The Family Christmas was held the weekend before the official date and all the nieces and nephews had already opened their presents. I gave Jeremy a boogie board and he was champing at the bit to go out into the ocean and try it out. The swells at sea were too high, 12 feet, on Sunday but steadily calmed down until they were 6 feet on Wednesday morning. I called Jeremy and arranged to try it out. His dad, mom, (dog) and little sister came along, although there was only enough neoprene for Jeremy's dad to join us in the water.
The last few times I had been at Salmon Creek Beach, the parking lot had been almost empty. This time the parking lot was almost full and the water was lousy with surfers. We had to choose a place to play with the kayaks where we would not run into surfers. Six foot swells with a reasonably high tide made for pretty rough water and I never felt comfortable trying to fight my way out to open sea. We all contented ourselves padding back and forth and getting rides on the breaking water near shore.
After a few trips Ralph started having trouble getting over the waves as he paddled out. The Frenzy kayak he was on would tip over backwards every time he tried to paddle over a wave. Eventually he realized that the drain plug in the nose was open and the kayak had slowly filled half way up with water. Every time he plowed into a breaker, the water would all slosh into the back and help flip the boat over backwards, tossing Ralph into the sea. When he drained the water out and stoppered the kayak properly, things went better for him again.
My problem on this day was I kept being surfed backwards instead of forwards. I think the rough waves kept catching me before I could turn the kayak around in front of a wave. When the breaker slammed into the kayak, it would start moving backwards. I could brace and keep the kayak upright (most of the times) but once it started moving backwards there was no way I could stop it. The little Frenzy kayak turns quicker, so Ralph was able to point his kayak in the direction he wanted to go more often that I was.
I got very tied and tried emptying water out of my kayak several times. Unfortunately, it was my exhausted arms that made the kayak seem so heavy, not a boat full of water. Eventually I got so tired that I started falling off the other side of the kayak when trying to jump on. The kayak kept turning over on me in the shallow water and I tripped and tangled up in the paddle leash a few times. I rode a last few waves back up to where Ralph and everyone else were also just about ready. When we arrived here I had tossed my damp towel over the top of my van . Although it was Christmas Eve it was a sunny day and the towel was warmed dry when we got back to the parking lot. Luxury!
