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Safety - June 2010
By Christian Gaggia |
In the fall of 2002 I was asked to join a small group of experienced guides in finding routes and campsites for a new branch of a sea kayak outfit on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. It was a paddler’s dream, being paid to paddle bath-warm waters along wild, undisturbed shores. Compared to the Pacific Northwest, the warm seas and light breezes of the tropics seemed to be like child’s play.
Three of us would guide full time and several more partners would help out around the base and fill in on trips when necessary. Most were either guides or had a good deal of on-water experience.
In late November we arrived at our base, the fishing village of Pochote, about three miles to the northeast of the town of Tambor in Bahia Ballena (Whale Bay). Bahia Ballena is situated on the southeast tip of the Nicoya Peninsula, where the Pacific meets the Gulf of Nicoya. Surrounded by tall jungle-covered hills, the bay is usually protected from inclement weather and ocean swells. Outside of the bay, however, is generally subject to the conditions of the ocean, and weather that occasionally comes from the mountains to the north. This coastline is quite rugged and undeveloped, with cliffs plunging into the sea, and isolated rocky beaches. Farther into the Gulf the beaches are sandier and more accessible and allow for easier landings.
The plan was to spend a few months familiarizing ourselves with the area and scouting for potential campsites. Literature on the area was scant, and current atlases and marine weather reports were nearly nonexistent, so we relied on personal experience and conversations with the locals. The fishermen seemed to gauge the weather by sticking a wet finger in the air. Weather radios, charts and tide tables are a foreign concept—their knowledge of the weather and conditions is based entirely on personal knowledge.
We had several VHF marine radios but there were no weather channels or coast guard stations within range. Some information could be gleaned from the NOAA website, but Internet access was a 45-minute drive away and not a feasible option every time we wanted to go on the water. The waters of the Gulf of Nicoya were new to all of us, but given our collective experience, we felt confident that we would be able to understand this new area quickly. The gentle breezes and warm ocean temperatures lent a sense of ease to the place, and the fear I had for the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest seemed to melt away.
On the afternoon of January 20, about a month and a half into our tenure in Costa Rica, we set out to do some more exploration and to build some small tables at the primitive campsites that we shared with the local fishermen. We strapped a few bundles of rough-cut teak onto the backs of the tandem kayaks and set out along the northern arm of the bay en route to Playa Ventanas (Windows Beach), about a one-and-a-half-hour paddle southeast around a large point, Punta Tambor.
There were five of us: Kim and Gerald in one expedition-size tandem; our supervisor, Perry, and I were in another; and my friend Jared was in an expedition single. The four of us in the tandems were full-time guides in the Pacific Northwest and had a wealth of on-water experience. Jared was the least experienced but had been on a number of kayak trips with me back home and had gotten some time on the water in Costa Rica.
Our tandems were sluggish, older expedition boats with front, rear and center compartments with leaky bulkheads. The bulkheads in Jared’s kayak were in better condition, and his hatches were sealed drum-tight.
We were lightly equipped. It was to be another short paddle, just some quick work, lunch and home again. We had paddled this route repeatedly and it was an easy routine voyage. We carried one VHF for the group behind a seat in our boat. We all had bilge pumps and paddle floats and wore PFDs, with our spray skirts on us but not attached to the coamings—the sun turned the cockpits into ovens. If conditions dictated, we could always pull them on. We almost always paddled shirtless, with a shirt in the boat just in case the sun got too intense. When it got too hot, we could pull up on a beach and swim, though that was hardly refreshing. The water was warm but it washed the sweat off.
This was a far cry from paddling in the Northwest. All the usual precautions and gear we took there stayed on the shelf here: float plans, air horns, compasses, flare guns, the ten essentials, even the VHF sometimes. Preparation for kayaking was almost absent; you dragged your boat across the sand. You could jump in the boat in the morning, have a quick paddle and be home for lunch. Our friends at the base knew we were going out, but it was such a routine endeavor that it was hardly discussed. We were just going around the corner, so sharing a plan and rescue arrangements with them seemed odd. This was a daily venture.
We had been on the water nearly every day for 50 days and had become quite familiar and comfortable with the sea and weather conditions. The mornings were always calm and quiet, and then around 2 p.m., a brisk breeze would blow up off the Pacific until the sun went down around 6 p.m., and then it would be calm again. The breeze was generally a 10- to 15-knot southerly, sometimes a bit harder but never howling. Once in a while, when a good swell was coming in from the Pacific and a hearty breeze was blowing on shore, conditions would get a bit rough, but it was never more than a bit of a challenge and some fun. This day the sky was clear and there was a breeze rustling the trees, but it was nothing unusual. We paddled close to the coastline in a tight group with Gerald and Kim leading. Perry and I were close behind and Jared was to our left. We cruised along the northeastern coastline of Bahia Ballena at a brisk clip toward where the bay meets the Pacific and the Gulf of Nicoya.
Near Punta Coco the intensity of the wind increased slightly. The water far out in the Gulf appeared to be getting choppy, but where we were was still relatively calm. Gerald and Kim forged ahead as we stayed back with Jared, who was paddling a bit slower. Near Punta Tambor, the far tip of the large arm we were following, the wind was more intense, and out on the Gulf I could see whitecaps in the channel. We were now also out of the protection of the bay and exposed to the Pacific swell coming in from the south. I mentioned to Perry that things looked a little nasty, but we both kind of shrugged it off and decided it would be best to catch up to Gerald and Kim. They had no radio, so we couldn’t call them with our VHF. We hollered to Jared that we would have to push to catch up and get onto a beach as soon as possible. As we came up on Punta Tambor, the wind grew stronger. Paddling was a struggle and communication with Jared was in shouts and hand gestures. Gerald and Kim were barely visible ahead. We had moved off the sheer rocky coastline as it was littered with large, sharp rocks. A part of me wanted to turn around, but we needed to catch Gerald and Kim; besides, we weren’t all that far from Playa Ventanas.
We rounded the point, about 150 feet from shore. Jared was pushing hard, and we were doing the same. The wind out of the northeast was exceptionally strong and continuing to build. We were paddling almost directly into it. The sea was a mess. The swells coming in from the Pacific from the south were slamming head-on into the wind and creating giant walls of water. Swells were rising and dumping every which way. Jared was visibly disturbed. He mouthed something at me over the wind and made a circular gesture with his finger. He spun his boat around and I yelled at him that we should stick together, but the wind drowned out my voice. He was soon out of sight.
Perry and I pushed on as hard as we could. We could barely hear each other but I managed to catch the sound of some expletive from behind me. Perry had spotted Gerald and Kim’s kayak swamped in the churning water with them clinging to it. They were about 30 yards in front of us, and about 100 yards off of Punta Agujas. I guessed that they had attempted to turn northwest to make the approach to Playa Ventanas and were hit broadside by the swells.
A monstrous break had set up off of Punta Agujas, making it impossible to access Playa Ventanas by kayak. We were in way over our heads and in the worst conditions I had ever encountered in a small craft.
We approached Gerald and Kim with our bow directly in the wind riding up and down on the swells, and assessed what to do. Their cockpits were filled with water and their deck was awash. Large swells were dumping on them as they clung to their boat. Gerald was rapidly pumping water out of his cockpit but it was refilling faster than he could empty it. We had performed rescues both practice and real, and they always went relatively easily and smoothly in calmer water. This was a different story. The swells lifted the kayaks up and down like battering rams and we did not come anywhere close to them for fear that our boat would come down on their heads. Except for heading straight into the wind, our boat was nearly unmanageable. We cautiously attempted rescues several times, but the risk was far too great that someone would sustain a serious injury. All the techniques that make sense in books and work well in practice situations were useless. A tow was out of the question because of the sheer weight of the water-filled boat. They waved us off.
After a bunch of hollering it was decided that Perry and I should head home to get help. We trusted Gerald and Kim to their own safety. We didn’t want to end up in the water ourselves or injure someone while making dangerous attempts at rescues. It went against our better judgment to leave them, but we felt like our hands were tied. Jared, the least experienced, was out alone and must have been in need of help too, and we were doing nothing but creating a safety hazard.
Perry and I turned around without capsizing. With the wind now at our backs and pushing us due southwest, we paddled as hard as we could, perpendicular to the giant dumping swells underneath us. We surfed wave after wave to escape from the mess at Punta Agujas. We both knew we needed to turn northwest to get back to Bahia Ballena and into more protected waters, but we had strayed quite a ways from the coastline in our effort to get away from Punta Agujas. To get where we wanted to be would now require that we paddle for a mile parallel to the large, breaking wind waves. We feared we would be rolled as soon as we made the turn, so we continued southwest, waiting for a moment when the time seemed right to turn.
Waves were breaking underneath and around us. The wind showed no sign of letting up and we were too far from land. After some deliberation, we decided that we would have to turn back toward the bay and hope for the best.
We turned parallel with the waves and leaned into the oncoming crests. Within seconds, a giant wave broke over our boat, ripping off my loosely attached spray skirt and flooding the cockpit. Moments later, a second wave pounded the boat and rolled us over. We both recovered our paddles but we were floating in a yard sale of seat cushions, sandals, safety gear and wood. The boat had righted itself and Perry quickly crawled in the rear while I tried to steady it from the opposite side. I grabbed one of the pumps that was still strapped to the boat, and hooked my elbows over Perry’s cockpit coaming and began pumping like a machine, while Perry kept the boat upright and into the wind. At this point I felt that all my training and practice had gone out the window and I was just trying to survive.
We were hit by another large dumping wave, powerful enough to break my tenuous hold on the kayak and spin the boat broadside out of my reach. I lunged for it, but with its broad side to the wind it spun around and moved away quickly. Panicked, I yelled as loud as I could but I only caught glimpses of Perry. Within 30 seconds I couldn’t see him anymore.
There were still remnants of kayak gear floating nearby in the water, including one of the teak planks. I seized it for extra flotation. I floated for a second, resting, dumbfounded and almost in shock. I was alone in the Pacific Ocean, but I almost felt calm. The past several hours had been so fraught with adrenaline and exertion that to float there was almost otherworldly.
I snapped to and assessed my situation. It was hard to estimate how far offshore I was, but the sheer cliffs we had been near just a while ago were way farther away than I had ever seen them from a kayak. I guessed I was several miles south-southwest of Punta Tambor. I had no choice but to begin swimming. I held the teak plank under my left arm and stroked with my right and kicked. I focused on the land and stroked, my mind almost empty.
I was so full of adrenaline still that if I was feeling any fatigue, I wasn’t registering it. I had a single focus, and strangely I did not feel fearful or have any thoughts of anything but what my body was doing. There were no worries of sharks or anything of the sort. It was just “Go!”
After what seemed like at least an hour and a half, the sun was getting lower, but the land seemed no closer to me than it had been when I had begun swimming. A wave of panic rose in me as I wondered if I was fighting against a current as well as the wind and if I would reach shore before exhaustion set in. I had a moment of clarity and thought, “You can live or die.” I remember seeing in my mind a line between the two and thinking, “Live!” I began my sidestroke again at a furious pace.
I swam like an automaton for what felt like hours with only slight pauses. I was afraid to stop for too long, fearing I would realize how tired I was and not be able to continue. Gradually the shore got closer. I felt that in my first hour and a half of swimming I had gone nowhere, and now I was finally moving.
The daylight faded rapidly. The wind had calmed slightly, but the water was still full of sloppy swells. I was extremely fatigued, running only on willpower and adrenaline. The coast grew larger in the darkness, and I used every last bit of strength I had to bring myself to it.
The waves were still banging up against the shore, and there was no beach in sight. I realized that if I didn’t get out of the water soon I would be completely exhausted. The coast was littered with rocks, and I crawled onto one of the larger ones with the last ounce of strength I had. I was still about 40 feet from shore. I let go of the piece of teak and at that moment I realized how exhausted I was. It was around 7 p.m. and almost dark. I had been in the water since about 2:30 p.m. I’d had nothing to eat or drink since before the weather had turned foul, as my food had been in a small drybag in my cockpit. I’d been in the hot sun all day. I was completely drained.
I wasn’t sure where I was exactly, but I knew I had come ashore between Playa Ventanas and Playa Coco, not far from Punta Coco. I remembered that there was a rocky beach about a half mile around the point toward Pochote and briefly considered attempting to get back in the water and swim around the point, but I was in no shape to do such a thing.
Hours passed. I watched a lightning storm over the glow of the capital city of San Jose, but the sky stayed clear over the Gulf. The wind still blew, but without its earlier ferocity, and the only lights in the area besides the stars were lights which passed back and forth across the Gulf several miles from where I sat.
I realized that the lights were the Costa Rican Coast Guard, combing the water for my body. It was humiliating. Then a worse thought crept over me. “What if they are combing the water for the bodies of my friends?” A sense of panic enveloped me. The lights eventually disappeared.
I spent the night on that rock in a sort of half-conscious upright doze, awakened every few minutes by a swell spraying me with water. I was beginning to feel slightly chilled from being wet for so long, even though the night temperatures were in the high 70s. The night passed slowly. I anxiously awaited the first light so I could get off the rock and back to Pochote. I wanted to see what had happened to the others, and to let whoever was still at the base know I was okay.
Waves pounded the rock all night. When the first shards of light broke, I prepared to make my exit.
Shore was a series of large, jagged rock faces plunging into the sea. If I could make my way to the rip rap at the base of the rocks, I could then climb up one of them to a ledge that ran along the tops of the rocks. From there I could find my way home.
I was worried that if I didn’t time my swim to shore right, I would be hammered up against the rocks by the swell. I surveyed the water for an appropriate time to jump in and then made the plunge. I swam a few of the swells toward shore, and after the last one passed and crashed against the rocks I made a mad charge to climb up on the riprap and get a hold on the rock face before the next one broke. I was acutely aware of my exhausted state as I began climbing the jagged rock face. About 12 feet up I had a gripping fear that I might fall, break my legs and then be pounded by the incoming surf. I calmed myself and continued slowly up to the ledge.
From there, after a long bout of scrambling, bushwhacking, and a swim across a mangrove swamp, I was back upon the shores of Pochote.
About five hours after I had left the rock, I staggered onto the beach in front of our house and was met with the calls of the local kids. One grabbed me by the hand and hustled me up to our yard, where there seemed to be a countless number of people. Everybody took notice of my arrival at once it seemed, and let out a collective gasp. I was told the whole crew had made it back intact. We were all speechless and expressed our thankfulness for being back together through hugs, tears and laughter.
Perry had lost sight of me within seconds of us becoming separated. He was in a frenzy to locate me but was helpless in the water-laden boat. He continued to surf with an open front cockpit in the breaking seas. He navigated across the mouth of the bay and paddled back into Pochote into the oncoming wind waves that had filled the bay. He was first to arrive in the late afternoon, and when he realized no one else had returned, he rapidly began searching for a local fisherman with a motorized panga who would take him out to search for us. A friend of ours, Camareno, had a boat but said that the conditions were too rough to go out in and they would have to wait. They then called the Coast Guard. Search and rescue would be dispatched from Puntarenas, roughly 23 miles across the gulf on the mainland. It would be several hours before they could arrive.
Gerald and Kim had managed to reenter their swamped boat, keep it upright, and slog along the coast toward Pochote. They found a rocky cove just big enough to get the boat out of the water so they could empty it. They waited for the wind to die down, and just before sunset they made the push back to Pochote. On their way into the bay, they spotted Perry and Camareno in the panga coming around one of the bay’s small headlands. Gerald and Kim had figured they were the only lost sheep and were excited to see Perry, but when they saw the grim look on his face, they understood things were far worse than they had thought and continued straight on into Pochote. After several minutes outside of the bay in the panga, Camareno decided the conditions were too rough to continue searching in the oncoming darkness. They headed back in. All they could do was wait.
Jared had capsized shortly after his departure from us. He was thrown from the boat, but was able to get ahold of it. He repeatedly attempted to reenter and pump, but was continually rolled by the heavy seas. He was unskilled in the use of the paddle float and other self-rescues, and attempted to enter by crawling up on his deck, only to be dumped off. The cycle went on for a while, until he was too fatigued to continue. He grabbed the boat and held on for dear life. He kicked and stroked in an attempt to drive himself into the bay. Eventually, just after dark, he emerged from the water just to the south of the village of Tambor. He had been in the water for close to six hours. He knocked on the door of the house of a local fisherman who immediately recognized him as one of the missing kayakers—the story had spread quickly—and arranged a taxi for him back to Pochote. Reunited with Gerald, Kim and Perry, the four of them could only wait to see if I turned up. They spent a tense night next to the phone waiting for word from the Guarda Costa. In the morning I arrived.
The days following the incident were spent doing interviews with the Costa Rican news. It was embarrassing. The coverage was sensationalistic, inaccurate, and just plain fabricated. It was reported that Jared and I were international students and had gone on a kayak trip to the nearby Islas Tortugas and had jumped out of our boat in fear of the weather. A local fisherman claimed he had heard that an upturned kayak was found, and went searching for the lost foreigners. He said he found us all, plucked us from the water and gave us a stern lecture about the dangers of the sea and El Viento Norte. He was proclaimed a hero.
El Viento Norte—The North Wind—I came to find out, was what turned our day into a nightmare. Apparently it is an annual weather event that takes place sometime around the middle of January and lasts for several weeks. The wind builds up in the north and makes its way down the Nicoya and out to the Pacific, wreaking havoc. It was well known by all of the locals and fishermen that you don’t venture out if there is any sign of wind in this period. All of the locals seemed perplexed we hadn’t known about El Viento Norte. Somehow this fact had passed us by in all our conversations with them. Weeks afterward I was talking with a hotel owner who was also somewhat of a mariner. He had read of the incident in the papers and he told me that the wind had blown over 60 knots that day.
We never heard anything more from the Guarda Costa and I felt a bit of shame that they were out looking for us, but I was thankful they had been there to help.
Lessons Learned
This event was a huge wake-up call for me and changed my attitude about the outdoors entirely. The biggest lesson was one of not becoming too comfortable in my abilities and not becoming too complacent in my environment. I had been kayaking almost every day since the previous April. I had spent many springs and summers guiding in the Pacific Northwest on a daily basis. I had worked on fishing boats and sailboats, and had grown up on the shores of Puget Sound. I felt at home in boats and around the water. I figured if I had handled myself this long with no incident, in much more extreme environments, Costa Rica would be a breeze.
The warm water and predictable weather made me feel like nothing could possibly go wrong. The respect and healthy fear I had for the sea in the Northwest faded because that cold, biting water was absent. “The water is warm; what’s the worst that can happen?” I grew lazy in my judgment and concern for safety. Paddling in this friendly, laid-back environment made me forget about the real dangers of the ocean and the weather that comes with it. Safety and equipment measures that I would have taken in the Northwest without a second thought, became distant memories. It was so easy to forget about safety equipment when I could just drag my boat from the yard to the beach in two minutes and be floating along in gentle swells with no life jacket or spray skirt, poke up the coast, jump out and have a swim. I have always had a lot of respect for the forces of nature, but overconfident and nonchalant, I headed out under-equipped into conditions that should have warned me to turn around.
There were things we should have done differently. We felt complacent and ignored an important part of safe paddling—planning—which led us to become spread out and out of communication. If we had stayed in a group, we could have collectively made the decision to turn around before the weather grew any worse. If we’d each had VHF radios on our PFDs, we would have been able to call our front kayak and have them turn around. Later, when things got bad, I could have radioed the Coast Guard, but the one radio we had was untethered, and ended up at the bottom of the Pacific.
The swamped double kayaks presented a level of difficulty that we were unaccustomed to. We had practiced many single and double rescues, but in relatively calm conditions where the boats took on little water, and the rescues were performed without incident. In dumping seas, the boats nearly filled to capacity, making them unmanageable and incredibly heavy. In the rough water, the weight of these water-laden boats created a serious danger for anyone trying to get close. Towing the swamped kayak would have been an impossibility. We had always used double kayaks on our guided trips because we felt the stability was important for inexperienced paddlers, and therefore safer. After my experience this day, it made me question the manageability of them in these situations. I’m not sure what would have happened in cold water. I felt that I was a practiced rescuer, but this experience humbled me and made me rethink my training and my ability to react in a serious situation.
The effort we spent pumping was in vain and, looking back, was perhaps a reflex response because we felt there was no other course of action. Much of this wasted energy could have been saved. An electric pump or a foot pump could have helped ease the situation, as it would have allowed for us to be in our boats with our skirts over the cockpits, and hands on our paddles for attempted control of the boat. Boats with lower-volume cockpits and well-sealed bulkheads would also have made this situation more manageable.
Jared, even though he’d had some time on the water, was the least experienced of all of us and shouldn’t have been in the single. He was unpracticed at self-rescues and boat handling in rough water. He didn’t have a roll. As it turned out, he was familiar with the concept of the paddle float, but had never used one, and didn’t even attempt using it in his capsize. I feel personally responsible for his lack of safety training. We had been on a number of day trips but safety had just been a discussion, not something we’d practiced. To his credit he is a good athlete and was strong enough to swim his kayak ashore, but strength alone does not always save one’s life, certainly not in colder water.
Without a PFD I surely would have drowned. I am sure the same holds true for Jared. The level of exhaustion was extremely high, and I needed every bit of help I could get to make it in the churning sea. Wearing the PFD allowed me to float when I needed to rest. If I had needed to tread water, I would have quickly been overcome with exhaustion.
Our VHFs didn’t pick up any signals in the area, so radio contact was a moot point. We usually brought them, but were never able to use them except boat to boat, which had never been necessary. If we had brought more than one this day, and had them properly accessible, we would have been able to radio each other and potentially our own base, if someone had been monitoring a VHF there. We did not have a flare gun with us on this particular trip, as we had become lazy about bringing it. Flares are less useful in remote areas—if we had fired one at the first sign of trouble, it’s quite unlikely that there would have been anyone in the area to see it. Flares would have played an important role once the Coast Guard was on the water.
When exploring the developing world, one needs to take into account that the safety measures we count on back home just aren’t the same. We have an extremely tight safety net in place in North America that consists of well-trained rescuers and advanced technology. Places like Costa Rica do not possess the same wealth and technological equipment. The infrastructure is not as developed, and equipment isn’t as modern. To assume you will be rescued is foolish. It must be assumed that you are on your own. This fact makes our nonchalance all the more unjustified.
If I’d had an EPIRB or PLB with me, it would have provided my location, via satellite, to the Search And Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking (SARSAT) Mission Control Center in the U.S., and then to Costa Rican authorities. It is a testament to Costa Rica’s organization that upon receiving a call they were able to deploy as quickly as they did to search for us.
We had done our research to the best of our ability. There was little written nautical information on the area, and our conversations with the locals seemed to turn up little about what we needed to be wary of. Our own experience indicated that the weather was predictable and generally friendly. I believe not knowing about things like El Viento Norte are part of the danger of exploring a foreign area. You might miss something that may be common local knowledge.
Any person who has ever been in a crisis situation knows that making decisions isn’t always simple. I would have liked to have performed a rescue of Gerald and Kim, and not left them floating, and I would have liked to have not gotten so far offshore with Perry, but it was just the way that it happened. Sometimes these situations take on a life of their own and the equipment that is supposed to save you, and all of the things you are trained to do don’t work. It just becomes a scramble to survive.
The best advice I can offer is this: As a paddler it isn’t worth taking these risks. Don’t become too comfortable, and don’t take anything for granted. You can still be relaxed and confident, but don’t become complacent. Develop a good skill set and always carry the proper equipment, but don’t let them replace a healthy respect for, and might I say fear of, the sea. It is a fickle place and a little fear could save your life.
Names have been changed at the request of those involved.
Christian Gaggia is a Puget Sound native and enjoys anything that keeps him outdoors and traveling. He is currently somewhere in Italy, on land.
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