Two years ago I was able to participate in the Sea Gypsy Race for the first time. A year ago I was busy and unable to attend. This year I was busy the night before with a Russian River camping trip but got up early to dash down to Half Moon Bay for the race. My schedule made it quite a bit of trouble to do this. I got up at 7:00 AM in the campground and drove home to check the weather conditions to see if I really wanted to go. The entire NOAA network of weather buoys had stopped reporting at 2:00 PM the day before! Fortunately the Point Reyes Buoy is run by a different group (US Army Corps of Engineers, the Coastal Data Information Program, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the State of California Department of Boating and Waterways) so I was able to see one point of data on the coastline. I decided to go so I had to pack a lunch, dash back to the campground, pack up all my camping and kayaking gear, and head south. I had made vague arrangements to drive down with Konstantin Gortinsky but I was too late for him and he left before I was ready. I barely made it to Half Moon Bay in time.
The main race was delayed by an additional event beforehand, a short sprint race through the surf zone that I had no interest in joining. Then the real race finally started! This year the race was a loop starting and ending at Miramar Beach. We had mild waves so the launch was easy. I held back while the gung-ho racers charged into the water. They quickly got themselves out of my way so I launched almost immediately afterwards. Everyone launched successfully this year on the first try!
There was a wind from the northwest so the first half of the trip was a little slow and cold. The serious racers pulled away and disappeared through the reef before I could even get close enough to see it. Konstantin launched a little behind me but slowly pulled past me. I knew that his boat is a fast one and said “See you later!” as he pulled ahead. His kayak is a wooden boat he made himself and doesn’t want to risk breaking. So when I saw him go through the reef inside of The Mavericks I felt honor bound to follow him. The water was very shallow there and I became concerned about the return trip. The tide was falling all afternoon and my planned “strategy” was to paddle as fast as I could and not try pacing myself until after I had passed over all the shallow areas. Then I could relax and consider conserving energy for the last few kilometers to the finish line. I made it over the reef and climbed over some large waves on my way out the other side. One obstacle down, three more to go.
The next obstacle was Flat Topped Rock, which we had to circumnavigate, or surf over the channel in the middle of it. Two years before I had gone all the way around and discovered that it was about as much trouble to go around as to go over the rock! This year it looked like the waves were coming a little too far from the west so they were sloshing up the side of the channel instead of going straight through. I thought I saw Konstantin go around, and another boat that had just recently passed me definitely went around. As I approached the end of the rock I watched a large wave break through the crack and judged that there would be a few seconds of mild water. I turned and headed into the channel.
Unknown to me a bunch of my friends were standing up on the cliff at Pillar Point watching my progress. They shouted “NO! TURN BACK” as I started in and then cheered me on as I made it safely out the other side. I didn’t hear the slightest hint of this over the sound of the surf and the wind blowing their encouragement back over their shoulders. Going through the channel behind a large wave turned out to be a pretty good technique. The waves were wrapping around the rock and breaking sideways to my path out the other end of the channel, but the large wave did this before I came out and I had a pretty easy ride all the way over and away from Flat Topped Rock.
The next step in the race is to land on the small beach behind Pillar Point. Eric Sores, when he described the route to us, was very specific about where to land. He says that “in previous years people have been landing all up and down the beach” and he wanted us to land at the extreme south end. “When you land you should see Pillar Point directly above you”. That’s where I headed, but I could see John Lull, Konstantin, and the guy in front of me all landing on the north end of the beach. Debra Volturno behind me landed another kilometer farther north than everyone else. The beach under the point looked a lot rougher than the one everyone else was landing at, so I turned and landed closer to the north end. The race rules require landing close enough to pick up a handful of sand and then shoving off again. You don’t have to get out of your boat. Then I backpedaled over the waves, a technique recommended by Debra herself, until I was far enough out to safely turn my boat south again.
As I had paddled south from Flat Topped Rock, I had seen Debra and a friend of hers paddling north to the rock. As I made my landing I saw them land way down the beach. As I paddled away from the beach I saw them just behind me! Somehow they had circled the rock, made their landing and almost caught up with me! I had been hoping that this year I could avoid being dead last, but it looked like Debra was going to pass me.
The last obstacle was to go back over, or around, the reef inside The Mavericks. I approached the shallow spot and could not find the “deeper” spot I had recently gone out over. I noticed Debra and her friend going by behind me, they seemed to be taking the long route! A large set of waves came roaring in and I backpedaled over them, then headed in. A smaller wave surfed me to the right were I didn’t want to go, into even shallower water. I turned left and tried to paddle closer to the point. But the wave I was on petered out and set me down on the reef! My boat landed between two ridges of rock and apparently found a few inches of water or some kelp to land on since I didn’t hear the fiberglass crunch. I figured that the next wave would drag me over the reef and turned to brace into it. But the next wave had lost most of its energy and was only a foot tall wall of breaking water. Not only that, but a reflected wave came back from the cliff and lifted my boat a few inches first, so I side surfed the rest of the way over the reef without scraping the bottom of my boat at all. I slipped into the calm shallow water, safe from all the obstacles!
I paddled away from the cliff past a public beach. Beach-goers had just seen me surfing the wild reef and making an incredible crossing (in my humble opinion) but didn’t seem to pay me the slightest bit of attention. I suppose a bunch of wild Tsunami Rangers had just gone through here on their kayaks and the beachcombers were jaded.
I could not see where Debra went through or around the reef so I kept paddling strongly for the finish line. The guy who had passed me just before Flat Topped Rock was so far ahead that I could barely see him. How did he get so far ahead so quickly? As I approached the finish I tried surfing to shore but slipped off and broached on the last few waves. Then I dashed up the wrong side of one of the finishing poles and had to back up and cross the line a second time! Oh well, I was not dead last this year and finished in 11th place!