Swell: Close-Up

A Swell Sequence

Heading Out

Mendocine paddling.

Swell Ride

On the SF Bay yesterday,  the swell offered me a gift: a fast ride, the most-sustained push that I can recall in a decade and more of kayaking.

Sure, I've gone faster on a single wave or on a swift swell-driven current in a Mendocino rock garden, but just paddling and riding, being pushed along . . . this ride was unique.

On the way back from beyond Emeryville and heading to the Berkeley Marina, the swell and wind conspired to carry my kayak quite quickly once I shifted angles and my paddling rhythm to get the most from the flow.  My kayak, Sofia, is a beamy Scrambler 11 from Ocean Kayak, a fine platform for freediving, but not a speedster.  The waves were moving slowly enough that we weren't overrun or outrun, but also the waves were moving strongly enough so that my kayak would be picked up and carried forward for a good long distance before the waves moved on.  I only had to use my body weight for proper balance and some paddle strokes for a touch more speed or better positioning.

Once I had Sofia in the groove, we were flying.

Feeling Surgy

Sea and Sky

 The water was high today with tide and swell both working.

Rodeo Beach:
Marin Headlands, CA

Off Point Bonita

 The swell was working off the Marin Headlands.

Note to a Friend

I have a hankering for a paddle at Mendocino, just for the sheer
practice and the place, but south and southwest swells make the north
route and even the south route both rough.  

The long drive, yes, but I
miss the caves and the specific landscape . . . .   Just mental
free-falling there.

Monterey has similar problems with a south swell, I think,
particularly if I am out of shape, as I am.  Hmmmmm.

So, I am thinking of good paddle-practice or paddle-experience.

What's your list of objectives or desires for a paddle outing this
coming weekend?

I would like to get wet and to sweat.

--MD

Curious Yellow

Shift the horizon out of true and there's a different sort of truth available, I think.

Here: paddling past Monterey harbor and breakwater with the town in the background as well--though a bit of swell makes that view slightly kiltered.

Shift from one horizon to another, and you'll make another sort of truth available too.

--I'm the kiltered one with this shot, though that is the true view while paddling, the horizon at a slight slant.  If you are lucky, kayaking (and swimming) will leave you feeling that rocking-swaying-surging in your soul and bones, proprioceptively, long after the sea-session ends, even unto bedtime.  If you are really lucky, you'll wake with such sea-legs.

Get kiltered: not a bad motto these days . . . .

Risk Assessment

Mendocino sea-cave that leads through a cathedral arch to an amphitheatre.

The swell was a bit too high and the tide too low to pass through that arch safely. At a low tide, the bottom of the arch pinches inward, and with this swell a more skilled paddler could ride in on the wave, but the risk of being jammed down into that crevice was too high for me.

Swell: Captive in Clay

The Captive, Unbound (Nisus):
sculpture mix; shino and transparent brown glazing;
copper wire, beaten.

Looking back: 07/18/13

Here's a link you may like if you like this shot--the full graphic-visual scenario--
"Surviving the Shipwreck".

Mendocino Kayaking: A Quick Glimpse

Water, Water

Watch-Words: Kayaking

Protected areas in a certain swell; the bay's mouth in a certain swell: as long as we approach matters carefully and are ready with back-up plans or for less than ideal, we are ready to look and learn.

Captain's Log

Feeling Like The Captain:

I've felt like Captain Jack Sparrow for days now, having spent enough hours on the water last Thursday and Friday -- those bright, surgy days -- to absorb those rhythms and motions! I love that feeling.

By feeling like Captain Jack, I mean feeling wobbly and tilty and one with the sea.  He had the Black Pearl, and I have Sofia

 Log Jam:  While kayaking last Thursday, I was startled by a shape in the water, by a long brown shape, that I took to be a mature sea lion that I was suddenly much too close to.  Not a harbor seal, for the shape was too too long and broad, but a sea lion, and at close quarters, a full-grown sea lion could do plenty of defensive damage.  That brown shape was just a log, however, a carved-off tree-portion about six or seven feet long drifting in the cove.

Now, having been surprised by that log, that shape, I back-paddled furiously and avoided any collision.  Which would have been the right action, particularly if it had been a marine mammal.  Still, I am struck by how much my startled response came before any rational sense of "Hey, that might be a sea lion, so avoid hitting the creature"; and, from reading and teaching Laurence Gonzales' Deep Survival, I am well aware of the dynamics of amygdala trumping hippocampus, of emotional reaction before rational decision, but still I would like to have not been so afraid of a shape.  Haven't I trained for these situations?  Haven't I paddled and visualized enough to respond more thoughtfully?  Or, at least less fearfully?  Was this a failure of grace?   Or should I appreciate how much my core self, the body/emotional self, worked to take me out of (perceived) danger?

Notebook: Whale-Watching / Kayaking

1.  I will have to set aside the camera a bit more deliberately to engage my whole sight and other senses.    Next time around.  The camera itself, turning it on, fussing with zooming and focusing, really narrows the experience.  I love having the shots to document and to spark memories, but I want to look and see more fully in the moment.

2.  The experience really was rooted in wet neoprene, in the seat of the wetsuit, in the motion of the swell under the kayak, in the lifting and the dropping and the shifting and the pulling and the pushing.  On the afternoon of the 30th, the tug was back into the harbor, but the swell was rising and the wind had created chop, so there was a constant motion -- up down thisway thatway-- that the morning had lacked, had been so flat and calm.  I love the water movement, and the sit-on-top is so well-crafted to ride such movements.  Even now, two days later, if I just sit and unfocus, I am moving in my mind with residual body sense-memories.  A lovely sensation to me.

3.  Then, besides the emphatic floating quality, the sounds!  So many birds flying, shrieking, calling, ker-plunking into the water after the anchovies.  Pelicans and terns and murres and cormorants and classic gulls.  Terns and pelicans out with us, mostly.  Then, the barking of sea lions in the distance, the splashing of seals nearby, the crunching-lunching of otters.  The chatter of humans: excited, agitated, inane.  "HOLY SHIT" were the first words out of one fellow's mouth, as he rounded the small point to leave the harbor only to be faced with a lunging whale.  (That fellow was off his game, more nervous than his date, and he shadowed JP and me off and on, nervously.  Still, such caution in such a situation is no bad thing, and his date may have been more water-savvy -- or simply oblivious -- than he was.)  The whales' spouting, blowing, and splashing.  Occasionally, the power station would let out great blasts of steam that would mimic the whale spouts--and would confuse me, for a moment, as I looked for that other whale.  The water made the most noise and the most noises, lapping and slapping and splashing and crashing along and onto the jetty, the kayak, the whales, itself.

One Urchin: Cave Wall

Six shots with the surge, quite light, in a sea cave.

Limpets included, free.