After my scary experience at Black Point Beach on February 12th, I had been reluctant to get back in the water. I ignored the weather radio most of the week, and pretended that the waves were to high to go kayaking. I got lots of chores done around the house, like fixing the leaky pipe and sewing some drysacks I started weeks ago. I listened to the marine report Sunday morning and heard that the waves were OK, 6 to 7 feet, with glorious warm sunny skies and little wind. I started to get the kayak ready to go. I sopped some more water out of it, and decided to seal the porthole that I had put in temporarily some time ago. Of course, the silicone rubber cement had to dry, so I got to put it off until evening, when I could watch the sunset. At 4:00pm I found a few more things that needed doing, like replacing the line between the paddle and the kayak, so I didn't make it to Russian Gulch until after 4:30. I had also brought my bucksaw with me to do the trail maintenance I had promised I would do the last time I was here. The 3 day weekend and the great weather had brought a lot of people to the beach, there were a dozen cars in the parking lot! I lingered over clearing the trail of dead trees and managed to put off getting in my wetsuit until around 5:00. Finally I took the kayak down the trail. People were leaving before the sunset, and I got a few comments: One guy assumed (kidding?) that I had just paddled down the creek from upstream. "How far upstream did you go"? I told him I hadn't started yet. The creek still had a enough water in it to hold up one end of the kayak, but not enough to float me, except in a few deep spots. At the beach, the waves looked scary, but I was generally scared, so I took note of quiet times when getting in would not be a problem. I put on the jacket and vest, stood in the breakers, and tried to pretend that there wasn't an audience that would notice if I turned away from the sea. But the water came up high after a series of largish waves, and I followed the water back out to sea without any problems.
The plan was to just go out a mile or so, watch the sunset, and come back. I dropped my paddle in the water to see which way the current was going: South. I should go against it now so the trip back would be easier, but I had just gone north the last time I was here, so I headed south towards Jenner anyway. I stayed reasonably far from shore to avoid the waves and didn't think about doing anything radical. Well, actually, there was this pair of rocks with some radical waves surging between them. I thought about it... and said NO WAY! There's this scary thing that waves do near sunset: The next wave casts a shadow on the previous wave, and this shadow can move rapidly across my peripheral vision and give me a start. (A shadow like this can move faster than the speed of light!) A deep trough can drop me into complete shadow while I'm looking towards shore can make me think THE BIG ONE was sneaking up on me from behind. Who me? No, I'm not nervous. Actually, the sunset was painting the cliffs golden, and the view made me glad I was here. The sun was just about hitting the horizon when I saw a field of day-glow-orange objects bouncing in the swells. I had to go around some rocks and a few hundred meters closer to shore to find out it was just a Sargasso of balls of sea foam, tinted orange by the sunset. The sun had started to disappear, so I turned and went back the long way around the rocks to avoid the "funny" water landward of them.
I timed it wrong, and missed the last limb of sun disappearing while I was behind a rock. Then I recalled that Russian Gulch has a sign warning that the rangers lock the gate "at sunset" and I had better zoom back. I was so anxious to get back that I turned in one point to soon and paddled a lot closer to shore than on the way out. But around the next point, I not only saw the beach, but several groups still on the beach, so I was safe from getting locked in. This gave me time to rest, relax, and try to build up courage for the trip back through the breakers. Or time to loose my nerve, which was not and option: I have no choice but to get to shore. After all the procrastination, all the worry, all the shaking in my neoprene booties, it was not a problem. I came in behind a train of largish waves, and paddled all the way to shore. A small wave broke behind me when I was just swinging my feet out onto the sand, and I decided to stay in the kayak. I think a bunch of things went through my head: I have been thinking that I abandon ship too easily, and if I could brace myself to stay in, I would actually get in less trouble in the breakers. I was still hot from the paddle back with the full wetsuit on. Somehow, there was a thought in there that I deserved to get wet after all that worrying. However, even though the kayak was sideways to the breaker by this time, it just picked us up and zoomed me a few meters up the beach. I didn't get my face (or hat) wet on the whole trip, so by that definition, this was a successful trip.