September 24, 2000

Assateague Island, Maryland

Trip #100

23-24 Sept 2000

Assateague Island, Maryland

Weather was on and off raining on Saturday. David was running late so Amigh and I set up tents and headed out to the ocean to play. Waves were dumping hard on the steep shore, and breaking pretty good 150 feet offshore across a sandbar. We had to carry the boats North up the beach to find a place where the outer wave set seemed a little more tame.

Amigh launched first and I kept yelling for her to paddle hard. She broached but held a good high brace all the way back to shore. She was mad she didn't get through the waves and after mumbling under her breath a few minutes she was ready to go again. I gave her a push and she got slammed real hard in the face/chest as she disappeared in a wave but she made it through. She hung out between the zones while I went to launch. She kept drifting to the north (wind was out of the south - the remnants of a tropical storm).

I tried to launch several times but kept getting the nose of my kayak pushed around before I could get all of my kayak in the water. Finally some guy took pity on me and came and gave me a good push off and I made it into the water and through the first surf line.

I caught up with Amigh and we tried to go through the second set of breakers together. Amigh punched right through but I kept getting slammed and surfed backwards. Amigh was through as I was surfed backwards 3 times, and actually knocked over once, but I rolled up. I was beginning to think I wouldn't make it through when I finally punched my way beyond the breakers.

We started heading north, but we were making little progress. There was no way we would make this a 4 hour trip, as was my goal. Waves were 7ft, or at least that was the forecast, and they looked that big to me. I also couldn't tell where our camp site was, as all those dune cut through's looked the same. At some point I noticed my mesh deck bag was gone. I had stored Amigh's and my water bladders in it so now we had no water (Amigh had no way to fasten it to her deck). I called off the attempt at an actual journey.

Now the secondary surf line was dumping waves. We were both a bit leary to go back through, so we went through backwards(!), and actually it was a piece of cake! I think the waves were busy laughing at us too much to rise up high and pound us. I turned around and surfed in forwards to the beach for the near shore surf zone. Amigh chose to surf that zone backwards also.

When we got to shore we realized we were 1/2 mile down the beach from the launch, so we crossed a dune cut-through and walked to the campsite and got my truck to haul the kayaks back. David was there setting up his tent. After we brought the kayaks back we all headed off to paddle the bay. It was a nice paddle down the middle of the bay with a short distance on the Assateague side. David got a few pictures of us near a pony. David paddled Amigh's boat the entire time and seemed to like it. David and I rolled a few times to cool off, and Amigh dipped off from my bow. It looked like it could begin to rain hard so we headed back. I think this was about 4 miles.

We got back to camp and set up a screened canopy I brought on the trip. We didn't need the screen but the canopy top was enough to keep the light rain off the picnic table so we could cook. Of course there was beer, wine, and scotch afterwards and during dinner. We all turned in pretty early.

Next morning I got up early and got all the stuff out for breakfast. After Amigh got up I started cooking and about the time everything was ready David got up. After breakfast we carried the boats to the water (Mine and David's - Amigh decided not to go, but instead helped push us off).

The on shore waves were pretty tame compared with the day before, but the offshore surf line was HUGE. I launched and waited between the zones a while waiting for David to catch up. David launched and at some point got dumped. He floated back to shore and tried again. I think he may have dumped several times, and each time floated back to shore to relaunch.

We attempted to punch through the second surf line together. I made it and turned around to find David had dumped. I then noticed he had his boat, and two pieces of his wooden paddle in his hands. The paddle broke across the blade, and not on the shaft where you would expect it. The bottom 1/3 of a blade had snapped clean off. David wanted me to stow his broken paddle so he could get his other paddle off his rear deck. I encouraged him to swim it back to shore but decided maybe this would be a good time to try an assisted rescue. I started to turn my kayak to get into position when the biggest, wave I've seen in real life came rising up out of the depths. I had just enough time to tell David "Oh sh**" just before the wave broke on top of us.

My kayak surfed well on the wave considering it (and me) was upside down. After a long few seconds the wave didn't release me so I decided to wet exit and calmly made note to hold the paddle and the boat as I popped the skirt. For some reason I've noticed that salt water in the surf doesn't seem to invade my sinus' as badly as freshwater does.

I stood up on the sandbar in shoulder deep water. The next 2-3 waves carried the boat and myself closer to shore and David was now quite a bit away. I was now in waist deep water and still on the sandbar that was causing the second surf zone. Eventually I saw David made it in as I was carried by another wave off the sand bar towards the beach and deep water. Once in deep water again the waves were tamer, but I didn't want to swim my kayak to shore, so I reentered and rolled up. I flipped on my electric pump and fastened my sprayskirt while bracing for stability. After less than a minute the water was out of the boat and stability returned. I reached through the sprayskirt and turned off the pump.

A little side note: I know not many people really practice low/high braces, rolling, paddling in a flooded cockpit - but if you plan on playing in the surf some day, invest some time in it. It really pays off. Several times I found myself parallel to a breaking wave and a high brace is all that kept me upright.

At one point I noticed everyone looking out into the water north of me, but I couldn't tell what they were looking at. David was on shore, so he was safe, but I didn't see the SOTs that had launched earlier. I saw Amigh walking across the beach with half of David's carbon fiber Werner and then I spotted his other half floating in the waves. Retrieving it was easy - deciding how to stow it after I got it was another story. But I jury rigged something up on my front deck and it held well enough to get back to where everyone was on shore. I mentioned to David he had left half of a $400 paddle out in the water :)

David put his Werner together and left his wooden paddle on shore and we launched again. David really wanted to make it through the second surf zone. I showed him the rip through the sandbar, but there were so many haystacks as the incoming waves crashed into the outgoing water that it wasn't any easier to attempt to go through there. Plus, if David dumped I knew I would have to go outside the surf zone to pick him up.

I surfed some waves back in towards the beach a few times and kept going back out. These were some nice long surf runs on the face of non-breaking waves. I would peel off the wave before entering the surf line on the beach. Fast rides! David had bow pointed into the waves and kept looking for a way through, or was trying to get comfortable in the waves, I'm not sure which. I told him we should head south as we had drifted a good distance north and I didn't want to carry the kayaks all the way back. I showed David that a low brace is reassuring when taking the spilling waves on beam.

Once we got near the launch site I told David I was getting tired and we should go in. We both surfed in to the beach with no problems. David noticed the shaft of his Werner was cracked. $600 in paddles in one surf lesson!

We loaded up the boats and headed home. I had a good time. My confidence in wave and surf is growing and I found myself not needing to focus as much attention to the waves as the last trip to the beach.

Woody