We are weaving our kayaks between rocks and swell along the coast south of Sunshine Cove when I look down and nothing but rocks is under the front of my kayak which is suspended in air as the water draws back, back, back, as a bigger wave gets setup to roll through. I pause, paddle in the air, and the micro-seconds I spend thinking “paddle forward or back? Forward is not good, must paddle back” are too long and without me even knowing how or barely why, the kayak is upside down.
I’ve capsized before. Like rock climbing, if you haven’t capsized kayaking, you aren’t really trying, but capsizing in surf surrounded by sand is one thing, next to lots of sharp, oyster and barnacle covered rocks quite another. Upside down, and with the boat shifting in small swells, I was disorientated. I felt my sunglasses float off my head and disappear. Next, my paddle, only loosely held in my hands slipped, I tried to orientate myself to roll up, thinking, “if I can just get the paddle into position, the next wave will roll me up” but before that happened, I panicked, my thinking brain shut down completely and the cowardly lizard brain we try to keep tucked away so as to meet our audacious goals, began screaming “you’re going to drown, you’re going to drown.” I actually had trouble finding the pull on my spray deck, but, after what seemed an age but was likely a minute, I burst to the surface.
Doug and Fish Killer were both nearby looking somewhat stunned, although Doug had seen the whole thing unfold. “Get away from the rocks,” they yelled. I pushed the boat away from me, towards the open sea and began swimming. My life jacket floated up and made swimming difficult. This has been a discussion topic among local sea kayakers lately after one of our crew had a capsize incident and the victim was unable to get back into his boat because his life jacket was riding up. Life jackets have to be uncomfortably tight to NOT ride up when you are immersed, and who keeps their life jacket fastened uncomfortably tight? Only the terminally nervous amongst us, and hardly anyone on a calm, sunny day.
I kept swimming. Push the boat out, then swim, push the boat out, then swim. It was slow going, but I wanted to be a good distance off the rocks before getting back into the boat. Meanwhile, Doug and Fish Killer were discussing how neither of them had a tow rope handy. I don’t know that Fish Killer owns a tow rope as his usual strategy is to paddle a long way from everyone else thus ensuring he is never called upon to tow anyone.
My short tow is on my boat, ready to tow and equipped with a quick release shackle. I’ve used it more than once and now I never paddle without it. Just as I was unclipping my short tow to give to my two ill-equipped companions, Doug found his short tow in the pocket of his life jacket and finally, the boat moved at speed away from the rocks with me hanging onto the stern and kicking.
My first thought was to re-enter and roll, but, although that is a neat party trick, the boat ends up full of water, so Doug and I did the usual T rescue and heel hook entry. It was simple, as it was, stupidly calm water, and I felt stupidly foolish for having capsized and then failed to roll. I have a perfectly good, ambidextrous roll, at least when I know I am going to roll. When taken by surprise that perfectly good roll gets shouted down by the panic stricken lizard brain. The same lizard brain that makes your legs shake when far above the last piece of gear on a rock climb.
It was quite chilly being wet through so we paddled along to the nearest beach where I went ashore to get the last of the water out of my boat (it was slopping around my legs and butt) and change into a dry top. This required stripping naked to the waist and on this day of all days, everyone on the beach, the same people who normally ignore our kayak group, all wanted to come up and ask about the kayak, or my clothing – wet and inadequate – or where were we going, and isn’t it a cracker of a day on the water?
I grunted some churlish replies and hastily stripped off and changed into a dry top which quickly soaked through as the water leached up from my wet paddling tights. Second note to self of the day, take a full set of dry clothes in winter; the first being “don’t capsize in winter.”. Bizarrely enough, I had a head lamp, but my dry top was only chance as I had been going to wear two layers to paddle in but had peeled down to one before we left.
We continued on. I gave the rock gardening a much wider berth. At Rosedale, we landed on the beach for a break in the weak winter sun. Doug and I had tea and home-made cheese scones. Fish Killer had bananas. Bananas are a bad sign in a paddler. Based on several years of data, Doug has recently calculated the “banana equation” wherein the number of years of paddling left in a sea kayaker is equal to five minus the number of bananas brought on a single day paddle. Fish Killer had two bananas.
Old people and bananas. Don’t say you have not noticed it. There is a certain age, which can vary by a decade, wherein old people become old people because they begin to eat more and more and more bananas. A generous explanation could be that their bodies crave potassium, but why don’t old people eat kale or silver beet? No, the explanation for the increasing quotient of bananas in the diet is the desire to eat something sweet which requires minimal mastication. Just before Doug’s parents went into the aged care home in which they now reside, they were eating about 14 bananas each per day, and nothing else. The Del Monte banana truck drove straight from Mexico to their apartment block in North Vancouver. Metro Vancouver ended up with a banana shortage.
From Rosedale, we paddled back to Sunshine Bay by way of Black Rock and the Tollgate Islands, then, it was home for dry clothes and hot coffee.
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