Seven of us launched including a relavtive newcomer to our group and to paddling, The short paddle out the harbor was rather fun with some swells in the 4'-6' range. These were rolling swells with sufficient time between to make it more fun than threat. We all got together in the pond which was a little rough with an current pushing us back toward the harbor entrance.

Our newbie did some bracing practice but her paddle was a little short and of the wrong type to provide support so we got to practice an assisted rescue. Considering this was her first time in churning water like this and never having done a re-entry before it went very, very well. She spent some time learning braces and rescues today. Better with a slightly longer and more agressive paddle.

Several of us practiced bow rescues with the following observations:

1. Bow/Stern draws are necessary to compensate for the swell and current in rough water
2. The resucer should always be perpendicular to the rescuee or, the resecuee becomes the rescuer of the rescuer when the rescuer capsizes as the rescuee rolls up and now become the new rescuee. Does that make sense?
3. If you don't know what side the rescuer is coming from it is easy to become disoriented under water. On one of these I was able to feel the bow of the rescuer which was now over my boat and attempted to roll up the wrong way.
4. As one of our group discovered--if somebody is alert the bow rescue really works.

After a couple of hours most of us landed for a few minutes on the beach to break. The 1' surf ended in a nasty shore break leaving us all, well almost all, make a broach landing. The other two: One straight in, One capsize from wrong side bracing. Three of our party paddled to the end of the rip to watch these huge haystacking swells and breakers from the edge. On of the adventurous souls got caught and shall now supercede Captain Carnage with the nickname of GENERAL CARNAGE. We on the beach suddenly saw an upside down kayak in the surf about 150 yards up the beach, Two surfers ran out and brought it in. No where could we see the paddler! Suddenly, about halfway between the kayak and us we spotted a yellow helmet being flushed out of the rip and swimming towards shore with the other two paddlers close behind. End result: General Carnage is okay, his ride has a broken rudder.

After this bit of excitement we all launched into the great 1' surf. Wth the shore break and the bizarre current we all made it out but there were some surprising shifts along the beach.

The harbor entrance was a great series of swells. Great surfing almost all the way in! A little knee lifting, edging etc was good practice sans rudder or skegg.

Once landed with but a single kelp award we cleaned up and most of us met at Big Daddy-O's for brunch/lunch/breakfast/snack, take your pick. We debriefed the day with the idea that next rough water we will practice some towing techniques, swimmer rescue techniques and other things we did not practice today.

Overall, the water was rough at times with some calm areas. The weather was great. The water realively wam though there was some brown water moving along the surface. A real beautiful day on the water--much tried and retried, much learned and relearned, all returned without harm.

    Mike Brown

Pictures by Steve Holtzman - click on picture to see larger image
Cpt. Carnage	Normal Breakwater	Rough 1	Rough 2	Rough 3