Resource Pier that he mentions in his report is where the rolling contests/exhibitions were held. The geographical layout of the Fort Warden beach that gave the Seminar a long sandy beach and waters relatively safe for beginners to test kayaks was a major factor that led Mr. Moses into harm's way. The currents, both ebb and flood, tend to be very weak along the center section of this beach; however, the closer one gets to Point Wilson (which lays at the northern end of the beach) the more the ebb (especially the ebb) will be noticed. This corresponds well to his narrative where he says that he did not notice the ebb carrying him faster towards the point until he was well down the beach past the Resource pier. He was pretty well equipped as far as gear goes; not that he used any of it. He was so focused on solving the immediate problem that he never even gave using the cell phone to call for help a thought. This is the sort of thing I can see me doing, too. Probably lots of us. Luckily enough there was a birdwatcher ashore who had enough paddling experience to realize when someone was in trouble. Many paddlers tend to be, like me, results oriented and it's easy to forget to look for other problems while trying to solve one that you have beamed in on. Airliners have been lost when an entire cockpit crew has turned its focus on what turned out to be just a symptom of the real problem. It seems to me an early clue to his growing problem might have been when he noticed that his kayak was weather cocking in less than 10 kts of wind as he paddled east in the lee of the city beaches of Port Townsend soon after launching ("I had minimal wind and waves although I did a have bit of wind-cocking to the north as I paddled along) . That should have been a clue that his kayak was not loaded very well and that he might be in trouble if he were presented with higher winds and seas and a requirement to turn away from the wind. He doesn't appear to have noticed this. Certainly his intended course would have been in an area of more wind and waves as he left the lee of the land. In his list of things he did wrong he does mention that he should have been more aware of the ebb current. Indeed, since the tidal range that day was almost 10 feet and he was starting his trip well into the ebb and planning to navigate a point that jutted out to the east into the tidal stream evacuating water from almost all of Puget Sound to the south meets the tidal stream evacuating all of Puget Sound to the north. There are no safe eddies along an upstream beach jutting into a current. The eddies would all be on the *other* (lee) side of the point. This is something every white water kayaker learns the first day on a river and it's worth remembering. As Doug Lloyd points out, being close to shore is no guarantee of safety; it all depends on how that shore lays to the current. I'm not sure why he didn't simply paddle 45-degrees towards shore when he noticed he was in trouble... or backpaddled to shore if the weather-cocking tendency of his kayak precluded a quick turn. He does mention something about passing rocks on the shoreline and a quick look at Google Earth makes me think that by then he was well out of the Fort Worden "bay" and almost completely around Point Wilson. All of the shoreline inside the bay is sand and sand berms covered with grass. This story convinces me even more that the layers of complexity in sea kayaking are often underrated by paddlers. We have a tendency to look at the immediate conditions and think that they'll remain that way for the duration of our paddle. Unlike so many other sports, in kayaking things can get out of hand very quickly. Mr. Moses is certainly to be commended for his forthrightness in talking about the incident. A lot of us would be too embarrassed to admit all the mistakes. Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA www.nwkayaking.net . *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Jan 11 2011 - 23:07:16 PST
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