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Saturday 3/30/02   

Cabrillo Beach - to - White Point

(Pictures from previous trips)

George wrote: 

We had been getting into the habit of launching from Marine land on the PV Peninsula, since there are so many great play spots along the coast.   Since a bunch of us are preparing for the BCU certification on 6 April, some wanted to train in the boats we'd be examined in and didn't want to sully our precious Kevlar hulls, so we departed from Cabrillo Beach instead.

We had a larger turnout than usual.  I missed the last few weeks, due to a vacation in the British Virgin Islands (80 degree water!) and business commitments.

I was surprised to see Jack out there, with his shoulder problems. He was complaining, but it didn't seem to cramp his style much.  Ann was along to avoid becoming Hugh's kayaking widow-- she did fine.   I hadn't seen Denny in about a year. He developed shoulder problems and headed in early.  This must be a kayaking occupational hazard. After quitting running with chronic foot injuries, I'll need to pace myself in kayaking. I'm running out of limbs and joints.

Steve and Vickie have a brand new van, er, kayak carrier, already undergoing customization as a base for Brown kayaking operations.

It turned out that Vickie and I were the only ones with composite boats. I regretted not bringing my plastic Looksha Sport, because I missed numerous good play opportunities that would have further jeopardized my Kevlar beauty, already an endangered species, after other jagged encounters on the PV Peninsula with Steve Brown's Knights of the Rocky Coast.

We launched at about 0950 into rather tame surf-- nothing like the roaring 6 footers we've previously braved.  Our objectives were to train for the BCU examination and to have fun, not necessarily in that order, as it turned out.

We headed up the coast under overcast skies in chilly (by S. Cal. standards) weather, poking into coves and rocky areas and practicing reverse figure 8's, low braces, high braces, various sculls, draws, sweeps, rudder strokes and rescues throughout the day.  These were not your tame flat water pond rescues, but entailed jumping out of boats into breaking waves near reefs and rocks. I redlined my adrenaline quota about 5 minutes into this, but Steve and a couple of others were just getting warmed up.  We also practiced towing.  We discovered that the hardest part of towing is getting all of that line back into that nifty little orange Salamander bag that looked so cool in the kayak equipment store.   But, it worked great.

An interesting thing about this group and this coast-- when the surf is down, it's still interesting, because they find other places to push the envelope, where they wouldn't go in worse conditions.  So, they were right on top of the rocks. I mean this literally. Several times I spotted Mike, Don or Jack plowing right over rocks. Sometimes they would even wait for a wave to lubricate the rocks first.

Steve seems to delight in inverting his kayak in frenzied, boiling cauldrons of water, adjacent to jagged cliffs and reefs, then rolling up and paddling away as if nothing happened.

Everyone got wet, except for Vickie and Ann, who had the good sense to paddle on and stay dry.

We stopped by White Point, behind a rock garden, for lunch and relaxation and were treated to some nice, hot tea.  One of our guys was practicing up on his tea brewing skills, to brown nose our British certification examiner next Saturday.

I missed a lot of the rock garden action this day, because I was diligently working on practicing maneuvers for the BCU examination.  It was more interesting doing this while paddling miles along the coast past rock gardens, spectacular scenery, sea lions, fishermen, ships and boats.

Even after a couple of days of recent practice, I'm not ready for everything. I'll have to play hooky at least once during the week and get to San Diego early to be ready. I think that two or three of the guys are taking both the Three and Four Star Tests, and should pass the first one, but the second is more questionable.    Very few people in the U.S. have Four Star ratings. To get the Five Star, you must go to England-- no kidding.  

The wind and waves increased steadily on the way home. San Pedro is not called Hurricane Harbor for no reason. Wind/kite surfers were tooling along at high speed in the cove off Cabrillo Beach, even on this fairly tame day.

When we returned to the Cabrillo Beach area, we practiced various maneuvers.  After a day of chilly, overcast weather, the sun shone forth in all of its springtime California glory the moment we landed. We saddled up for the trip home, after talking about next week's certification course logistics and the upcoming Catalina Trip, organized by Albert Wang of BASK.  

When I got home, there was an email from Jennifer Kleck of Aqua Adventures, exhorting us to train hard and practice the more troublesome maneuvers 200 times. 200 times?  Get a life.  My joints probably don't have that many cycles left in them.  But, she's right. I practiced some dozens of times and still wasn't satisfied with the results. Too bad I have a day job.

Denny wrote:

I hadn't paddled since last summer so I was extremely interested in accepting Steve and Vickie's invitation. so much so that  I was the second one to arrive, the first in the water and first to head out. there was no surf, the water was glassy, and the wind was not apparent. thinking I would be left behind, I started off just outside the break in the direction of white point.  I was able to stay close to shore all the way enjoying some rock gardening en route and around the main rocks at the point. you know it was a calm day and a high tide if I was able to do that. I paddled back before the others as I had things to do. the guys had a terrific time playing in the rocks from what I saw. Thanks for a wonderful day.

Don wrote:

Saturday morning at 9:30 am. Cabrillo to White's point and back. The sea was glassed off with no wind. There was a good turn out of paddlers. It was good to see more of us enjoying the ocean. I had loads of fun, and scrapped up my boat a bit. We practiced rolling and bracing in surge areas, I would have never dreamed of this before. I believe we covered most of the back in boat rescues, until I could barley climb in again. We were back on the beach by 3:00 pm and I was hammered. There is five days left to work out for BCU class, we are going on Tuesday night after work at King Harbor in Redondo Beach at 4:30.

Steve Wrote:

We spent a lot of time at White Point practicing rescues of various kinds. The rocks and waves made it more interesting and challenging. I think we were providing the main entertainment of the day for the fishermen. After a while, Jack went over and told the lifeguard what we were doing so he wouldn't call the coastguard.

In the process Jack, Don and Hugh found a little clapotis (how do you spell that word?) in front of the main reef. The resulting waves / spray weren't that high but loads of fun. I snapped a picture, but I'm not sure if it came out.

Hugh taught me a technique he learned from Derek H. of standing up while holding on to your partners head. It was very easy to do. Not as easy when he starting rocking my boat, but it was fun while it lasted.

Waves were small, but as George pointed out that just opened up new play areas. Particularly, the most fun spot in this area is a little churn just around the corner from Point Fermin. Water pours over a submerged (sometimes) reef  to the west and also from between some rocks to the north. On top of that waves enter from the SW making this water very confused and very fun. The waves reflect off of the cliff walls and mix with the incoming waves + all that combines with the current flowing in from two directions. Like all ocean water everything reverses every few seconds so you never know exactly which way to lean. The trick is to get into the "hot spot" and try to ride it out. As Don said, this is a great spot to practice your roll. If you hang out there long enough, you will practice your roll (or swimming).

Like the others, I still feel like I need some practice before the assessments next week. We'll get in some more on Tuesday.

Very fun day. The kayaking was fun, but the company of the other paddlers made it great fun.