Cattle Pass Trip Report

Leader: Mark Baron
Participants:
• Dave
• Kim
• Bill
Coincidental paddler: Rob (paddling on his own adventure)

Cattle Pass is always a trip I set up and paddle with careful planning and a little trepidation. It has two technical cruxes: the initial crossing of Rosario Strait at maximum ebb (3.2kn, in our case) and, of course Cattle Pass, which is a large and notorious tide race, especially during the summer Solstice period, which this trip was scheduled for.

It was posted as an SK V trip, which I judge as the appropriate level given the length of the crossings, the speed of the currents, the level of exposure and difficulties of rescues, should they be needed in crux locations (they were). One person, who had no interest in participating on the trip, sent me a link to the Sea Kayaker Magazine 2008 incident report/write up by Rob Gibbert. I kindly thanked the person who sent it to me and informed them that was the reason for the trip rating and the careful screening I would be subjecting participant to.

As the trip filled out I had one planning session with Kim, who had recently taken a SKILS class and was told she needed to work on her navigation and planning. I also asked the participants to send me their trip plan, which would let me know that they had some idea as to what they were getting into. Kim and Bill had both been to Cattle Pass before, Dave was the only on to whom this was a new experience, and what an experience it would be.

As the day of the trip approached I watched the weather, almost obsessively. The weather was just a mite sketchy and a few plan B’s were generated. But the morning of the launch was perfect, though cloudy. We assembled on the beach: Dave, Kim, Bill and I. My friend Rob ended up joining us. He’d turned up as we were getting ready. He was paddling the same route and figured some company never hurts. We left the beach and made the crossing ahead of schedule, which left some time to poke around in the rocks as we made our way west across the south end of Lopez Island.

At Iceberg Point State Park we had a nice long break and we went and explored the park a bit as we waited for the tide to build at Cattle Pass so we would get a maximum assist on our way north through San Juan Channel, which is the sloggiest part of this trip…usually. We caught a little sun and Bill and I walked out to the survey marker from the Treaty of 1909 that is used to help reference the US/Canada border. As we were preparing to launch, another of my old paddling compadres paddled up, Wade. He was on his own and was happy to meet a few other paddlers and to reconnect with me. Alas, we left him standing on the beach eating a sandwich waving goodbye and wishing us good luck.

We approached Whale Rocks and the water was moving through them in a few different directions with some nice standing waves. This seemed like a good place to limber up so we all took a few turns through them, surfed some waves and moved on, everyone feeling pretty good.

Now we’re being inexorably drawn into Cattle Pass and there is no escape. The waves off of Davis Point are 4’-5’. Dave looks a bit nervous. Kim looks a bit nervous. I remind them that they’ve both taken surfing classes and have both participated in my classes in the Room of Doom in Deception Pass. They loosen up a bit. Rob is surfing a juicy wave and, as I’m setting up, I hear Bill yell “Swimmer!” I break off of my wave and look into the sea of huge waves and see Dave’s paddle standing straight in the air marking his position and Bill is charging after him. Good.

“Mark, I don’t like this!” I can hear the fear in Melinda’s voice. As I look over Kim capsizes. I paddle over to her and get a grip on her boat. The waves are bouncing us around pretty good, now and I tell her to turn her boat over. It took a few times for it to penetrate the fear and with every wave I come close to capsizing myself as I hold onto the toggle on the end of her boat. Finally Kim flipped her boat and came to me. As I get the rescue going I get Kim talking so as to settle her down and remember the skills she’s worked so hard to learn. Now is when she needs them to work. Kim, gets in her boat and powers through the waves into the eddy at the S side of Deadman Island. Dave is in good spirits and all are ready to go the rest of the way through Cattle Pass.

I decide that we’ll head through on the west side of Deadman Island. The waves are bigger and the water is rougher but everyone here is comfortable with the bumpy ride. As we go through I hear shouts of exhilaration and excitement. This is why we’re here! We get to a huge boil on the N. side of Deadman Island and it sets off a sense of dread. Where’s the whirlpool that must accompany this boil? We all start paddling away from the boil and slowly, at first, then picking up speed, I watch Dave’s bow start to rise until it is vertical. Dave’s eyes are huge! He manages to maintain a brace for a bit before rolling over. He exits his boat and comes up gripping his boat at the cockpit and is holding on for dear life!

At this time Kim is well ahead of us. Bill, who’s acquitted himself beautifully is sent on ahead to stay with her so no one is left alone while Rob and I sit and watch Dave whirl around with alarming velocity as his boat whirls around at a threatening pace.

“Are you all right?” I yell at Dave, knowing full well the answer. He takes a moment to think about his response and slowly, so slowly, shakes his head, no.

What do we do? There’s no way to approach with his boat whirling like a propeller and even if I could get him my tow rope, then what? I could hardly pull him out with my kayak; I’m more likely to get myself pulled in! Rob approached closer, thinking that maybe he can at least get a grip on the boat. It whirls by narrowly missing Rob and on the next revolution hits Rob bow, punching a hole in Dave’s boat just above the waterline.

In my typically inappropriate way I want to yell “don’t worry, slack is only 3 hours away!” but I don’t think this will help at the moment.

We sit there a moment longer and we can see that Dave, after being submerged and having his boat pass over his head a few times is getting tired. I’ve never seen a whirlpool last this long! I’m starting to get worried as there is nothing I can do that won’t put Rob or me in danger. I’m getting ready to throw the tow rope. It’s worth a try and I can always ditch if I have to. Suddenly, Dave is out! He, and his boat are flung out and Rob is on him!

Dave is completely out of gas and scared and not feeling so well, as is only reasonable. Rob gets him in his boat with a little help from me and we wait a few moments and let Dave collect himself before we head off keeping a close eye on Dave waiting for the inevitable crash. A few moments later Dave is over again and out of his boat. We get him in again and wait a moment again before we head off. It was the last capsize of the day.

The paddle to Turn Island is uneventful, thankfully, and Dave gets over the post adrenaline nausea. He picks up a bucket out of the water and he and Rob fiddle around for a bit rigging in onto Dave’s back deck (really glad there wasn’t a capsize with that on his deck) and we get to Turn Island.

On Turn Island we tape up Dave’s boat with some waterproofing tape and have a nice long break. Dave is feeling better and is recounting the incident with the whirlpool and saying how glad he is that he was taught to hold onto his equipment! After a quick inventory the only thing missing was a pair of sunglasses.

We paddle the rest of the way to Friday Harbor and we’re done. The takeout goes smoothly and we are at the Cask and Schooner for a drink in record time.

Things to take away from this are that whirlpools pose an interesting rescue problem. From a kayak, I cannot figure out a way of effecting a rescue without putting the rescuer is serious jeopardy. While they can be fun to play in, at least I think they are, they pose a very real hazard.

That's a really hair-raising account, Mark. Do you think Dave would have been sucked down while wearing his PFD (but not holding on to his boat), or just thrashed? His boat must have been moving pretty fast to get holed. Very interested in hearing what any other mates think about whirlpools & rescues. What happens if you get sucked under? Does it spit you out? If so, how soon? Ack!
Moulton

As a guy who routinely teaches classes in rather dynamic environments and who's done this trip several times I can say that this whirly was something else! Most whirlpools dissipate as the travel down the eddyline and will spit you out after toying with you a bit. This one had the boat spinning around so fast that all I wanted to do was stay away from it

I don't know if this one would've pulled Dave down in spite of his PFD, but I can say that some folks in the UK took a mansized dummy, put a PFD on it along with a depth gauge and timer and chucked it into the Corryvrecken, a Huge whirlpool off of the Isle of Jur. While I can't give you the actual numbers (I can't find the data) but I can tell you that it went down a few hundred feet and finally came back up something like a 1/4 mile away and was down for about 15 minutes.

Regarding rescues: Think about the suction required to pull you down, in spite of the PFD. Without being on land, especially in a location where it's all I can do just to stay clear of the whirling boat, I just can't see a way to generate enough force to counter the suction with a kayak or even two.

I'll modify the fact about the dummy in the Corryvreckan. The dummy went down 200m and surfaced several miles away and was found to have gravel filling its pockets as it surfaced 1/2 hour later. The Corryvreckan is the 3rd largest whirlpool.

Here's cattle pass on a big day for reference. This is taken looking south. The first capsizes in Marks report were in the waves behind the paddler. on a small day those waves are shoulder high and fairly clean offering good rides. On a big day they are pushing 6' and very sloppy usually with a second set of swell crossing at an angle. On the day of the report, it was not this big but getting up there.

After this was discussed by the club that I ran this trip through (I missed the meeting, I was at my daughters school band performance) there was discussion as to whether or not trips of this magnitude should be posted and run through the club. Fortunately, the Executive Safety Director (or whatever the title was) agrees with me that we absolutely should.

Many of the clubs stick with tamer trips in tamer conditions. It always raises the questions as to what is safe kayaking? I maintain that safe kayaking is when trips, even high standard trips, are planned properly, participants are properly vetted and exits are considered. Granted, an SK V has few exits available, is remote and has potential for BIG conditions before it even jumps up to SK VI. Was in Dave in danger? Perhaps. Were rescues possible? No, not really, until Dave was ejected from the whirlpool. Was this hazard, as well as others, properly and thoroughly communicated to participants as to the possible and potential risks on this trip? Yes. One of the conditions that I had, for all participants, was the submission of a solid trip plan for this trip.

Some will ask - like Strange Magic - what are the acceptable upper limits of safe kayaking? I don't have an answer to that, but I will say that the dynamic nature of the environment on high standard trips always keeps you guessing. We can make our plans, but the sea (or the river) will always have different plans. Proper planning will help you find that margin of safety. Studying the charts of the area, the Coast pilot and/or Sailing Directions will sometimes lend useful information to the plan.

Note in my trip report, that after the first round of capsizes that everyone had a blast making their way through the pass, even if their heart was about to burst out of their chests from fear/exhilaration. Dave's final comments from the trip was that the training that he's had, both through our club and on the outside, of always holding onto your equipment paid off. Now he wants to tune up those sculling braces. Kim's comments were that she realized, as she was preparing to surf a 5' standing wave, that she didn't know how to do that and the 1/2 mile of other huge standing waves around her pushed her over the edge. After reentering her 'yak she abandoned surfing and rode the salty white water through this huge tide race and was just fine after. She now wants to work on surfing standing waves as it wasn't at all similar to her experience to riding coastal waves.

I'll continue to lead high standard trips, both private and through the club in question (I'm the Leadership Chair of our division)and I'll continue to push for higher standard training and trips and to push against the nay sayers.

Paddle it like you stole it!

Mark