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Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board
Trip Report: what the ocean can be like
Posted By: Mike and Rikki
Date: Tuesday, 22 March 2005, at 12:55 p.m.
Hey everyone, sorry for the delay, but here's a little lesson's-learned narrative typed up a while ago on what we dealt with down south for a few days-a weather bomb en-route to the Selkirk Islands.
What does it have to do with kayaks? Well, to get to those far-away destinations, you oftenm will have to go by boat. Some of you have boats and take the kayak along for day trips. Well, you think those kayaks are heavy after a long paddle? Try dealing with loose kayaks on the foredeck in Force 8 winds...read on gentle readers...good ol' Icebreaker Rob enjoyed the story. do as we say and not as we did........
Kayaks, Sailing and Being One Helluva Long Way From Home:
Literary Snapshots of a New Life At Sea*****
The cure for everything is salt water-sweat, tears, or the sea.
-Isak Dinesen
Sunny skies, warm winds and calm seas and sailing over empty seas, hundreds of miles from the nearest shipping lane, with nary a care in the world. The work-a-day world is so far behind as to be vaguely remembered bad dream. The autopilot is engaged, the winds have been constant for days, and we’re taking turns to pick the CD to play-at least those still awake. Rikki lies stretched out on the portside cockpit seat, Diane on the starboard seat, both fast asleep. Jaynee and Ernie are sitting on folding chairs on the lazarette watching the two troll lines. The very effort to stir and pick the next album to play takes as much effort as nearly anything a person could do. Why bother? Look over to the starboard and over there sails our consort, equally overwhelmed in the warm waves of utter bliss. Days away lay our next destination, Robinson Crusoe Island within the Selkirk Islands, new adventures await us.
But as every high is married to the low, and our time in the Sun was coming to an end. But in the end it’s the struggle that is the glory, as all good stories are. How else does the child learn to stand on it’s own two feet then by falling flat on it’s face?*****
I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.-G.K. Chesterton
Early morning dawned and whitecaps surrounded us. The idyllic life was coming to an end. The winds were increasing, and the rain started by mid morning, descending from lead skies seemingly just above the masthead. As the morning wore on occasional rainsqualls would pelt us in sudden, driving horizontal sheets that reduced visibility to mere yards and brought churned water and gusting seas. The rain would splatter heavily in single drops, the first arrivals, pounding heavily on the storm jackets, bouncing off the deck and sail, ever more falling till the sheer density of water suspended in the air blurred everything in a white fog of moving water. With each squall came sudden, violent winds that would tear the ocean’s surface into a welter of confused seas then passing to return to the regular march of seas. And over everything was the constant rise and fall of the boat as she made way over endless growing mountains of ocean waves driven by growing winds as a low deepened around us.
Winds that were born far away in tropical highs, from formerly heavy, still air over some other azure sea and jungled paradise took notice of a far-distant low, a hole, in which to slide invariably downward to the west-northwest.
The downward spiral, dragging along in it’s death grip all that shared it’s own departure from what it once knew. Comfort and security snatched away by misfortune, by outside forces greater then the person who still grimly hangs on and endures. One can picture the desperate last struggle of the drowning soul lost and forgotten far from the nearest land, the home of fellow terrestrials, struggling to the last grabbing at possibilities, beliefs, hope. On land and at sea, it’s the same, just a different set of circumstances to get there, and a different set of means in which to lose all. And so one muses while staring out at the endless gray seas building in their grand indifference.
Stirring from my braced position next to the wheel, taking care to look down to make sure that one of the tethers was still clipped to the port cockpit jack line, and only then timing the pounding lifts and plummeting descents to stand before the hatch for one last, careful look round the horizon, then up at the sail and rigging straining above, then and only then to unclip to carefully make my way down the ladder. Pausing between the steeply angled lurching of the suddenly-small world before alighting in the warmth and familiar comfort of home, the noise and confusion muffled and distant though the complex movement of the small bit of shelter made it all so much more urgent to grasp at any information as to what the future held for us.
After logging on and downloaded all the weather info we could, though there was that virtual disconnect from real-life conditions of the reporting stations and our situation in the here and now. The weatherfax was scary. The GOES 10 images looked bad. The US Navy satellite images looked even worse with the predicted wave size overlaid on the imagery. The UK Met Office was predicting a rough go of it. The Peruvian website issued severe storm warnings. Of course all that technological wizardry is often wrong, that is, if the damn things even work at all once over the horizon and more then a day’s round the clock sail from port. Rightly so, all blue-water sailors have an inherent distrust of the technical toys. And so the salty old dog turns to the one reliable instrument - the barometer - and ours had turned into a rock in free-fall.
It’s a sobering moment, that realization that comes after you see the rapid fall of the barometer in just minutes. Oh, shit! What in the hell were we sailing into, a friggin’ black hole, the edge of the flat earth? Later a quick glance at the barometer would show 847 when the bailout bags were gotten ready. It was a weather bomb, as they would call it, a literal hole of intensely low pressure with a steep gradient that caused huge masses of wind to fall into it, but all that was in the future.
We sat braced safely around the nav center sipping our tea, heavy on the sugar for the next couple of hours, looking at each other as we subconsciously rolled with the heaving seas. Not a word was said. Before us were the evidence, the weather maps, and the images. Words would have never told the story compared to the long, silent looks we gave each other: it was Hurricane Pauline all over again. Nowhere to run, this hugely dropping low-pressure system was developing all around us. After some shared thoughts and discussion we soon were busy making ready for what was stacking up to be a real rough go indeed. We were far offshore, behind us more then a day’s sailing was the coast and the midway point between two charted anchorages, and as the winds and seas picked up, and each was as far away as the dark side of the moon. But when there’s no place to run, no safe harbor to drop anchor, nowhere to call home…one must run before the wind in deep water and endure the tempest as best you can. Rikki, Ernie and Diane were readying the boat for a pounding while I took the wheel and Jaynee came below to change into her survival suit. Atop the wet weather locker under the companionway were stacked the bailout bags out of the way but close at hand if…needed.
We were sailing in consort with Lyn and Jen in Tango and we were five and they were two. The simple fact is that the more who can stand watch and act instantly as needed in a storm the better and we radioed over our offer to send someone over to even out the score. With the next available download of the latest GOES pass overhead it went from bad to worse and it was obvious that we were, as Rikki put it: “in for a bloody thrashing.” At the time the winds were gusting 40 knots and steadily rising. Jaynee came back up to finish her watch and I inspected the rigging with binos from as many angles as I could from the cockpit. Looking through binoculars made my equilibrium tumble wildly with the disconnected input from my eyes and inner ears, but better to deal with problems now then in the future.
Intense discussion via radio finally persuaded Lyn and Jen to accept help, and from the ever-increasing pitch and heave of our little fleet in mounting seas was witness to the intensity of the storm we were sailing into, all the while the barometer kept falling, the winds kept increasing and the seas got ever larger. One of us was going over to their boat, but who and how? And this took some time to figure out. In the end Diane was going over and Ernie was taking her there. Diane was the most able to negotiate the dangers of getting aboard, and Ernie was taking her there because she was his better half, and where she goes so does he. Diane peeled down to underwear, then we handed her fleece tights, top, vest, then her survival suit. Above that went her jacket and then her PFD harness. Ski goggles and gloves, then her overboard bag and she was ready. Ernie and Diane looked at each other for long moments. Rikki and went off to give them a moment alone, but I couldn’t help to listen in, the enormity of possibilities becoming instantly clear to me, that sudden being right there at the moment focus highlighted by the pounding motion and noise from the water rushing down the hull. We’re in it and everything depends on each other. You never know about people till a crisis, between hugging they talked about the launching and recovery like just another stunt to be done. Rikki and I couldn’t help it, but hugged them, our dear friends.
We launched our Zodiac which is an understatement is ever there was one. Right off the wind caught and pried up a side and flung that fat Frisbee forward to butt up against the port traveler arch, swatting Rikki down. In a moment she crawled out and all four of us jumped in it and gathered to yell out the next move. Between the four of us we wrestled it over to the stern and then wrestled it back down to bolt the engine on to help it stay down, then stuck the stern over into the water, followed by some tense moments as first Ernie, and then Diane tumbled in, then that wonderful Honda outboard, started right up and they were angling away to pound over the swells for Tango.
Diane’s getting aboard was exquisitely done after several aborted tries which got her bailout bag aboard then timing of each wave Ernie zoomed in, alternately flying along and bouncing about until they came in under the rear quarter. Diane stood up as the Zodiac crested, jumped up onto the deck of Tango into the waiting arms of Lyn where they both tumbled over onto the rear deck. Ernie kept station for a few minutes then peeled off to pound his lonely way back, all the while both boats ready to come about to rescue Ernie if something went wrong.
Recovering Ernie and the Zodiac was the real challenge. It took attaching a long line to the Zodiac; Ernie then brought the Zodiac close to the stern as we took in the line on one of the winches till he cut the engine and scrambled forward for the stern of La Aurora. To really appreciate what Ernie was facing, the stern of La Aurora would suddenly lift as she crested a swell as her bow plunged sickeningly into the trough. Ernie timed it so that as the stern was at the bottom of the trough he drove the Zodiac up onto the rear step and cut the engine as we feverishly took in the slack on the main winch, then as he scrambled forward we grabbed him by his harness, his legs pumping as he pushed off from the Zodiac. Rikki nimbly clipped a tether on while we grabbed and hauled away and then all of us were in a heap on the rear deck. All the while Jaynee both steered the ship, monitored the radar and FLS as well as steering to make it as easy for Ernie as possible, a very tough job. Looking back at us she had the final word with a loud “Woo-HOO!”
Hauling the Zodiac far enough onto the rear deck took attaching two ropes and hauling away with the deck winches till we were able to then attach it onto the rear arms and hauled away till it was up, then down on the rear deck and cinched down tight with a lot of line. Securing the Zodiac for the coming high winds took more labor then I care to remember leaving Ernie and I exhausted. One thing without doubt, without both winches hauling the Zodiac in would have been impossible. From there we settled down to sailing watches and making up enough food and filled every Thermos with sugary hot chocolate for the coming rough weather. We took turns going below to force down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hot chocolate before going topside. Rikki got Lyn on the radio and talked over everything done by each of us for the coming blow while Ernie and I furled up the rest of the jib and tied on straps to keep it furled, a wild, plunging ride as water came over the bow. While up forward we looked at the kayaks then and everything seemed secured…
The day wore on with increasing severity. It got dark; we lit up the lights including those on the spreaders. Occasionally looking over into the gloom and driving spray one could just make out Tango as a constellation of stars maintaining position on us as we maintained a course that benefited both boat’s sail rigs and handling characteristics.
By 1800 winds were gusting over 65 knots with breaking seas now over 25 feet under bare poles and still we were doing over 10 knots, more surfing down the seas, all the while we were taking more and more green water over the bow back to the dodger. It was getting harder to control the boat as she would stop displacing and began planing down the waves to bury her nose into the backside of the next wave…and a broach or a knock-down wasn’t far away. Ernie and Rikki came topside and after yelling out ideas we decided to stream a spare nylon anchor rode with a small parachute drogue shackled on swivels to slow ourselves down. After that Jaynee and I went below after our watch. Sleep was out of the question, so we decided to fix up a big supply of food to then store ready for eating to pass the time and then I staggered over to the nav station to log position and wind speed as Jaynee undid floorboards to inspect the bilge, then back to check the engine. About that time winds were over 75 knots and the barometer was 834 and still falling. It was while I was sitting there trying to figure out why the satellite antenna was not working when I heard the heavy, solid thump from forward as the bow plunged into the flank of a wave after a particularly steep drop.
Thumps are not a good thing and I quickly secured everything and lurched across the settee and through the passageway forward into Ernie and Diane’s cabin, braced myself and watched the dark green seas burying the forward ports. I called for Jaynee to come forward and moments later she was braced next to me looking around as I told her to listen. There was the crash and noise of the waves, the interminable shaking and rattles and bumps of a million things resonating at their own pitch…but all that was just…noise. Jaynee looked at me with a puzzled expression and right when she opened her mouth to say something a few minutes later, we both heard a solid loud thump in front of us.
Our eyes scanned down, up, the deck, the portholes, and the overhead. Jaynee dropped to the deck and lay with her ear to the sole. Like the first thump, it wasn’t a crunch or crash like a collision with something, but a hollow, heavy thump. I went forward as Jaynee crawled on her hands and knees back into the settee. There didn’t seem to be anything obviously wrong but several wave sets later above and this time behind me there it was again, a good, solid thumping on the right side overhead. I made my way back aft into the settee and braced myself against the mast trunk, and looked up with Jaynee, expecting to see the kayak sterns forward of the cabin windows, but no. With a sinking feeling, I fished out a flashlight from my jacket and twisted it on. Timing the motion of the sea I shined the light through the window and craned myself as best I could then with great relief saw first one stern, then looking through the port side window and forward, the other stern but they weren’t where they were supposed to be. They were shifting and working against their tie-downs. Ernie and I had inspected the kayaks and lashings, too.
Topside the wind was roaring as we came up, heavy spray from up forward was now shaking and bellying the dodger as I clipped my tether to the railing and steadied myself as the lurching, wildly oscillating horizon caused a moment of vertigo, then stepped out into the noise and confusion within the cockpit. Rikki was sitting braced on the port side bent over to peer at the read-outs and next to her on her right Ernie was watching the radar and FLS displays before him as he handled the wheel. Both had their hoods cinched down tight around their goggles from all the flying water impossibly coming from everywhere. I scooted along the seat till I was next to Rikki and clipped my second tether to the deck wire on the port side just on the other side of the cockpit. Rikki looked up at me and I opened my hood and put myself close to yell at her about the kayaks working at their ties forward. When I finished and looked up Ernie was looking at us and I made a series of hand gestures to indicate that the kayaks (paddling gesture, two fingers up, followed by exaggerated stabbing motion of my arm forward, port and starboard sides) were working (both arms out and bent at the elbow, moving each arm up and down horizontally) and were pounding (forearms up and down horizontally pounding on an imaginary surface). Rikki watched this series of gestures and then turned her flashlight on and leaned out to look forward, then up at the mast and rigging, then turned it off and scooted close to Ernie who bent his head to her. After a minute of the two of them yelling at each other Rikki scooted over to me and yelled that we were going to go forward to check on them. Exactly.
In the seat locker on the opposite side were lengths of 8 mm line and since I was heading across the cockpit, I unclipped the second tether, timed the lurches to step across and sit down, clipped on the second tether to the starboard cockpit jack line, and then scoot along the seat aft towards Ernie and tell him we’d tie them down with more line. Ernie nodded and then yelled okay. Thumbs up and I scooted forward and opened the seat to rummage around for some coils of line, an additional two of the Tec 40 flashlights kept there, and clipped on another line knife to the outside of my jacket, then just to check, I scooted back next to Ernie to check on the radar picture and FLS setting. Tango was out to our starboard at just under a half-mile and Ernie had the FLS scanning shallow to either side of the bow. Looking out into the gloom Tango was a vague glow that disappeared for long moments from time to time. I got up and lurched across the cockpit to crash down as the boat came lurching up and both Rikki and the then Jaynee came up, Jaynee taking up Rikki’s position and peering over at the readouts, then scooting close to Ernie to hug him quickly with an arm around his waist.
We scooted forward along the seat and then after a long pause watching the breaking seas wash back from the bow we turned to look at each other. We took turns yelling at each other ideas then finally, I reached over the cockpit rim and clipped my free tether onto the port side deck jack line, reached down to unclip the other tether from the cockpit jack line and then crawled over the cockpit rim to crouch on the deck wrapping one arm around a stanchion as seas poured down the deck against my leg. I scooted around and watched Rikki follow me out of the cockpit to nestle against me. We both leaned back and over to look forward, then crawled forward on our hands and knees into the seas pouring aft off the forward deck to our next goal, the mast, each of us clipping on our free tethers to the forward centerline jack line. Getting there one timed the seas, hanging onto whatever was close and wedging with the feet against whatever was handy then quickly crawl to the mast to hang on.
Every so often particularly heavy seas would wash around us, swinging us around despite our best efforts. The kayaks were definitely working, lifting up in the seas on deck, swinging about then dropping down. Around the forward deck and outboard of the kayaks was the heavy toe rails running forward and aft as well as a series of padeyes scattered about. Looking forward both the boat and kayak’s bows were being buried in water. It looked like it was going to be a hell of a brutal job ahead. We sat there hanging on watching everything till we got an idea what to do.
What followed was a long and painful wrestling match but wedged we managed to get a line tied onto the toe rail and cinched Rikki’s kayak tight in a series of wraps and ties to padeyes. This took both of us essentially lying down between the seas surging over the deck, Rikki keeping a light on things and I shoved the line through a padeye and then draping over the kayak to wildly grope for the bitter end, all the while getting washed over by the surf breaking over the bow. It took many tries and a couple good bounces and pinches between the deck and kayak till it was cinched down tight on their cradles. We did the same thing with my kayak and then, sore and tired, we scooted aft to nestle together against the mast peering forward. Rikki pulled out a bigger light and turned it on to look over the forward part of the kayaks and before us was a sight the likes of which neither of us had ever saw before. The Tec 40 light illuminated the forward deck and reached out through the driving rain and spray from the wind lashed waves the area just beyond the bow. Out of the blackness and driven spray, lit in it’s mad flight, out beyond the bow would come a dark mass of black water and froth, rearing up to tower before us like a wall was this wave… Both of us stiffened thinking that this was a rogue, that in the final seconds, this was going to do us in and we were watching it.. Just when it seemed like the wall would break upon us and it seemed that the boat would continue into the depths, the bow struggled up, with seas pouring over the bow to wash back against us, just like a before. The range of motion was more then it seemed then when we were in the darkness and for a moment I suffered a touch of vertigo; it seemed as if the bow was pointing straight down. Rikki turned around to put her face next to my hood and shout at me about the kayak bows needing heavier line. And that…meant going forward.
For every foot forward the force of the water was definitely stronger as I scooted myself forward facing aft, bracing with my legs between the kayaks while watching Rikki crawling in my wake, her face looking around me forward, then behind and up at the furled jibs then back at me. The difference of 8 feet more forward was absolutely amazing. With every dive the seas would come crashing back into us, pushing us aft. At times, covering us to our shoulders with surge. Not bothering to use the lights, we blindly searched with our hands for padeyes to snake the line through to then cinch down the forward part of each kayak. We ended up using several lengths of 8mm line to truss the kayaks tight to every tie down near till there wasn’t any free play at all. Scooting back, and slowly making our way aft and then with Jaynee taking our free tethers to clip them to the cockpit jack line, helped us over into the cockpit to flop down cold, wet and exhausted on the bench in a heap. Our hands ached through the numbing cold; water had come in under my right cuff. Ernie looked at over at us and gave us a thumb’s up. Rikki scooted along the bench and next to Ernie who leaned over, braced and watching the readouts as Rikki yelled that we were going below to rest and have drink while I sat there and kept rerunning the vision we had of the seas from the bow.
The rest of the night and well into the next day we cycled through a one on and one below watch in teams of two. In the end the maximum winds recorded was 94 knots and the lowest the barometer had dropped was 816 millibars. Tango by this time within a couple miles of us as we both made way the best way each boat could, being blown to the northwest.
Next day dawned with big seas but the winds coming down and swinging about. The rest of the day we plowed through heavy and abating seas till the late evening when we cycled up sail and joined up with Tango for a run south-southwest for the Robinson Crusoe Island. On one of our turns below I discovered that my arms were bruised black and blue as well as several bruises and a good-sized ding on my lower right thigh. When that happened I haven’t a clue. Still, the kayaks weathered the storms well with only cosmetic damage. We were lucky; it could have been a disaster. The only significant casualty from the storm was the satellite antenna that started to fail. But that’s another story.
A serious lesson was learned here. Next time, everything must be well secured before and not during a storm. When I say well secured, I mean tied down with a lot of heavy line of zero stretch. If one of the kayaks had come adrift, the damage it could have done could have hurt or killed anyone in the cockpit, not to mention the damage it could have done.
…………
On to Robinson Crusoe Island…..
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