May 13, 2002

Scouting the Beach

I managed to finally make it down to the local beach yesterday - the one that is off limits to swimmers and water sports (is kayaking a water sport?).

I wish my camera would hurry back from the shop - it'd be much easier to show you guys a few pictures rather than describe it, but I'll try...

Waves were _huge_ - and dumping - and looked bad enough that I'd never consider launching in those type conditions, and I would have to put in a few words with the big guy if I was forced to land/crash ashore in them.

About every 500-600 feet was a jetty. Made from concrete blocks, they started on shore and went straight into the water for about 100 feet - perpendicular to the shore.

I walked out to the end of one jetty - there was a strong rip on one side. Get caught in it and you would be whipped dangerously close to the jetty and battered by waves against it.

The waves started breaking regularly about another 100-150 feet out. Then there was line after line of continuous breakers all the way into shore. Big breakers. The largest just beyond the jetty. There would be no way to time going through the breakers because they broke in random areas - not in defined lines like I'm used to seeing.

The weather was nasty all weekend, so maybe I just picked a bad day.

Several things I noticed:

1) Spray paint on some concrete that said "locals only"

2) Sand dollars everywhere

3) Bumper sticker on a post that read "Misawa surf raiders"

4) Black sand. Rough. Course. Getting maytaged could mean a bad case of road rash (if you're lucky). It was also deceivingly difficult to drive on - like regular deep sand, but it looked firm because it was black.

5) Recent camp fires

Woody