Most of the melodramatic moments narrated in Part One (including some in
Parts Two and Three), might not prove too relevant: most paddlers are
fundamentally competent enough to avoid such extremes. Therefore, few will
ever understand these frightening episodes, nor the frustrations
encountered with faltering equipment. Yet, these situations are instructive
if only as a preventative, and are relayed here with a degree of hesitancy
and embarrassment.
I took a couple of years off following the winter trip of 1986 in Part One (Sorry, my last post incorrectly said 1982 - not that it really matters), while my Orthopaedic Surgeon attempted to alleviate six years of Cortisone misuse and severe shoulder Impingement Syndrome (caused by subjection to severe storms, steam-roller surf, and sadomasochistic tidal stream sorties). My Synovial Fluid had dried up, while the left and right Bursa had shriveled away to nothing. Why mention this? Because "adventure abuse" takes its accumulative toll - something never mentioned in hard core videos and books like the Tsunami Rangers produce!
Between the intervening three surgeries, my Nordkapp underwent its own two year "corrective surgery", including remounting the bilge pump onto the foredeck. I also relocated the forward bulkhead to prevent submarining inside the cockpit during pearl-dives (don't ask!), and updated the rudder. With modifications completed the night before the trip, and with healed shoulders and what I thought was an improved attitude toward safety, I finally set off for the Brooks Peninsula in August of 1988. Keith River was the chosen launch site, Side Bay being relatively protected from all but South Easterly gales upon return.
For the second week of August, the air mass was rather unstable. The emotional transition of finally being on the water again was profound. Not being in shape, progress the first few days was so slow, and my back ached terribly. I don't know why people set off on long trips where little pre-conditioning has been done. A 2 meter swell was breaking heavily while passing Mocina Point. Finding a fishing boat bouncing up and down near Anchorage Island, my pace was further arrested by a thickly-accented old salt, warning of a big gale over the next 48 hours. "You der, stay in inlet. We noh like look'n for dead bodies!" My own local knowledge suggested that most searches up here were for dead fisherfolks, not kayakers...but it really didn't seem too appropriate to share that with the old fellah and his concerned wife. The Brooks beckoned ominously beyond; the protuberance barely visible in the thickening mist. Later, I had a close shave as a huge boomer exploded astern off Gould Rock. When you have not been out on the open ocean for awhile, your awareness of the lurking dangers dissipate. With preservation skills suddenly clicked on, I blurted out to the sea gulls, "No, I don't like dead bodies either!"
Passing the Donald Islets, the ground swell really started to intensify. With the danger of more precipitation fog forming, a bearing was quickly taken on Orchard Point. The damp sea-wind helped push the increasingly, hellaciously fast, ruddered Nordkapp, toward the Brooks' north shore. Though somewhat muffled by the cool drizzle, the unmistakable boom of breakers bursting upon a leeward shore soon sent further shivers down my spine. I had also forgotten how timid one becomes with the advent of the sounds of heavy surf. As I drew closer, plainly distinct were the "wooosshhhhhh...ssshhhhhh" of waves surging up long sandy ramparts, then receding in widening washes of hissing foam. A nice sandy beach, probably, but strewn with strategically placed rocks and small "reeflets". Ince, in his book "Sea Kayaking Canada's West Coast" indicates that it is "almost impossible to avoid surf, big surf." Even in August, apparently! (I've been back a few times since, and have seen it fairly mild, too).
Though not really "big" surf by winter standards, coming ashore in two and a half meter swell can be intimidating on a wilderness beach, alone, in a fully weighted boat where a bailout and possibly broken knee cap would be a genuine emergency. During this part of the decade, few people frequented North Brooks. I delayed landing for a inordinate amount of time, while surveying the interminable surge of seas for some sign of weakness in the shoreline. I sorely regretted stowing the detailed chart below deck (the standard "X" patterned bungies of the Cape Horn deck layout I had was just plain stupid -- apparently, the expedition Frank Goodman was on only had tiny little maps of the southern continents headland, but that layout became the standard import into North America because it looked good!) Anyway, the bungies kept folding my chart in half, in wind and waves, so I had taken it off deck. Well, my physician had requested a decreased "salt intake" and I was also agreeing wholeheartedly. However, any irresolution to land became a mute point when a deep water wave broke without warning, causing a rapid shore ward broach. "Land ho!" I made it. What an inflated feeling it is to be on soild ground again - nothing like it in the universe! My shoulder was less than happy. Too high a brace.
Once ashore, a quiet awe slowly befell me. I had arrived self-propelled, seemingly through a portal into a river estuary that was as primitive in its power and as pristine in its perfection as that into which the First Nation's people must have stepped. Evidence abounds that this peculiar area jutting out into the Pacific missed the last ice age. The pelagic panorama afforded by this profoundly ancient promontory, once the mist clears, with its uncluttered vistas of sand, surf, sea, and sky, should stir the soul of anyone with a sensitive heart to express appreciation to the Master Artist who painted the scene, or failing some sense of spirituality, at least an honest contemplation of our vastly beautiful planet.
Paddling further up the lagoon, it was truly one of those other worldly occurrences in my otherwise dull life as a government worker normally stuck behind a desk from 9 to 5. Mist hung heavily in the mountains while droplets of wetness clung to the dense, strangely dwarfed trees. There was a preponderance, something primordial and eerily evocative about this Jurassic like world. It was a privilege to move unhurriedly amidst this phenological significant ecosystem called "The Brooks". The unusual biota of this untamed, untrodden, undisturbed, unfrequented, unmarked and hopefully always unspoiled wilderness deserve our full devotion.
The night was spent tossing and turning, almost to the point of tears, with the reoccurrence of shoulder impingement and subsequent carry-over pain into the night. I had been too eager, and had not regained shoulder stability yet. Any encumbrance related to one's health, be it back problems, serious wrist tendonitis, or the aforementioned shoulder condition, should be enough to make the wise paddler boycott a trip, or scale back to something more manageable, until the problem has resolved. This was an intense lesson, indeed. Vitamin "I" pills were popped continually. "Ibupfofen - don't leave home without it!" But the real wrestle wasn't against flesh, but against the spirit of adventure. There was insufficient time to allow the gale to blow itself out and still make the trip to the Bunsby Islands on the other side and then back to Side Bay, and get back to Victoria for work. The adventure politics of my mind suggested I vote to keep going -- that my shoulder would improve, as would the weather. Awakened by anxiety, the day almost half over at noon, a still, small voice tried to veto the decision to go. Finally, the departure could be postponed no longer, as the wind was picking up. It was now or never. This pull to progress forward can be a powerful and persistent one, particularly where there's no flexibility with a solo paddler's agenda. It is particularly reprehensible when that trip agenda is an artificial one that could be so easily modified to suite conditions. Solo paddlers often can't sit still, as there is no one to pass the time with, so we keep moving.
Rounding the bold bluffs of Cape Cook, the predicted Westerlies were blowing the briny blue into a boisterous, playful mess. And I was the play toy! Solander Island stood stark and sentinel-like in the distance, waging its battle with the billion breakers of geological time. The offshore reefs in the vicinity of Solander Island and the Cape can break up the ground swell, which rebounds back into itself from the gray, battered bases, where the tidal current further enhances the dastardly mix. It is basic knowledge that headland topography intensifies existing wind speeds, current and wave energies - steepening any ground swell. The Brooks peninsula juts out ten nautical miles into the open pacific, ergo, extreme danger. Passage should be attempted under favorable conditions, early in the morning. "So much for my seafaring savvy!"
Like some kind of adrenaline junkie, I pushed on regardless, immune to further fear and pain. Some of the most technical paddling of my life was executed. Unlike shooting short Class 4 river rapids, the sustained commitment of paddling a fast, narrow sea kayak through such hazardous marine hydraulics can be mentally exhausting. (Certainly a word of caution is due here for impressionable novices: Don't try to emulate such headland adventures. Conditions change rapidly, and there is usually no chance to go scouting beforehand and no margin for error). As I began the five mile jaunt along the tip of Brooks, hugh forests of kelp moderated the swell. However, that same kelp was fast becoming the worst of my problems.
Environment Canada's publication "Marine Weather Hazards Manual" states that wind speeds can be 15 knots higher around the Brooks headland, than those just a few miles offshore, due to the friction effects of corner winds. The wind-stirred sea state extends just outside the shore break along Brooks, about a mile wide or more, and four miles long. The intensity being encountered that afternoon was unknown. Memory can be selective with time, but I distinctly remember shouting, only to have my voice deadened by the deafening roar of howling winds rushing by. I retained some confidence, even while being drawn into the terrifying vortex. With rudder down, at least a 1 knot current in my favor, and an easily 40 knot-plus tail wind (probably a bit lower in between the actual waves, I'm sure, Clerke Point should have been a fast 25 minutes, right?
Wrong! The kelp fronds flapped and fluttered wildly, as each one rose upwards in the troughs. With each passing swell, the rudder blade would ride up over the kelp and stay out of the water, necessitating a free hand to haul it back down again - a difficult task when one can barely hang on to the paddle shaft with even two hands, and I'm not a pussy either. Between kelp beds, the stern would lift in the following seas, rendering the rudder completely ineffectual. Then, as the stern would suddenly reassert into the water, the boat would do a "thump-bump-gonna-dump" routine. The resulting broaching buffoonery was beyond belief. "Damn, back to the drawing board!" I vowed to set up a bungy corded haul-down line that would ensure that the rudder would stay down yet ride over any obstruction. And, I would also add a few inches to the typically inadequate rudder lengths being sold.
The racing white caps finally spit me out just past Clerk Pt. reefs. Thinking my troubles were now all behind, I got ready to veer toward the South Brooks shoreline. Something was awfully wrong. Turning a full 180 degrees, I paddled with all my might, but to no avail. A strong tide combined with gusty lee winds avalanching over the peninsula pushed me backwards out to sea. An overwhelming wave of utter helplessness swept over me. How disingenuous to think I had the deference required to traverse these dangerous costal waters. All I had to really do was get up earlier in the day, and all would have been fine. All that could be done was to turn again and keep veering beyond Checleset Bay." Well, the Bunsbys are my destination anyway". Slowly, a modicum of control was regained. A huge offshore yacht pulled up beside me and asked if I needed help. I indicated with loud shouts that I was doing okay, just very frightened. There were some Zodiac boaters camped in the Bunsby Islands when I finally arrived, who had been waiting days for the right conditions to round the Brooks on their westward trek, finally changing plans. "Hmmm, altering plans, what a concept" I said to myself. Two days later, I made passage back around the Brooks -- at 6:00 a.m. in the calm morning. "Hey, you're learning, Doug, slowly, but learning!"
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