There is a group of kayakers, calling themselves the "Tsunami Rangers", who are well known (in kayaking circles) for doing extreme paddling. They paddle in rough seas, surf through rock gardens, and explore caves. They publish books on kayaking, instructional video tapes, and teach classes on kayaking the open ocean of northern California. Among many other things, they also sponsor a kayak race every year called "The Sea Gypsy Race".
Although it is only eight kilometers long this race is known for being very difficult. Two years ago my good friend Roger Lamb broke his kayak practically in half making a rough landing at the end of the Sea Gypsy Race. The race is always started on a rough beach with breaking surf. When the time comes for the race to start, they wait for a large set of waves to come in. This often has the result that only one or two kayakers make it through the surf on the first try. Last year, I was told, one team of three kayakers spent half an hour getting their triple kayak out through the surf. It took them three tries including a stop to fix a broken rudder.
Even if you are not participating in the race it is supposed to be a lot of fun to watch, and I have wanted to do that for the last year or so. Unfortunately I've been unable to attend until this year and I was thinking about just going and watching it. Eric Sores, a Commander in the Tsunami Rangers and one of the founders, was at the last BASK meeting promoting his new book. ("Extreme Sea Kayaking"). He said that the race was accessible to anyone with surf launching skills, and had even been done in the past by people paddling in plastic Scupper boats (like mine). Maryly Snow started trying to talk me into doing the race.
Normally I refuse to have anything to do with kayak races. There is a kind of personality that thrives on these and I don't feel the competitive urge in anything remotely approaching the fervor of others. Mentioning a race to this kind of person elicits behavior you would normally only expect in a cartoon; Horns grow out of their foreheads, steam comes out of their ears, they paw the ground with their front hooves, their eyes bug out of their sockets and red veins start to show in the whites. Their arms windmill into a blur before they hit the water and they disappear around the track. Don't get in the way. If I did the Sea Gypsy Race, it would be at a reasonably sedate pace to enjoy the scenery and the waves. I would participate just to complete the course. Eric says that this is an accomplishment in itself and some people do come in hours late. Maryly says I have more of a competitive spirit than I let on.
I thought about it, got warmed up to the idea, and watched the weather for a few days before the race. The swell at sea was going to be under eight feet, so I drove down with all my gear and the expectation of partaking in the race. I looked at the waves from the parking lot at the top of the cliff and decided that it could be done if you waited for the right window of opportunity. Since I was not interested in winning the race, I could wait ten minutes if necessary on the beach until this happened.
I had my doubts about my participation in the Sea Gypsy Race. Carrying my boat down the stairs and getting my equipment organized I started to feel out of my league. All the boats around me were Kevlar Tsunami X15's, X2's, and Futura racing boats. The guys around me(I don't recall seeing any women suited up for the race) all seemed to be Tsunami Rangers and Bonsai Bozos (the Bozos are another extreme kayaking troupe in the Sonoma/Mendocino area). My weak knees started me thinking that I was a minnow trying to swim with the big sharks. A few people that I knew well from BASK showed up and I started to feel better. Don Fleming with his new Coaster kayak, (a mighty fine looking boat). Briant Austin, Bob Stender, Barbara Kossy, Sue Estey, Tom Paterson, Philip Nicole and Marjorie Little. I asked them all if they were joining me in the race, and they all universally replied "Who ME? Heck NO!" They were just there to watch. The butterflies returned to my stomach. Bob was a great help when he said “You’re doing the race in that tub of yours?”
There were three troublesome aspects of the race. The launch through the surf, the circumnavigation of Flat Rock and navigating around Pillar Point. The surf looked survivable to me (if I took my time as planned) but all the stories about previous years had me nervous. I figured I could look at Flat Rock when I got there. If I decided not to circumnavigate it that would forfeit me a place in "the race" but I could make that call at the time to stay it safe. Pillar Point is the home, you may not know, of THE MAVERICKS. A place where surfers come from all over to ride world famous forty foot waves. The waves were not predicted to be that tall (on average) this day. No promises that a large rogue wave might not come by.
Montara beach where the race started is a dumping beach with no soup zone to get settled in your boat. In addition there was a break a hundred meters or so offshore where the big waves broke. You would have to jump into your boat in rough water then sprint past this outer break before you were safe. I went looking for a friend to hear me repeat my mantra out loud, "I can do this, I can do this", but they were lost in the crowd or up on the cliff. The serious racers charged straight into the waves and only two boats made it out to sea on the first try. The rest of the paddlers started flinging their boats (and themselves) into the waves over and over again. Boats came back in without their riders and smashed into outgoing boats. My vision tunneled down to the water in front of me and I didn't notice that one boat got broken in half and another had a hole caved into its side by the prow of a third.
Most of the boats in the race were hard-shell sit-on-top kayaks but one of the boats near me was a sit-inside Coaster. I watched him fall over in the waves, attempt an Eskimo roll, fail, exit his boat and drag it back out of the surf. He tried again while I was looking and failed on the second try. Two Futura racing boats hit the surf in front of me and came back up the beach. The owner of one of these spent a long time trying to catch his boat and chasing it up and down the beach. I wondered why he was having so much trouble until I noticed that the boat had no toggles on the bow and stern for holding onto it! Apparently on high-end racing boats a toggle adds too much wind resistance. The other Futura owner gave up and let someone else help him (against the race rules) drag his boat up the beach and out of the race. I distantly wondered how he could have had time to get this discouraged. I was still high and dry on the beach.
I knelt on the sand above the wash of the waves and watched the outer break. Several times I saw windows in the waves that I might have launched through but there was too much Kevlar in the way. Eventually I saw the end of a large set coming in at a time with no kayaks in front of me. I stood up and walked into the surf dragging my plastic Scupper. Two thoughts oscillated in my head; "This doesn't look all that bad" and "I cannot believe I am doing this". I walked over the last large wave then one more for good measure. I jumped in my boat, landed wrong and dropped my paddle. Then I got settled in the seat, picked up the paddle and finally got under way only one wave late. My reading of the waves was correct and I had an easy time sprinting away from shore. My reading of the topology had me trying to turn diagonally to the left to follow an underwater creek-bed out to sea. But the waves were coming straight in and it was tempting to turn right to face them. This lead me out of my safe channel and when the next large set came in, two waves threatened to break on me. I crawled up the face of one wave and fell heavily over the back, almost completely airborne. The next large wave was a little easier and then I was safely out to sea! I made it out through the surf without getting my hair wet.
I left almost half the kayaks behind me on the beach but figured once they got in the water everyone would zoom past me. As the race progressed three boats did catch up and pass me, then no more. I craned my neck looking for the rest of the pack but it turned out that seven people had failed to launch and given up. Everyone I talked to afterwards congratulated me on my launch. The guy with the slippery Fortura told me that my launch was "The Zen of Kayaking”. I relaxed figuring the worst of the day was behind me and paddled past the Montara Lighthouse and the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.
The reserve has an offshore reef that I have launched behind, and then I was in uncharted waters I had never paddled before. I discovered that the reef continues as you go south and the water is spotted with submerged flat-topped rocks. I carefully stayed out from shore to avoid the waves that occasionally broke over these unseen rocks. Flat Rock, it turns out, is just the tallest of these formations. The race rules required that I circumnavigate this rock counter clockwise before continuing. However the rules also allowed taking a short cut through a narrow shallow channel if you dared. I circled wide around behind Flat Rock and decided to continue being conservative. There were four racing boats still buzzing around the rock as I arrived, one safety boat stationed a few hundred yards shoreward, and three California Sea Lions sleeping on the surface. I wondered how they could have slept through all the excitement. My path brought me near the seals and then a wave pushed me too close. They woke up and barked loudly at me. I barked back and tried to imitate their sound. This apparently sounded like distress to the safety boat and she zoomed over to ask me if I was calling for help. I told her I was OK and would be taking a conservative path.
But when I got around to the other side of the rock I saw something I had not seen on my approach. There was a long straight reef extending north from the rock with waves breaking over it. I would have to travel hundreds of meters to get around it. I considered attempting the short cut and then saw what looked like a deeper notch in the reef. I turned to approach it as a large set of waves came in and exposed a rock in the notch visible on the troughs. I turned closer and closer to Flat Rock aiming at a smaller deeper channel next to the exposed rocks I saw. Waves started wrapping around Flat Rock and surfing me sideways towards the shallower part of the reef. Rather than turn back I paddled over right next to Fat Rock and plowed over the waves breaking through my notch. Sue Estey, watching the race from the cliff nearby, said that I looked like I didn’t know where I was going (true), and that I worked just as hard as the people who went through the short-cut.
One more obstacle to go, and that was The Mavericks offshore from Pillar Point. I almost decided to take the near-shore path. I later heard that several boats did collide while surfing over the reef there. I recalled from the maps that the long way around the Mavericks did not look much longer than the inside passage. So I took the conservative route again. It turns out I was the only kayaker who did this. Even out there it was a bit scary with large waves breaking between the last few offshore rocks. I Went around these and then turned towards the finish line with the waves shoving me on my way from time to time. A full third of the distance remained to travel in a straight line with relatively mild water. This is probably where those Kevlar racing boats excel, and everyone pulled way ahead of me and disappeared.
I was still expecting people to catch up with me and continued to work hard, managing to overheat myself on a cold overcast day on the ocean. I easily surfed the mild waves onto the beach, taking the conservative path again and letting the waves slip out from under me instead of surfing full speed for the finish. The final dash requires dragging your boat up the beach to the finish line. I finished the race in 1 hour 50 minutes and 39 seconds. The winners did the race in one hour eight minutes. I finished in 16th place, last among the people who made it at all. Dead last and Proud of it!