June 20, 2004 coastal trip
Location: Manzanita to Cape Falcon & back.
Characters: AJ, Jim, Geoff, Andrew, Ginni, client Chris
Forecast: SW swell 3’, wind W 5K to NW 10 K Tide low in morning
It was a gap I’d studied on several trips, but had never braved it. Swells pushed up against a sloping wall, making a swirling, sloping floor. A passageway turned right, followed the wall, entered a network of caves and rooms open to the sky, and came out at several more accessible places. When the swell receded, it poured over a rock ledge that guarded the entrance. As it began to recede, it made a thick waterfall, which rapidly diminished in volume, exposing the rock, then folded the water back on itself in front of the rock.
Patient observation revealed that there were moments of sufficient calm to paddle through with good timing. The swell was small, tide low, and I was feeling lucky. It appeared that out would be easier than in, so I went around and entered another opening. Jim followed. A set came through, and I calmly surfed a swell along the narrow passageway. At the gap, the water mellowed, and I cruised through on a pool-flat surface.
Jim followed, a moment too late. A swell surged him up towards the wall, and he hesitated for a moment before starting to paddle out. He started to get the waterfall, held his paddle up for the drop, and stalled at the bottom. Over he went, riding the incoming swell upside down back towards the wall.
His paddle came up for a roll, but the kayak was against the wall, and didn’t come up. He came out of the boat, a helmeted head beside a blue hull, and rode the waterfall back over the rock. AJ was closest, so gave Jim his bow and paddled backwards. It took only about 4 strokes to pull Jim and his boat out of the zone. I studied Jim’s face, which didn’t appear to have gotten banged up. We were all wearing helmets, but faces are still vulnerable. He said he was unhurt. AJ dumped the water out of Jim’s’ boat and helped him back in.
It was an exciting time, and the rest of the crew gathered around. Jim, in his irrepressible way, exclaimed, That was fun!
I took his word for it, once Jim was ready to go again, and went back at the gap to settle the score. I mistimed an entry, didn’t like the feel of it, and backed out quickly. In this environment, judgment is the better part of survival. A little more patience, and I cruised in on flat water. Turned around, and got set to exit again.
Perhaps it was impatience, or maybe I just wanted more excitement. A swell pushed in against the wall, and I paddled out onto it, turned, and committed myself to a ride over the falls. The turn took a stroke longer than I’d wanted it to on account of my hips for some reason not being as relaxed as usual and the boat not gracefully edging for the pivot. But committed I was, and I punched out a couple strokes for momentum. Over the drop I rode, bow disappearing into the foam below the rock. I braced on the right just to keep contact with the water. Then, Bam! Solid wooden hull came down on even more solid rock. That was all; momentum and a few more strokes carried me through, and everything was peachy.
I flipped over so Jim could assess damages, and he said all was fine, so onward we went. It turns out the hull was fine for the rest of the day, but it does need some time in boat hospital before the next trip. It may be time to graduate to a plastic boat for coastal adventures.
Here’s to fun rides and no rocks!
Ginni
http://www.shellback.net/ (the gap mentioned above is behind Steve in the second photo on the Shellback homepage)
Showing posts with label Oregon Coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oregon Coast. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Under Neahkahnie Castle
Oregon Coast
May 15, 2004
We launch at Arch Cape and paddle a couple miles of open coast, past houses nestled in cliff-edge coastal forest. To the west, a flat, wide horizon is curtained here and there with clouds. Birds everywhere--flying in flocks so big they look like weather patterns, floating, frosting the distant rocks. Murres, guillemots, pelicans, cormorants, gulls.
Onward to the cape of complex geology we paddle. Below the spruces are tan stripes of sandstone, or what passes for it from down here. The sandstone rests on a hundred feet or so of black basalt in complicated geometric patterns. At water level in the basalt are caves, pocketing swells and jingling them around like money.
Under Neahkahnie Castle lies a maze of a dungeon, only its underworldly beauty is too great to be called such. Enter the main opening and meet a vertical wall that catches the evening sun reflecting off the water. Along the wall in both directions run tunnels with light at the ends and black floors that undulate with the swells.
One’s first impression upon entering a sea cave is darkness, sound, and constant motion. Sea caves challenge all the senses, although one could argue that anyone paddling into a sea cave has lost all sense. After a few moments, eyes adjust. You adjust and realize that, yes, you are still an air-breathing mammal bobbing on the water. Under a mountain.
Sandy and Tobin exit a nearby opening, and I go through the shorter tunnel to meet them at the mouth of another vaulted room. Looking back through the tunnel, we can see the incoming surge glow emerald, infused by the sun. The next rock-walled enclosure opens to the sky through several portals, and rays of light angle through mist above the churning water.
Back through to the first room we file, then onward through the long tunnel, which is just a few feet higher than an upraised paddle when the swell lifts us. It’s a couple hundred yards long, long enough for several phases of thought to process.
Tobin thinks it feels like a Disney ride, through the tunnel on an undulating track. He starts singing in a small voice, “It’s a Small World After All.” I imagine the native people taking their canoes through here as a feat, having read that they did such things, and, being a water people, I can’t imagine them not. Just then, I think I hear voices in the mountain singing. Very eerie. Silhouettes of two kayaks glide leisurely along in front of me, rising and falling, through the timeless belly of the mountain.
For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Falcon3.html
May 15, 2004
We launch at Arch Cape and paddle a couple miles of open coast, past houses nestled in cliff-edge coastal forest. To the west, a flat, wide horizon is curtained here and there with clouds. Birds everywhere--flying in flocks so big they look like weather patterns, floating, frosting the distant rocks. Murres, guillemots, pelicans, cormorants, gulls.
Onward to the cape of complex geology we paddle. Below the spruces are tan stripes of sandstone, or what passes for it from down here. The sandstone rests on a hundred feet or so of black basalt in complicated geometric patterns. At water level in the basalt are caves, pocketing swells and jingling them around like money.
Under Neahkahnie Castle lies a maze of a dungeon, only its underworldly beauty is too great to be called such. Enter the main opening and meet a vertical wall that catches the evening sun reflecting off the water. Along the wall in both directions run tunnels with light at the ends and black floors that undulate with the swells.
One’s first impression upon entering a sea cave is darkness, sound, and constant motion. Sea caves challenge all the senses, although one could argue that anyone paddling into a sea cave has lost all sense. After a few moments, eyes adjust. You adjust and realize that, yes, you are still an air-breathing mammal bobbing on the water. Under a mountain.
Sandy and Tobin exit a nearby opening, and I go through the shorter tunnel to meet them at the mouth of another vaulted room. Looking back through the tunnel, we can see the incoming surge glow emerald, infused by the sun. The next rock-walled enclosure opens to the sky through several portals, and rays of light angle through mist above the churning water.
Back through to the first room we file, then onward through the long tunnel, which is just a few feet higher than an upraised paddle when the swell lifts us. It’s a couple hundred yards long, long enough for several phases of thought to process.
Tobin thinks it feels like a Disney ride, through the tunnel on an undulating track. He starts singing in a small voice, “It’s a Small World After All.” I imagine the native people taking their canoes through here as a feat, having read that they did such things, and, being a water people, I can’t imagine them not. Just then, I think I hear voices in the mountain singing. Very eerie. Silhouettes of two kayaks glide leisurely along in front of me, rising and falling, through the timeless belly of the mountain.
For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Falcon3.html
Monday, April 26, 2004
The Other Side of Oregon
April 26, 2004
The Other Side of Oregon
Cape Lookout is a long, bony finger pointing west and a little south into the Pacific Ocean. The leading edge of the upper plate in a subduction zone, it rises some 300ft straight out of the ocean and bares the geologic stories of many ages in basalt and sandstone. A coastal temperate rainforest grows on its northern slopes, the skeletons of many-limbed crucifixes silhouetted through sun-streaked fog. At its base claws the unsleeping sea.
Some friends from Shellback kayak club—Sam, Jon, Sandy, and I—launch through toothy white surf, the gatekeeper of the ocean, Jon calls it, and into a dynamic world few ever experience.
The reported 5’swell rolls by, dwarfing Sandy in his kayak. Sea feet somehow appear much, much bigger than statute feet. The swell moves on to smash at the base of an offshore rock and send a blanket of white into the air. The water all around is bumpy, unpredictable, ever moving. As if someone were shaking the carpet beneath, but from several directions at once. Foam and sea birds dot the surface.
As we round Cape Lookout’s fingertip, the gray tail of a whale signals high out of the water, like a giant open palm raised in greeting or farewell. It slips gently below the surface. A column of spray shoots skyward, and the barnacled head of another gray whale surfaces for a breath.
South is the Caribbean side of Cape Lookout, sheltered today from direct wave impact. Swells rise and pour off the cliff base where rock is lined with colorful life. Purple and orange sea stars suction themselves to the wall and to each other like haphazard, animated tiles. Tasseled brown kelp grows on rigid, footlong stalks. Six-inch green anemonies bloom prolifically. Anemonies are animals, but their green color comes from tiny plants that live within their cells, bartering photosynthesis work for shelter. Deep inside sea caves, the anemonies are pale.
Our insignificance is magnified inside the giant granddaddy of sea caves, where wave energy ricochets and feeds a rumbling blowhole. Red footed guillemots perched in an overhead crevice whirr like party favors above the gastric churning.
Ah, the dreams we hatched and promises we made to come back to this place as we cruised along the sun warmed, sea bathed wall of life, and ventured into black depths of narrow, unnamed caves, and wove through rock gardens, timing wave surges for rides over little waterfalls. Perhaps the sea will remember even if we in our tragic busy-ness forget.
For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Lookout2.html
The Other Side of Oregon
Cape Lookout is a long, bony finger pointing west and a little south into the Pacific Ocean. The leading edge of the upper plate in a subduction zone, it rises some 300ft straight out of the ocean and bares the geologic stories of many ages in basalt and sandstone. A coastal temperate rainforest grows on its northern slopes, the skeletons of many-limbed crucifixes silhouetted through sun-streaked fog. At its base claws the unsleeping sea.
Some friends from Shellback kayak club—Sam, Jon, Sandy, and I—launch through toothy white surf, the gatekeeper of the ocean, Jon calls it, and into a dynamic world few ever experience.
The reported 5’swell rolls by, dwarfing Sandy in his kayak. Sea feet somehow appear much, much bigger than statute feet. The swell moves on to smash at the base of an offshore rock and send a blanket of white into the air. The water all around is bumpy, unpredictable, ever moving. As if someone were shaking the carpet beneath, but from several directions at once. Foam and sea birds dot the surface.
As we round Cape Lookout’s fingertip, the gray tail of a whale signals high out of the water, like a giant open palm raised in greeting or farewell. It slips gently below the surface. A column of spray shoots skyward, and the barnacled head of another gray whale surfaces for a breath.
South is the Caribbean side of Cape Lookout, sheltered today from direct wave impact. Swells rise and pour off the cliff base where rock is lined with colorful life. Purple and orange sea stars suction themselves to the wall and to each other like haphazard, animated tiles. Tasseled brown kelp grows on rigid, footlong stalks. Six-inch green anemonies bloom prolifically. Anemonies are animals, but their green color comes from tiny plants that live within their cells, bartering photosynthesis work for shelter. Deep inside sea caves, the anemonies are pale.
Our insignificance is magnified inside the giant granddaddy of sea caves, where wave energy ricochets and feeds a rumbling blowhole. Red footed guillemots perched in an overhead crevice whirr like party favors above the gastric churning.
Ah, the dreams we hatched and promises we made to come back to this place as we cruised along the sun warmed, sea bathed wall of life, and ventured into black depths of narrow, unnamed caves, and wove through rock gardens, timing wave surges for rides over little waterfalls. Perhaps the sea will remember even if we in our tragic busy-ness forget.
For photos, see http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~walpole/Lookout2.html
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