However, it was weeks later, on the fourth of July, when I finally found the time to get organized to do this trip. Jeremy is an early riser, so I had him call me at 7:00 AM and wake me up. I checked the weather reports on the WEB and found that the swells were under 5 feet. With calm water like this, we could go to Goat Rock and not have to drive all the way to Stillwater Cove. Of course it took a while to get organized and get to the beach, get into our suits, and carry the kayaks down to the sand. It was after 8:30 before we got in the water.
I had not paid enough attention to the weather report. The swells were only 5 feet, but they were coming from the southwest. This meant that the protected 'cove' behind Goat Rock and the parking lot was not protected this morning. Jeremy was a little intimidated by the waves, but eager to get going to warm himself up a little. The waves were calm and reasonable looking most of the time with an occasional set of larger ones. Without the protection of the rock, and with a very low tide, this beach looked "soupier" than I've ever seen it: Even the small waves breaking pretty far out and coming in on a wide shelf of sand in water only a meter or less deep. This allowed me to walk way out into the breakers with Jeremy and give him some extra instruction and help. In the large breakers, I was able to lift the nose of the kayak up so he didn't get water slammed in his face!
We spent too much time in the mild breakers, and a few large waves came while Jeremy made his first attempt. He made it over the first wave, but the second one broke around him, pushed him back and rolled him over. But he was willing to try a second time. This time we waited for three large waves to go by, then I gave Jeremy a shove and told him to paddle like mad. He didn't paddle as fast as I wanted him to, and I feared another large wave would arrive before he got out to sea. But our timing was good, and nothing large enough to knock him over came by. I had time to run back up the beach, get in my kayak, and catch up with him before we made it past the "danger" zone. (Danger of getting wet and cold). Jeremy impressed me by bravely paddling right between two rocks 10 meters apart. Or was he too involved in a new experience to remember the breakers we saw go between those rocks a minute ago?
When we got out to sea, Jeremy thought that the larger but calmer swells were not a problem. He said "It's like riding on hills made of water". We started to head south away from Goat Rock, but Jeremy wanted to stop and sit in one place for a while. I tried to talk him into paddling to the nearby arched rock and back, but he wasn't up to it. The fog was heavy enough that we never caught sight of the arched rock, so visibility must have been less than a kilometer. I pulled Jeremy's leg and told that we were lost in the fog, but he wasn't fooled. We could almost see the sun burning through in the east, and Goat Rock was never far enough away to disappear in the fog.
Jeremy said that his stomach felt a little funny, but I decided it could not be sea sickness, because his reaction to it was to get something to eat. We split a Power Bar (TM) and although it didn't settle his stomach, it didn't get any worse and (I think) he soon forgot about it. Jeremy had worn a par of tennis shoes to the beach, but didn't want to get them wet, so he was bare footed (the shoes were in a drysack in my kayak). He also forgot to bring a hat, and I had forgotten to bring a spare. So when he started to get a little cold we started back after only a half an hour or less on the ocean. Next time he will be better prepared.
We went back and hovered behind the two rocks we had paddled out between. I wanted to wait for a train of large waves to go by, then head in behind them. We waited and waited with no large waves until Jeremy got impatient. I saw no sign of a large set coming so we headed in. I sent Jeremy in first so I could watch over him from behind. He made it most of the way to shore before a medium wave slid under me and started to break behind him. I shouted to tell him a ride was coming. He turned into the wave, but didn't brace into it and got rolled over again. I came in for my landing and hauled my kayak way up out of the water.
Jeremy was an incredible sport, because he agreed to get back in the water again to try an experiment with me. We pulled his kayak out into the water like we were going to launch again. But we waited for some medium to large breakers to come by. He got in and I turned the kayak sideways to the oncoming breaker. Standing in the water up to my waist, I could hold the kayak, instruct him on bracing, and give the nose a twist for the first fraction of a second. He caught the first breaker and got a fun ride back up onto the beach. Fun enough that cold, tired or scared, he was eager to try it three more times before we quit. One of these times was a large wave that broke between those two rocks we had passed between. Jeremy shouted "NOT THAT ONE! NOT THAT ONE!", but I turned him sideways and shouted back "BRACE! BRACE!" I knew it would get a lot smaller by the time it actually hit us, and he did OK again. He has a tendency to stop bracing before the ride is over, and he drops the paddle and abandons the kayak when he gets to the beach. I know that is a common trait. I told him I was done hauling him out for free rides, and next time he could paddle out and turn to catch the breakers himself. Just a short trip out over the smaller waves will get you a fun ride back, so you could do it over and over again if the waves are right. Salmon Creek Beach always has waves like this, and I have been promising myself I would go there one day to practice surfing. Now Jeremy wants to come with me when I do that.
