Do Not Be Offended

It is hard to believe it is a decade since I wrote a post that ostensibly detailed the purpose of my blog, but was really just another rant about something that was on my mind on one particular day. And, by the way, as far as I can remember, the photo is from the Valkyr Range and the skiing was epic.

As good as it looks

In the early days, I put most of my mountain trip reports up on the Bivouac site. They are all still there, all 206 mountain trip reports. They span the early days of scrabbling around chossy peaks and thin snowpacks in the Rubbly Mountains, right through to 2019 when we managed a good number of mountain trips on a five month visit back to the country that will always hold my heart.

Atwell from the summit of Garibaldi

My blog, from the beginning, was mostly a place where I expressed my opinion about things mostly mountain related, but sometimes not. My very first entry, for example, was a story about the New World Order film night that used to run Monday nights in my old home town of Nelson back before Nelson become a trendy place to hang out and was a somewhat scruffy old mining town inhabited mostly by alternative people who were living simply off the grid and smoking copious amounts of dope. In fact, I took my mother to one of the New World Order film nights where the dope was so thick in the air that she spent the whole evening wondering what that strange incense was.

Our old home town

Over the years, my blog changed and became more a chronicle of my adventures, interspersed with the occasional rant about the latest social media horror, but mostly a bland recounting of this paddle or that bushwalk. I was busy, and just keeping up with trip reports took all the time I was willing to spend sitting staring at a screen, and so the rants, which still rattled around my brain got more and more infrequent and the boring "we went here, we did this" posts became more common.

Morning on the south coast

These days, I always have a rant topic festering away like a boil on a butt, but I rarely seem to get around to writing them. The other issue that keeps those rants stoppered up is a fear of offending someone. Perhaps we have entered the age where everyone is offended, or triggered as someone said to me the other day, by everything. And, by the way, stop saying people are "triggered" because they disagree with you.

Discussing options

Of late, I have even begun to carefully scrutinise and edit my trip reports for fear of saying something that will offend someone who was on the trip. Which is, to my mind, a bit of a shame. My writing has always been a way for me to process the world around me and to reflect on lessons learned on my many outdoor adventures. None of us are perfect and the truth is that we all make mistakes, some big, some small, some consequential, some insignificant. For me, a mistake is only truly an error if I did not learn anything from it. My increasingly sanitised trip reports frequently omit errors and incidents which were instructive to me, if not to anyone else.

How did I manage to capsize here?

PC, J.W. 

All of this rankles some. I have always been one of those brutally honest people who will answer "yes" if that dress does make you look fat and the stylist really did a number on your hair. I appreciate the same honesty. And, if you read over some of my posts, it is clear that I am pretty sincere about my own failings, of which there are many.

Failure on Mount Cooper

Years and years ago, almost a lifetime, we did a long ski traverse with a friend of mine (since killed in a climbing accident) who wrote the trip up for the Bivouac site. Some of his comments on us, his companions on this trip, were pretty hard to read at the time as they were, in many instances, rightly scathing about our abilities. Compared to Rick, we were nervous novices, and, given that Rick had a pair of cojones that would make an elephant proud, doing a big, committing traverse with people who dithered over every decision was no doubt frustrating. But, I appreciated his honesty, no matter how difficult it was to read at the time. And maybe that is the point, we need to do hard things and confront things that make us uncomfortable, because, the end of your comfort zone is where the real life begins.

Rick at the start of the Maligne Range traverse

The Sunday Paddles: Just For Fun

Another weekend when the weather was nothing like forecast. Instead of three consecutive days of strong northerlies we had one day, and then two days of light winds. It seems no matter how long I delay when deciding on the location of the Sunday paddle, the forecast will always be stunningly inaccurate.

Given the forecast strong northerlies I, against my better judgement, decided on a downwind run and car shuttle. Well, we did the car shuttle part, but the downwind run was an easy paddle in a low swell and a wind that barely reached five knots.

With an casual day on tap, we extended the trip by paddling past the Tollgate Islands and Black Rock, landed on a very small island using a narrow channel between two rock reefs to access a tiny beach surrounded by cliffs, and explored the little caves and islets on the south side of Burrewarra Point before paddling into the Tomago River through the Mossy Point bar where there was barely a 10 cm riffle.

Last time Doug and I paddled this stretch of coast, we paddled both directions including home into a headwind, racking up a 40 kilometre day. As Mark Twight famously said (about alpinism), "It does not have to be fun to be fun;" sea kayaking does not have to be gruelling to fun, and this day was just kind of fun!

The Sunday Paddles: Around Beecroft Peninsula

Sunday, after the Saturday "wind" paddle, there were only three people left standing for the Beecroft Circuit paddle, so we could set our own time to get away from camp. Accordingly, we arrived at the Dolphin Reserve in Currarong at around 8.30 am. The tide was pretty low but it was still possible to paddle out the channel from Currarong Creek.

As we were paddling past the breakwater, I heard some random guy saying "Well, you could not build this today with the Greens," apparently talking about the small breakwall around the channel and thought that the power that the average Australian punter assigns to the Green Party - who have one, count 'em, one, MP is astounding. In reality, the Australian political scene is a corrupt "Game Of Mates," and there are no Green mates.

But back to the paddle. It was pretty smooth going to Beecroft Head and then we got into the bump zone. A southerly swell, a northerly swell and rebound from both. This is my third time around Beecroft Peninsula and I have yet to have a smooth paddle. A third of the way down the peninsula we came to Corilla Cave and Gum Getters Inlet. This is the one spot on the circuit where you can find some protected water but first you have to paddle through a narrow gap between cliffs.

After recent rains the little creek was running but the water was still clear and we had a stand up rest beside our kayaks. Then past The Drum and Drumsticks and seals resting in the water, and further south exploring some caves as we went. Nick paddled through the Cathedral but it required a dab hand at timing and I did not want to try it as the waves washing through looked big.

South of Crocodile Head, the water was calmer and once we passed Point Perpendicular we had little to no swell. The northerly wind was up and it was time for lunch and a spell out of the kayaks so we cut across the bay and landed at Silica Cove.

While we were having lunch, Rae and Alison paddled past on their way back to camp. We finished with an easy paddle north to camp.

Sugarloaf Hill, Buckenbowra River and Bolaro Mountain

I have always been a peak bagger, and, even now, when the hills around me are lower in elevation than my house was at in Canada, I still seem to be drawn to walking to the top. More often than not there is no view, or not much of a view, and the greatest technical difficulty is often ensuring I have actually got to the top, so nondescript are the summits. But, still I go, something about the journey becoming more important the older I get.

Our yard in winter

In the last week I have been up two of the minor little hills we have in our area. One was with a group of four other friends who I coerced into coming along by advertising the approach paddle as the regular south coast Sunday paddle. Truthfully, I was surprised that anyone would sign up for the Sunday paddle given it was mostly on the river and we usually paddle on the ocean, but, it turned out that none in the group had paddled up the river and were game to do so, at least once.

Heading towards the bridge

I have actually paddled up the Clyde River multiple times on training paddles, in fact, that is where I got the idea to walk up Sugarloaf Hill. We met at our home beach at 9 am and had a fussy departure sorting foot pegs and spray skirts finally getting off the beach closer to 10 am than 9 am. I had timed the outing so we would have the tide with us in both directions. It is usually about an hour to the big bridge over the mouth of the Clyde River, where two of our friends in a double kayak left the group as they wanted a shorter paddle.

View of Buckenbowra Valley

It is another hour to the confluence with the Buckenbowra River and then only a half hour up the Buckenbowra River until we reached a small inlet where I thought we could get out and stash the kayaks in the bush. Apart from slippery mud on the bank this was easily accomplished.

The squad on Sugarloaf Hill

State forests in NSW have a road on every ridge, so we only had to walk a short distance before we got on an old road that took us right to the top of Sugarloaf Hill. There was much friendly banter, at least I took it as friendly, about the view from the top that I had promised. There was a view, a bit filtered through forest, but we could see east to the Clyde and Buckenbowra Rivers and west to Paradise Valley.

View from Sugarloaf Hill

The paddle back was a good training mission into a 18 knot headwind. There is always a headwind on the Clyde River as far as I can tell.

Boulders on route up Bolaro Mountain

A couple of days later, I thought I might as well check off Bolaro Mountain which is almost twice as high as Sugarloaf Hill but still under 700 metres. I have seen the east side of Bolaro Mountain from a number of other vantage points on runs through Currowan State Forest and knew that there were lots of large granite boulders and slabs on the eastern side.

High balls on Bolaro

As usual, a fire trail runs right across the top from the north to the south, but I avoided all but a short approach road and walked up one spur ridge on the east side and down another. It was a pleasant stroll. I had good, if hazy views of the Budawangs on the way up, and was able to scramble up low angle slabs along the way. The top of the mountain has a nice forest of very bright green tree ferns that survived last summer's bushfires. There is also a pretty little creek running with clear water over granite slabs that I explored on the way down.

Distant view of the Budawangs

Arbitrary lists are, by definition, discretionary, some items make the list, others don't. I have had arbitrary lists for as long as I can remember. The first list, was a list of peaks we could see from our condominium in Canmore. This included rocky summits we could just glimpse by climbing on the toilet seat to squint out the bathroom window with binoculars. We spent many long days pursuing these peaks, often on trips that extended past 12 hours long and involved arduous trudges up the giant scree gullies and slopes of the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains. On one particularly noteworthy ascent, I remember a friend and I giggling hysterically from fatigue as we stumbled down a dry creek bed at 9 pm at night.

Stumbling down the track after a long day in the mountains

But that is the fun of arbitrary lists, they encourage to get out and do something out of the ordinary in what is otherwise a familiar environment.  Because, as Mark Twight famously said, "if you no longer live in the mountains you have to find meaning in the valley." (not an exact quote).

Into The Wind: Honeymoon Bay and Bowen Island

The regular Sunday paddles were interrupted by a weekend gathering at Honeymoon Bay on the Beecroft Peninsula. It was a small group, only 10 paddlers and the forecast weather was reasonable, but not completely conducive to paddling into the caves that tunnel deep into the sandstone cliffs of the two major peninsulas on either side of Jervis Bay.

I am one of those tedious goal oriented individuals who always arrives with a goal and a multiple stage plan to arrive at that goal. So, I arrived at the Friday night "lets talk about the plans for tomorrow" session with a clear objective: find someone, anyone, who wanted to paddle south to Bowen Island on Saturday, and, on Sunday, when the swell was forecast to drop from two metres to one metre, paddle the iconic circuit of Beecroft Peninsula which is, or should be, on every sea kayakers to do list.

Well, the talk went round and round and, in an ironic twist which would later become absurd, half the group voted to do the Beecroft circuit on Saturday so they would not have a long paddle on the same day they had to drive home. Somehow, overnight, the half of the group that pushed for the Saturday circuit had changed their minds and decided they were not coming anyway, so the only people left to paddle the circuit were the people who wanted to paddle the circuit on Sunday!

That is possibly how I managed to convince the circuit group to paddle south from Honeymoon Bay to Bowen Island in the full knowledge that we would have to paddle back across Jervis Bay against a headwind. Since starting the Sunday paddles, I have discovered that the people who claim to enjoy paddling into a headwind are few, and the people who actually regularly paddle into a headwind are even fewer.

In my view, paddling into a headwind is analogous to riding your mountain bike uphill, skiing uphill in the backcountry, or walking uphill to climb a mountain. It is simply part of the experience. a part which is increasingly being jettisoned in favour of bike shuttles, helicopters, chair lifts, and, in the case of sea kayaking, car shuttles.

Yeah, I get it, I sound old and crusty. First, I am old and crusty, but second, and more important, if you go out adventuring into the outdoors, sometimes things do not go as planned and you have to ride, walk or ski uphill, or, paddle into the wind. If this is something you never practice, when the moment arrives you may not be capable. Third, I philosophically believe that our lives are enriched by doing hard things. The temptation to eat doughnuts and sit on our butts consuming mindless "content" is strong and manipulated by companies that make money when we do so, but all those things are neither good for our soul nor our bodies.

Six of us left Honeymoon Bay about 8.40 am, heading south along the coast to Dark Point before crossing the mouth of Jervis Bay to the north side of Bowen Island. Bombora Rock was breaking and there was a moderate northwesterly wind blowing. The group was strung out, with some further east than others. The westerly was blowing us slightly east, so I set a course that would bring me to the northern tip of Bowen Island, a good regroup stop that was relatively sheltered. I often think sea kayaking is like backcountry skiing. Before you cross defined avalanche zones, you should group up, assess weather, snow conditions and your group before committing to moving further away from safety. The same goes for sea kayaking, before leaving the shelter of a bay, have a quick check in to make sure conditions, weather and the group are good to go.

At the northern end of Bowen Island, R elected to paddle on the relatively sheltered western side straight to Murrays Beach to wait while the rest of us paddled down the east side of Bowen Island to some big caves near the Devils Elbow. Last time I paddled past Bowen Island, we slipped in between the gap between the Island and the adjacent headland thus I had never seen the east side of Bowen Island.

It was as spectacular as I expected with big sandstone cliffs off-set by incredibly clear turquoise water. We had a look at some big caves near Devils Elbow before paddling back into the wind to the northern end of the island and around to Murrays Beach. It would have been nice to paddle all the way south to Steamers Beach but even I, who enjoys paddling into the wind, thought that was pushing commitment too far. A battle with a headwind across an otherwise sheltered bay is a different proposition to a long haul up an exposed cliff lined coastline with no prospect of landing.

On Murrays Beach, the talk was all about what to do with the rest of the day. It was only around 11 am so in my mind at least, way too early to head back on such a glorious day. I was happy enough to go along with what other people wanted to do as my goal of seeing the east side of Bowen Island had been achieved. We seemed to decide to paddle around the south side of Jervis Bay, possibly as far as Plantation Point where we would have a shorter beam on crossing back to Honeymoon Bay.

Off we went, some paddling along the shore, some straight-lining it between points. The beaches are pretty, fairly empty, and there are some sandstone outcrops but, after the splendour of the outer coast it all feels a bit tame. Somewhere near Captains Beach and the Naval College I was beginning to feel that lunch should be taken. It had been a long while since breakfast.

Very abruptly, R and N decided they were going back to Honeymoon Bay now, right now. The rest of us were surprised. It was only about noon, it was unlikely the wind would get any stronger, and, we were in a position around the Bay where we would have the longest crossing directly into the northeasterly wind. I was quite happy to do the paddle, but did want a break before what could turn out to be a three hour crossing.

The rest of us landed and sought shelter from the wind behind some sand dunes for lunch, and, more important for me, a cup of tea. We were all a bit gob-smacked by the quick, and I thought, rash, decision to head back without any rest, food or water. Although, R and N had assured us they had food handy in their boats, I could not see how they could stop to eat without getting blown backwards, and, it was only midday.

In hindsight, I don't think we should have let them go alone. But, it was a tricky situation. None of us had eaten since breakfast many hours ago, and we all needed a leg stretch, food and water before the paddle back. R, however, could not be convinced to take even the shortest break and, if we had all paddled off impetuously perhaps more of us would have got into difficulty.

But, I am getting ahead of the story. After our lunch, we plotted a route back that would have us paddling pretty much due northeast into the wind, aiming to arrive on the far shore perhaps a kilometre from Honeymoon Bay. If we paddled directly into the wind we would not have to worry about working out how far we were being blown off course and, aiming off to get a beam wind was not really an option.

And, it was just a steady pull into the wind. A and N were far faster than Doug and I, but I just focused on keeping a good stroke and plugging on. In this kind of moderate headwind, I find the paddle is more a mental than a physical game as you can start to feel that you are making no progress at all. However, as with most things in life, consistency is key, and slowly we were half way, then two thirds, and finally the last few hundred metres into shore. The last bit was easy because, even though we were still into the wind, there was no wind chop just flat water and something to look at and measure progress.

When we got back, we expected to find the other two enjoying afternoon tea and were dismayed to find that they had not yet got back to camp. Apparently, they had made it to Silica Cove, about three kilometres south of Honeymoon Bay and had landed there. They planned to leave their boats overnight and walk back. A whole crew of people, including a couple of strong paddlers, offered to walk down and retrieve their boats, as I would have done, but R and N refused and arrived back at camp looking a wee bit shattered about an hour later.

Not a bad outcome, but also not a great outcome. I think it always wise to have a little bit of mojo left in the tank so that you are not completely flogged at the denouement of your adventure. Had the distance been a bit further or the wind and chop a bit bigger and stronger, the situation might have been a bit more perilous.

After the event, when I had time to think about it, I realised that I had been one of the "people with agendas." When I used to lead mountaineering trips back in Canada, I was always leery of the people with agendas who signed up to join one of my trips. A friend of mine, who used to guide professionally, had originally warned me about the "people with agendas." In mountaineering circles, these folks typically signed up for a trip not just to climb the mountain, but also to prove they were faster, fitter, stronger, than other people on the trip. People with agendas were often a bit of a handful as their physical ability far outstripped their technical skills and mountain savvy and, if they got to the front of the group, they would lead the party into dangerous terrain.

My agenda was different. I am not the fittest, fastest or strongest in my paddling circle and pretending otherwise would be ludicrous. I am, however, determined to be fit enough for my sports that I have a reasonable reserve left at the end of every trip and I believe in doing uncomfortable things, like paddling into the wind. So, my agenda was quite simply to paddle into the wind in a relatively safe environment because paddling into the wind is something we should all be doing regularly.

There Is No Fine Line

Back in the days when we were backcountry skiing ("skimo" in modern parlance) 80 days per season, Doug and I had a saying "what would Karl do?" in reference to one of Canada's pre-eminent avalanche professionals. The thing about Karl was, as an older dude, he had survived a decades long career mountain guiding and forecasting and knew that a lifetime spent hard charging was likely to be a very short lifetime indeed.

Houston, we have a problem

I don't follow the Canadian avalanche scene any more, or, not at least in any serious degree. News of a fatality avalanche on Mount Hector in the Canadian Rockies in early January 2020 however, did reach me via the long, fibrillated and ubiquitous tendrils of social media which have made the concept of six degrees of separation more of a reality than ever before.

From CAA website showing burial location of LK

To my knowledge, there is no concise, objective or comprehensive review of this avalanche published, and it is questionable whether such a review would make much difference in any event¹. As I have written previously, I think most avalanche accidents are predominantly caused by a complex interplay of personalities, egos, and ambitions and not by misdiagnosing any particular weak layer or snowpack feature.

Unknown climber hanging it out over a huge cornice

There are incidents where people are spectacularly unaware of the hazard into which they have blithely skied, climbed, or even kayaked. A case in point is a recent kayak fatality in the bay where I live where a fisherman went out on a sit on top kayak in a gale and drowned literally five minutes from the marine rescue base having posted a video to his Facebook feed in the half hour leading to his death. I have paddled in gale warnings, and it can be done safely but this dude was clearly unaware of both the hazard and the risk of paddling out onto the ocean that day.

Kilo, the avi dog, working debris in the Nelson Range

At the other extreme, are the professional athletes who have a high degree of skill, training and knowledge and, most would agree, get caught simply because they are pushing the boundaries and spend an extraordinary amount of time in uncontrolled environments.

Old CAA photo showing location of "test pit" dug by recreational skier 

which caused the entire slope to release. Note the avi dog working in the foreground

But, by far, most accidents befall the middle range, the average person with the average skill, education and training, the weekend warrior and/or semi-professional (recognising that professional these days merely implies a healthy social media following and not a solid skill or expertise base). As Will Gadd writes, "it is the marginal situations that bite people;" the times when conditions are not completely shit, but not completely great either and deciding is difficult.

Avalanche in the Selkirk Mountains that caught one of my friends

This morning CBC radio aired a clip with AC, one of the survivors of the January 2020 avalanche on Mount Hector. This is the second time I have heard AC speak about the accident (the first time was on the Billy Yang podcast, you can listen yourself). Both audio segments make for harrowing listening. AC's despair is palpable, deep, almost unbearable as the victim in the avalanche was his wife. Not only was he in the invidious position of digging her out from beneath four metres of avalanche debris, but, the avalanche was triggered when he stepped forward a metre or so to watch his friend ski the slope.

CAA Photo of Jan 10, 2020 avalanche site

There are all sorts of factors involved in this avalanche. Skiing a big arse slope in early January when there are multiple buried persistent weak layers (PWL) is ballsy and no amount of mitigation, such as wearing avalanche air bags, skiing one at a time, or digging snow pits reduces the ballsy nature of skiing such a line. In fact, the avalanche bulletin for the day begins "Problems within the snowpack are complex and will likely persist for some time. There is great skiing, but now is the time for conservative decision making."

Another friend triggers a slab, watch the video here

Armchair commentating on this accident is all too easy. The statistics on PWL are well known, as is the preponderance of avalanche accidents that occur on days of "considerable hazard," and, it was probably the Karl Klassen himself who first coined the expression "when the question is stability, the answer is terrain."

Investigating a big crown on Whalesback in the Kootenays

I think, however, what I find most distressing about listening to AC revisit the avalanche is his repeated statements which imply that stepping forward one metre signals a hard and fast line between safety and sorrow. There is no such divider. If your line of safety is so fine that moving one ski stride forward to watch your friend ski the slope triggers what AC himself describes as "catastrophic" failure of the snowpack, there simply is no way to ski that slope safely. The fact that you plan to ski the slope one at a time and have identified "creek hazards" and a "nice exit onto the lower slopes" is all irrelevant. PWL's are unpredictable beasts who slumber long before suddenly awakening with a roar. Believing you can dance a fine line between safety and danger on such a slope in those conditions is simply folly.

1There is a brief report with images here.

The Sunday Paddles: Gale Warning

It might seem as if the Sunday paddles have fallen off, but it is not so. I did miss one Sunday when the last east coast low (ECL) moved through. The forecast was for 100 mm of rain and we got 185 mm in our rain gauge at the house. Not many people are going out in that kind of rain. The Sunday after, a friend of mine who lives a bit north organised the Sunday paddle. That was a nice break for me as I had been out in the kayak three days out of the last four. One was a quick afternoon lap with Nick to "catch the bigger conditions" after the ECL, and the other was a two day trip up the coast camping at one of our favourite hidden beaches.

But back to the Sunday paddles. The crew was small, just four of us, the gale warning issued by the Bureau of Meteorology may have had something to do with that. Inshore, I thought we might be lucky to get only 15 knot winds, and, as the winds were southwesterly (off-shore) we could hug the coast south of the Bay and get some shelter.

Doug and I left from our home beach which has been much improved by a new dump of sand courtesy of recent weather conditions and paddled three kilometres south to meet Mike and Nick. The coastline along this section is mostly rocky with short, steep cliffs up to about 30 metres high. There are few places to scramble safely up these cliffs as they are not really made of solid rock, more dirt glued together and practically vertical.

At the last headland before a couple of sand beaches I saw vegetation waving wildly half way up a very steep slope and a figure in red struggling to climb up. The figure was below a particularly desperate piece of cliff and appeared to be trying to move upward where the terrain got even worse. I watched for a while wondering what to do, call for help, wait for the body to roll down, try and get out of my kayak (difficult), pretend this was normal behaviour and there was nothing to see? Like a train wreck, it was strangely fascinating.

After watching for a while with no upward or downward progress being made by the person, I paddled after Doug. He said he would go back and check on the man while I went ahead to meet Nick and Mike. Every rock climber has been in this position before at a popular crag - unless of course YOU are the random doing weird shit. The problem with saying "Hey man, that's some weird shit you are doing which could get you and/or your belayer killed," is that inevitably the random would rather save face and bluster, potentially dying, than stop doing weird shit. A strange human behavioural quirk that must surely reduce the gene pool.

By the time Mike and Nick were ready to go, Doug had returned. Apparently, after trying to struggle upwards for over half an hour but not moving at all, the person, encouraged by Doug had come down. Showing remarkable restraint Doug did not say "Hey random, that's some weird shit you are doing," merely communicating that there was no passage above.

And so, we went paddling. Close into shore we were relatively sheltered from the wind although conditions started to pick up after about 10 km. We stopped at a very small, but sheltered beach on a prominent headland and managed a surprisingly orderly split into two groups.

Doug and Mike had an extended lunch, while Nick and I tacked on an extra 5 or 6 kilometres by paddling south and circumnavigating diminutive Jimmies Island. When we got back, Mike and Doug were ready to leave.

It was a blustery downwind run back with the wind edging up towards 20 knots. When we were within half an hour of where we had met Mike and Nick we came upon another unusual sight. Four large lads stuffed, literally, into a tiny row-boat. Despite the cold winter wind, half of them were shirtless, and the little dinghy had perhaps a few centimetres of freeboard. Weaving around the dinghy, and almost half submerged, was another large lad sitting on a plastic sit on top kayak. They were merely 20 metres from where the wind was coming over the cliffs and hitting the water, and, should the wind catch the dinghy, they would be blown out to sea at a great rate of knots, that is, if the dinghy did not sink first.

Nick and Mike, being old men of the sea, felt justified in having a bit of chat about "gale warnings," and "off-shore winds," and the lads nodded politely, as you do to stuffy old shirts and carried on fishing. It certainly had been a strange paddle day.