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.
