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| Stray Gear We practiced retrieving kayaks and paddles that got away from the kayaker. We quickly confirmed that chasing a wind-blown paddle or boat while trying to keep visual contact with a swimmer in the water is nearly impossible. Going for the worst-case scenario, I had Mick capsize and release both paddle and kayak. Chasing the paddle wasn’t so bad, as it didn’t go far, but it was hard to see in the waves. (Note that in a life and death scenario, a paddle is expendable, especially with a spare on hand, and the priority is always to get the paddler back in the boat. In this case, Mick and I were playing and didn’t really want to lose a paddle. We were worried that if we lost sight of it, it could easily be swept away in the waves. We also weren’t terribly concerned with the speed of getting the paddler back into the boat, as we’d been in the water half the day anyway.) By the time I got the paddle back to Mick, his boat was flying away. I raced after it, finally caught it, attached a contact tow and began the very long paddle back to Mick. He had raised his paddle high into the air so I had a chance to spot him in the waves. He was just a small dot in the water, and it was easy to see the possibility of our being separated. Mick later told me he could barely see me and began considering what it would be like to spend the rest of the day drifting alone off Little Tybee. For my contact tow, I used a paddle carabiner to connect my deck bungees to the deck line on Mick’s boat. I couldn’t have used a towline in these conditions—even a short pigtail or webbing a couple of feet long would have resulted in the towed boat rolling frequently and jerking me all over the place. It would have added enough drag to make returning to Mick impossible. Just as I was about to reconnect with Mick to complete this rescue drill, a big dumping wave approached me broadside. I saw it coming and put my full weight on the towed boat to use it as an outrigger to prevent capsize. No such luck. Both boats were rolled over each other and ended up inverted. My paddle was yanked from my hands as was the towed kayak I was trying to use for support. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet, as the roll included at least one solid impact to my head. While submerged, I thought how fortunate it was that my paddle was secured with a paddle leash, although it was tangled somehow with the kayaks and couldn’t be used for a recovery roll. I found the bungee that the contact carabiner was attached to and pulled until I retrieved the carabiner, then I found the bow of the towed kayak and used it to right myself in a somewhat self-applied bow-presentation rescue. I retrieved my paddle by its leash and resumed the long battle back to Mick. During the paddle back, the kayaks were free to move independently but remained loosely connected. Had I attached the carabiner to a less shock-absorbing point, such as another deck line, most likely one or both boats would have been damaged and quite possibly separated. The bungee and deck lines held. (I replace mine every few years just to make sure I can always rely on them. UV degradation and fatigue can lead to deck-line failure under the strain of towing in rough water.) Lost Gear Finally, I made it to Mick. He’d gotten a bit cold, and I was rather tired, so the rescue was a bit more of a struggle than those we’d done earlier in the day. It was around 3:30 P.M.—the peak of the tidal flow—and we were hit by some more big dumpers while Mick was climbing back in and I was lying across his deck for support. We avoided getting rolled over each other more than once, but the force of the waves ripped Mick’s paddle out of its stout leash. We couldn’t retrieve it until Mick was back in his boat. As we hurried to get him back aboard, I noted the dry bag that had been secured tightly inside the bailout pack on the back of my PFD was also floating out to sea. Inside it were a multipurpose tool, a signal mirror and some other survival items. As our possessions disappeared in the waves, I noticed my chart slowly releasing itself from my front deck. This was getting to be an expensive day. With Mick back in his boat and his spare paddle in his hands, we searched for our lost items. No such luck—they were long gone. We decided we were ready for a break, so we tried to paddle back to shore. We tried staying close to each other to make any necessary rescues easier, but our fatigue was causing more frequent capsizes, and we were tired of practicing rescues. Mick also discovered that the cheap but handy spare paddle we grabbed for the day was useless in these conditions. I gave him my spare, which was as good as my primary paddle. Towing Each Other We took turns contact towing while the other stabilized and rested (if you can call keeping two kayaks upright in waves resting). At this point, it was clear that any form of contact tow that relies only on the towed kayaker holding the boat of the towing kayaker would be useless. Only a secure physical connection of a carabiner or a cord could keep us together and upright. We were almost clear of the washing machine, but with the tide still running out and the wind blowing us south, drifting wasn’t an option, as that would take us to the south end of Little Tybee if not beyond. Since we had lost the chart and wanted some advice on what course to take, I used the cell phone I’d kept in a dry case to call Marsha. It was about 4:00 P.M. We discussed our options and what to expect as the ebb subsided. Her knowledge of the area provided even better insight than the chart. I made a mental note to ask for more detail next time from local sources before a launch. We continued taking turns paddling and stabilizing. Mick was the stronger paddler, and I was pretty tired by this point; however, hanging onto his deck while he paddled was threatening to make me seasick even with my anti-seasickness wristbands. So Mick kindly let me share in the paddling and suffered some deck-holding time too. It’s a long, slow paddle, but finally around 5:00 P.M., we had one last surfing run to take us onto the Little Tybee beach well south of where the Back River meets the Atlantic. Ashore at Last We dragged our kayaks up the sand and pulled out the thermos and some food. Although we had the fixings for coffee, tea, hot cocoa or soup, we just drank hot water. It was amazingly refreshing and tasty. So were the dried fruit and nut snacks. We had burned quite a few calories during the day. Another call to Marsha ruled out taking a shortcut through a marsh, so we began a shoreline trudge back to the river mouth towing our kayaks behind us. We could have waited for slack tide and paddled, but wanted to make some progress instead of sitting for an hour. When we reached the mouth of the river, the tide had slowed enough that the paddle upriver and across to a landing would be easy. I called Marsha to tell her our status, and she agreed to drive out to pick us up. I noticed I had lots of messages on my cell phone. Our friends had called during the day to see how we were doing and were concerned when they didn’t get answers. My cell phone had been on my deck, but I couldn’t hear it over the wind and waves; even if I could, there were few times I could have picked up the phone. I should have mentioned this to them at the beginning of the day. |
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