Roger Lamb, Konstantin Gortinsky and I planned a trip out of Bodega Bay and Roger invited his friend Genie Bracken along. She had asked Roger, some time ago, what the best kayak was for her to buy. Of course he had recommended the Coaster by Mariner Kayaks. She had taken his advice and bought a Coaster similar to Rogers and mine, but with a purple top deck. I had heard Roger talking about Genie and her Coaster, but this was the first time I met her. Genie was an enthusiastic kayaker and was learning from Roger, but did not have an Eskimo roll yet. Roger took her under his wing and told her to stay outside of shore from him as we headed out of the bay and around Bodega Head.
The swell was reported as being ten feet high, but we generally found conditions to be milder than that. We did not find any large waves in the shallows between Bodega Head and the Bodega Rocks. As we continued north there was some evidence of large waves over the reef west of the head. We were forced to go a little farther from shore and had seen waves breaking in the play spot under the whale watching cliff that Roger and I had discovered. We continued north and approached the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the little Horseshoe Cove below it.
I looked at the waves breaking on both sides of the entrance to the cove and wanted to go inside. I moved closer and closer and was sort of hoping that a large wave would rise up and surf me into the cove. Konstantin paddled up next to me and asked if I was going in, which he wanted to do also. Without any large waves, I said OK and we both paddled in close to shore and turned back out again with no problems. Roger decided that Genie was not up to this location yet and waited with her just outside the entrance to the cove.
Konstantin made it out first and paddled over to talk to Roger on the right, while I turned slightly to the left and was set up to go behind Genie. Behind her and farther out to sea I saw a large wave start to rise up. I shouted something incoherent and started paddling like mad into the wave. I worried about being down-wave from Genie who was horizontal to the wave and I was relieved when I passed her stern and started up the wave face. If Genie had been between me and the wave we could easily have banged into each other. I kept paddling hard to climb over the wave, but it broke into my face!
I bent forward and tried to spear the wave with my boat and paddle. The wave pitched me up and over backwards but because I had speared it with some momentum I came up behind the wave and was able to roll upright quickly. Roger and Konstantin both managed to climb over the wave as it broke and both fell in complete free-fall over the back of it. The wave roared on towards shore. The three of us looked around and Genie was nowhere to be seen.
We saw her paddle drifting in the white water behind the wave where it turned and smashed into the rocky shore on the north side of the cove. The three of us dashed towards shore with Roger in the lead. Eventually we caught a glimpse of Genie upright in the water in front of the rocky reef of the cove’s north shore, tugging at her boat. Roger zoomed to shore, landed on the north end of the sandy beach, and ran back along the rocky reef to assist Genie. I was still a considerable ways back in the cove, and knowing that she was relatively OK, I turned to pick up her paddle for her.
I grabbed the paddle and hooked one end under my deck lines and started to loop the other end under the bungee lines in front of my cockpit. But while I was doing this I glanced over my shoulder and saw another pretty big wave coming into the cove. I pulled Genie’s paddle loose and tossed it away. If I was going to get into trouble I didn’t want the paddle tangled in my boat and swinging up to hit me in the face. I foolishly tossed it to the left where it was closer to where the waves broke into the reef. There was no time to turn around so I backpedaled as fast as I could and just barely managed to climb up over a steep wave before it broke. Then I turned around and paddled out to sea picking the paddle up as I went past it. Facing the waves I was more willing to tangle it in the lines of my boat. Then I turned left and went back into the cove in safer waters and landed on the beach near Roger’s boat.
When I caught up with everyone else, Genie was OK. She was up on dry land and Roger had dragged her boat up out of the water. He turned it over and we surveyed the damage. Genie says that when the big wave arrived, she tried to do a sweep stroke to turn her boat into it, but did not have time. The wave broke over her while still sideways to it and ripped her paddle out of her hands. Her boat side-surfed to shore with her inside it. Most of the time she was upside down but the wave turned her over a few times and she was able to get some air. When the boat hit the reef she exited it and spent some time trying to pull it off the rocks and save it. But the smaller waves that followed kept banging it into the reef until Roger helped pull it out.
There were four areas on the boat that would require repairing: The keel had two big chunks gouged into it near the bow and the stern that looked like they probably compromised the fiberglass all the way through. There were two other places along the side where the fiberglass tape holding the top and bottom of the boat together had started to separate from the hull. There were nasty looking scratches all over the deck that went all the way through the gel-coat but didn’t look like they would need more than cosmetic repair. We put duct-tape on the four major spots and Genie was able to paddle her boat back to the dock.
First we stopped for a snack and to settle our nerves. Then when it came time to launch Roger carried Genie’s boat far up the beach to the center of the cove where the waves were the mildest. I launched right away so that there would be someone on the water to meet her when Roger gave her a shove off the beach. As she approached me she asked if it was OK for her to just keep going out to sea. Roger and Konstantin had to run back to their boats and launch so I escorted Genie out the mouth of the cove and far out to sea. After a while she asked “Am I safe now?” I laughed and said “No, you never were safe out here! But I think we are well past the place were that big wave broke on us before!”
We paused a “safe” distance from shore and waited for Roger and Konstantin to catch up with us. Then with no farther problems we paddled back around Bodega Head, across the bay, up the jetty and safely back to our cars. Roger volunteered to repair Genie’s boat since he now feels he should not have lead her that close to the mouth of the cove.