2018 - Post 3 - Seals in Bay Bulls

On Dec 29th, Shane and I did a short paddle in Bay Bulls.  When we arrived we discovered  a couple furry spectator's at the put-in....

It's always a treat to encounter wildlife of any kind when we adventure outdoors....

2018 - Post 2 - Cape St. Mary's Trip in July

Per my last, and only, post for 2018, I promised to post the article I had written for the Ebb and Flow after it came out.  However, there has been an issue and the publication has been delayed!  So I have decided to go ahead and post the article on my blog now since it was a trip that happened in 2018 and I want it to be posted in 2018... 

Part One:  The Trip

(Pics courtesy of da guys... I forgot my camera)

On July 20, Brian, Clyde, Hazen and I drove out to Point Lance in the morning.  We unloaded and packed the kayaks, and then Brian and Clyde drove to the planned take-out at St. Brides, left a vehicle, and returned to the put-in. 

There was surf dumping on the beach at Point Lance as we each made our getaway.  

Hazen was the last one to leave the beach.  From my vantage point beyond the waves he looked like he had the worst of it.  At one point I could not see him at all for a little while and then his bow came over the last wave and he was out in the open sea with the rest of us.

There was little wind but there was swell, causing us to paddle out from the shoreline as we paddled toward the Cape.  When I was able to paddle closer to the cliffs I felt rather dwarfed by the height of them, but when I was further away I could take in the riveting panorama of the coastline. 

We followed the coast until we arrived at Golden Bay, where we would camp for the night.  The tide was getting close to high tide and there was far less surf than at Point Lance a couple hours earlier, and so the landing was fairly easy as long we watched the waves nearer the beach and timed our landing.

Drysuits and gear were laid out in the sun to dry, and our tents went up quickly in the field above the beach.  We set up our camp chairs on the beach and re-hydrated with cold beer that Clyde had packed in a soft cooler.   Life was good.  After a while Clyde and I got a cooking fire started, and we had another cold beer.  

With supper finished and dishes cleared, there was nothing left to do but keep the fire fed with the nearby abundance of driftwood, sit around chatting, and taking in the view. 

As the evening progressed, we noted how the waves increased in frequency and height as the tide lowered… much more intense then when we had landed at closer to high tide.  

We would be leaving the beach roughly twelve hours later and wondered if we would face the same waves in the morning that we were watching that evening.

Morning came and morning activities followed; have breakfast, clear up, brush teeth, take down the tents…   After the kayaks were loaded we left the beach one by one, having to paddle out through the surf.  Hazen was the first one out with a little help from Clyde.  I was the second one out and made it past the surf zone without incident.  

We sat waiting for the other two guys to paddle out. 

As we were waiting I think we might have drifted in closer to shore a little.  Brian was the next one out and paddled to where Hazen and I were.  

When Clyde left the beach I turned my bow outwards and could see a bigger wave coming.  I paddled to it and got over before it broke.  But right behind it was a much larger wave bearing down.  I dug in and paddled hard directly toward it.  Brian and Hazen were to my left but were further ahead.  The wave steepened and I knew I wasn’t going to make it.  It broke on me and pretty much stopped my forward motion.  “Shit, that was hard,” was the thought in my mind.  All I could see was the white of the churning water and, feeling the kayak rolling to port, I had to brace with intent.  Then the turmoil settled and I dug in to get myself moving to get myself further out.  I glanced down at my foredeck and noticed half my spare Euro paddle was missing and the other half was hanging on by one end under the bungee cord.  My pump was hanging over the other side of the kayak, with only the handle end nearest me under the bungee.  Then I noticed my apple, a fruit cup, and 2 bottles of water were no longer under my deck netting, and my GPS was poking halfway out of the net.  I called to Hazen to come over and had him secure the far end of the half paddle I still had, and the pump, as I could not reach forward far enough to secure them under the bungee myself. 

We hung around outside the surf zone, trying to see if we could see my half paddle floating around, but it was nowhere to be seen.  My initial instinct was to head back to the beach and wait for my half of paddle to wash ashore, but I began to reason the situation out in my mind. 

If I made a run to shore and got on the wrong side of one of the bigger waves near the shore I could damage my kayak or hurt myself.  One of the guys could hook on to my kayak to help prevent me from getting surfed in but with only a fifty foot tow rope that would put them right in the surf zone with me once I got to shore… but then several tow ropes could be secured together…

If I made it to shore safely, how long would I have to wait for the paddle to wash in?  Would it be there when I got there, or would it be an hour?  Two hours?  We had twenty kilometres to paddle to the take-out, plus the more than three hour drive home, plus time to get the vehicle at Lance Cove, and a stop to eat…  How long do I wait on the beach for it?  The tide would be dropping for another couple hours and these waves would likely intensify. 

Assuming I landed without incident, and found my half of paddle fairly quickly, then I would have to get back off the beach, running the risk of getting nailed by another wave, maybe loosing gear again, taking a swim, or dislocating a shoulder...  We were all currently sitting safely outside the surf, so why start taking chances.  Going back to the beach just might turn into one of those first of several cascading mistake’s leading to something much more severe than a piece of lost gear.   I decided that ‘Avoidance’ was the best tool at my disposal, given the conditions! 

My half of paddle wasn’t the only casualty of our trip.  Both Brian and Hazen were missing their watches, but were not certain if it they were lost while paddling out or if they forgot them on the shore, but it was not appealing to them either to land to look for a watch on the beach… We carried on...

It was a lovely day.  There was no wind and lots of birds to mesmerize us as we rounded the headland at Cape St. Mary’s.  

The sky seemed to be filled with birds and they seemed to be bothered by something.  As we were rounding the Cape, Brian said that it wouldn’t be a long walk from the Interpretation Centre to our campsite to have a look for the lost paddle.  The wheels started turning in my mind…  Further along we landed at Lears Cove on a rocky beach for a little stretch and a snack before continuing along the coast to the take-out location in St. Brides.

At St. Brides we unloaded the kayaks and piled gear and boats onto Brian’s trailer and drove back to Point lance to pick up Clyde’s truck, and then headed to Branch to have supper before driving back to town.

Part Two: The Rescue Mission

(Sorry, no pics for this portion)

I watched the weather during the week.  There weren’t any storms, nor was there any significant wind.  If my half of Euro paddle made it back on shore, and got pushed high enough up the beach it might be possible it would sit there for a while, waiting for someone to come along…  The weather for Cape St. Mary’s on Saturday called for sun and cloud, with a chance of showers.  I checked the tide for the area and low tide would be shortly after 3 pm.  Saturday would be a good day for a rescue mission.

I e-mailed the guys and told them I was planning on driving out to walk in to see if, per chance, my paddle was sitting pretty on the beach.  Brian replied that he was wondering if a “rescue mission” was gonna happen.  He said if I wanted the company he would like to go to see if his watch was left on the beach.  On the morning of July 28, a full week after we left the beach in Golden Bay, we headed back down the highway…

We arrived at Cape St. Mary’s in a blanket of drizzly fog.  It was supposed to have been sunny with clouds by then.  We donned our rain clothes and stretched rain covers over our day packs.  We thought it prudent to go into the Interpretation Centre to let them know what we were up to.  One of the staff workers said, “Oh, you’re the kayakers we seen last weekend…”  then she proceeded to tell us how the birds didn’t seem to be bothered by the motorized boats when they were near, but for some unknown reason they would take to wing and act up whenever kayakers were near the Cape…

A couple of the staff adamantly advised against us going to Golden Bay with the wet and foggy conditions of the day… “It’s best to come back tomorrow when the weather improves” they told us.  Part of the trail along the shoreline had been lost to erosion and we would have to bushwhack through the Tuckamore, and with the fog we could get ourselves lost since we had not done the trip before and did not know the way.  To hear them talk it was a ‘Mission: Impossible’ scenario.  I looked at Brian and told him I was fine with going and he said he was as well.  The staff said they could not prevent us from going but if we did they would surely end up calling in the search and rescue to come looking for us later that evening...  We let them know we were equipped with GPS, maps and compass, and had an InReach so we could contact someone if there was an issue.  And so, against the advice of the staff, we set off.

The assumed two-hour maximum hike to our campsite took us longer than anticipated.  Most of the trail is in the open and easy enough to follow if you pay attention.  At one point though the trail seemed to just go over the cliff where we assumed was where the shore had fallen away like the staff member had told us.  We had to push our way through the dense Tuckamore around this area, which really slowed down our progress.

We stopped a few times in the trees when there was an opening, and checked where we were relative to our anticipated path and we would adjust our direction to try to get back to it but the trees were so dense we just sort of meandered through what seemed to be the easiest parts in the general direction we wanted to go.  Sometimes we had to get on our knees and crawl close to the ground, and sometimes we just had to make like a moose and just force our bodies through.  At one point we were separated by only about eight feet but we could not see each other…  Finally we broke out to an open area above where the beach was and picked up a trail over the bog that seemed to go in the direction we needed to go.  Then we were back into the Tuckamore once again, and made a final push to get to the open field along the beach to the west of where we had camped. 

The tide was receding, as predicted, and so a lot of the beach was exposed.  If my paddle was here it should not be hard to spot as the blade has an amber colour.  At the beach where we had broken out of the trees Brian walked down onto the beach.  I stayed up on the field above so as to have a higher vantage point…  So as we walked along we were able to scan from both high and low as we ambled toward where we had landed and camped the week before.

Near the spot where we had launched our kayaks, I stopped and scanned the beach, and I spotted the amber of my paddle blade and called out to Brian and pointed to it… from his vantage he did not readily see it, but then did, and walked over and picket it up.  It was fully intact, no worse for wear.  Then he walked directly toward the beach and stooped over and picked up his missing watch!  He had obviously left it on a log when he was getting ready.  We walked around the beach and the tent site to see if we could find Hazen’s missing watch but it was nowhere to be seen, so we figured it must have been lost as he paddled out through the surf.  We even found one of my bottles of water… it would have been funny if we found my fruit cup and apple too!  With my half of paddle in hand, and the watch on the wrist of its owner, it went from a ‘Mission: Impossible’ scenario to a ‘Mission: Possible’ situation… all we had to do was hike back out without incident, but not before having some lunch…

We found a little spot out of the wind and ate, quite pleased with ourselves for finding our gear. We would have another story to add to our paddling adventures.  We didn’t hang around too long though as it was still a dank and foggy day, and we were wet form the hike in.  We packed up and walked back along the open grassy field to where we had come out of the Tuckamore.  There was a trail on the other side of where we had come out and decided we would follow this to see if it would by-pass some of the trees and save us some time bush-whacking. 

The new-to-us trail did indeed save bush-whacking time, but in places it ran dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.  The grass was wet and at times the terrain sloped toward the cliff… if one of us slipped there was absolutely nothing to stop us form a long fall down to the rocks or water below.  We had to be extra cautious along these areas, and eventually came out to where we had started our bush-whacking on the hike in.  The rest of the walk back to the Interpretation Centre was easy over the open bog and fields.

When we were close to the Interpretation Centre, Brian, who now had a watch again, checked and said it only took us an hour and a half coming back.  Later, at the car, I checked the total distance on my GPS:  the total distance there and back was 10.9 km, and to the lunch spot was 6.3 km, making the distance back out just 4.6 km.   The bush-whacking on the way in had really slowed us down!

We went directly into the Interpretation Centre to inform the staff that we were back, with our salvaged gear, and they would not have to send in the search teams to rescue us!   Back at the car we changed out of our wet clothes and had an uneventful drive back home, stopping at Fola’s Restaurant on Salmonier Line for supper.  With both of us back at home, safe and sound, I mused to myself that the rescue went from ‘Mission: Impossible’ at the Interpretation Centre, to ‘Mission: Possible’ sitting on the beach with our gear, to finally a ‘Mission: Accomplished’ standing in my basement with both halves of my Werner Shuna paddle in my hands.