12/24/2010: Dude, where's my kayak?

It’s rare that I go more than a week without diving, but I’ve been getting slammed at work lately, sometimes going in around 10 or 11:00pm on a Friday night and working into the wee hours of the morning. So this Christmas eve when I finally had time to get in the water I jumped at the chance to join Stu and Harold. After a quick breakfast stop at McDonalds, we launched our kayaks at Carmel. The morning was perfect. Sunny bluebird skies, light winds, mild swell, and 20 to 30 feet of visibility with aquarium like conditions.

Game was plentiful and in no time Stu had a fat Cabazon, a bright orange copper, a kelp rockfish, and almost bagged his first monkeyface eel. I was a bit more selective. By the time we were ready to pull anchor and move to the next spot I had only taken a single fish, my personal best rubberlip! :p

Our next dive location had one of the most spectacular underwater pinnacle structures I’ve seen. Huge slabs of rock, some the size of my truck, many were stacked on top of one another and looked almost like the remnants of a midieval stone castle. Here and there, fronds of kelp rose 40 feet to the surface and there it lay flat, its shady canopy drawing huge schools of blues, blacks, and olives. Fish were so plentiful that Harold (with his GoPro HD strapped to his head) came up with the video idea of all three of us diving at the same time, and each of us shooting a fish one after the other and the camera capturing all 3 kills on the same breath hold.

We synchronized our next surface interval and dove. On the bottom all three of us lay prone on the same rock facing a school of fish and Stu let fly with his arrow. His gun must have misfired because his shaft flew and perfectly skewered the center of a tangerine orange-sized pocket of empty water, directly in the middle of 4 plump rockfish.

Our next 3 dives had similar results. :D:D

Stu and I shoot nearly identical 70cm Rob Allens and I while recovering on the surface I was thinking of something smart to say when Stu suddenly yells “Dude, where’s my kayak?” Instantly I look toward mine, in the spot where I had anchored in the kelp, but it was nowhere to be seen either. “Dude! Where’s MY kayak?”

I scan down wind and off in the distant horizon I barely make out a tiny speck of yellow bobbing up and down in the waves, getting smaller and smaller. Harold instantly jumps on his kayak and paddles furiously toward the two disappearing boats. “HEY” I yell after him. “Should we start swimming toward the kayaks?”

"Only if I don’t come back!" Harold yells before zooming off.

I have to admit. One of my biggest fears is losing my kayak and getting stranded on the open ocean, miles from shore. Luckily I wasn’t alone and had Stu to keep me company. 20 minutes later Stu and I are still bobbing up and down in the water wondering if Harold and saved our kayaks or if we should start swimming in the direction where we had last seen them.

We both still had our guns with us and I start diving and shooting fish as an activity to keep my mind occupied. Some more time passes and Stu is barely able to catch sight of one of the kayaks anchored up to a kelp bed off in the distance, but the other two, including Harold was nowhere to be seen. We felt better better knowing at least one of our kayaks were saved and Harold was probably now paddling after the other one. We started getting cold in the 50 degree water and Stu asks if we should start swimming toward the single anchored kayak. I tell him “I don’t know man, things always look closer than they are.” He agrees and we continue waiting, getting colder and colder by the minute.

Just as things were getting unbearable and we were about to huddle for warmth we see Harold kayaking our way. Stu and I were near popsicles, but instantly relieved. Harold paddles up and says “Dude, what are you guys doing?”

“Um..We were waiting for you to come back” we say, with teeth chattering

“What? I caught up to your kayaks, tied them off to kelp and then started diving again. I thought you guys were going to swim over.”

“Uh. Really?”

“Yah, they’re not that far.”

Harold jumps off the kayak and lets Stu paddle while the two of us swim. I don’t know if our eyes were playing tricks on us, but within a few minutes we were back to our kayaks, feeling relieved and a little foolish. Here we were freezing in the water, when our kayaks were nearby.

Between the fish Harold shot and what we took that morning we had enough to call it a day. Usually when I dive I don’t like to go in until the sun sets, but this was one of the few times I couldn't wait to feel solid ground beneath my feet again.

Tired and chilled, but satisfied to be able to get in the water again




Some fish carnage




Merry Christmas everyone!


.

that sounded like the begining of a scary movie! Not to bad of a day after all. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas Nelson!!

Sounds like a very cool place to dive and hunt!!   

Very glad all ended OK for you guys....I am pretty paranoid about the yaks floating away as well, and often find myself looking over and making sure they are still anchored in between dives.

Stay safe, and hope you had a great Christmas and have a very happy New Year!!
 
Sincerely,

Jim

Made for a great writeup - glad you guys had fun.   

Intense story!  Glad you are OK with fillets!

Sweet report, where is the go pro vid? 

Sounds like a great prank to pull on some A-hulls I know while they go out without me again  Glad it turned out with a happy ending. I'm looking forward to see the vid. that was shot too

 That story is funny an scary all at the same time

Nelson,
I’m so Glad we all got to celebrate Christmas……  For a moment I was having my doubts. 
That was the scariest, emptiest feeling I’ve had on big blue.  Glad you were there to keep me company, as paranoid thoughts were starting to play in my head.

What started out as an incredible trip, turned really bad. Had the wind been blowing in the opposite direction, the kayaks would be somewhere towards Sur.

Harold,
Thanks for saving the day!  

I’m looking forward to seeing the vid, actually just some of it 
Stuart

Brothers, thanks for sharing this report. I'm very glad that everything turned out alright, as it must have been a very scary feeling stranded w/o one's yak!! I'm very glad to hear that Harold was there with y'all, Aquaman to the rescue!!


As for that rubberlip, that is BIG!! Wtg everyone and happy holidays to y'all!!

Fuzz saves the day!  Glad you guys had a close call and made it out ok. Always leads to feelings of big gratitutde. Great story

yep Fox summed it up best...scary and funny and intense at the same time..
mind playing tricks while on the water can be dangerous..glad you guys kept your cool and made it out ok.
merry xmas.
dave

 . Sorry, since it wasn't me stranded out there and you guys are ok, .I can only laugh.   

Damn you guys, thats really something. Harold you are the man for saving the day. How could not 1 but 2 kayaks lose thier anchor? Were they clipped or anchored? I have never had that happen but due to my own stupidity once I short anchored at OC once only to come back after a long time in the water to find my anchor was stuck in the rocks, the tide had come up and my Malotte was doing a standup at times by the nose when the swell came up. Good thing for a knife on hand.. Beautiful story though and glad all are Ok. Great first shot looking don at the kayak. That could be an ad shot.

Damn you guys, thats really something. Harold you are the man for saving the day. How could not 1 but 2 kayaks lose thier anchor? Were they clipped or anchored? I have never had that happen but due to my own stupidity once I short anchored at OC once only to come back after a long time in the water to find my anchor was stuck in the rocks, the tide had come up and my Malotte was doing a standup at times by the nose when the swell came up. Good thing for a knife on hand.. Beautiful story though and glad all are Ok. Great first shot looking don at the kayak. That could be an ad shot.

As much as I enjoy harassing Nelson about his Kwokisms... this was just a freak occurence that could've happened to anyone. With the seasonal winter swells & decreased sunlight, much of the kelp has been ripped out. The remaining strands were also weakened in the process. It just happened that both kelp stalks Nelson/Stuart tied off to... ripped free of their holdfasts. As I got to the kayaks, it looked like they had anchored their kayaks to a big floating kelp paddy. Both kelp clips were still firmly attached to the kelp they had anchored to minutes before. My best guess - one of the yaks broke free & tangled/colided with the other, tearing that one free too.  I noticed that neither Nelson/Stuart had shock cord on either of their kelpclip lines. While not a solution itself, that bungee section helps mitigate the shocking impact of the yak in swell/chop.



As for the images... Nelson is one of the few divers I know that is (much) more anal about taking phots than myself.   

While Stu & I hurried to pack up & get out of there, Nelson was busy setting up his camera timer & taking pics of himself.