Santa Cruz 11/15/06 -Not much

Had another cup of coffee as I watched the nice sunrise at home, then decided it was going to be a decent day and headed to the harbor, launched at 8:40, by then a fairly mild south breeze clear conditions, low swell. Went up to Lthouse Pt. and trolled up to the west end of Mitchell's cove, getting one 14" gopher.  Wind turned NW about 10:30, came up to about 12 by 11, but the sea wasn't too bumpy.  Trolling back I c &r'd a barely legal female greenling, and that was it for the fishing action.  Nice  sunny & warm late morning paddle back.
   On the way back into the harbor about 12:30p .m., I was listening on the radio to the harbor workers setting up the dredge pipe and they mentioned some surge under the bridge, but the way I connected it to what was happening at the entrance was that I thought their pipe had broken, because there was this rush of muddy water chugging out the entrance.  It was strong enough that I wondered just how strong those dredge pumps were, because I wasn't making much headway at times.  I paddled on in further into clear water and then hit muddy water again.  About that time I heard some radio chatter about an 8.0 earthquake in Japan earlier in the morning, then someone advising to be careful at the entrance because they were seeing wave action they hadn't seen before. 
   At the kayak launch, the water was dark brown and going back and forth like a river, and rising and falling about 2-3 feet - all pretty gentle, the strollers probably didn't notice it.  It reminded me of CA Delta days when a  passing freighter would reverse the flow in the river and the water would surge back and forth for 15 mins.   
    I heard no advisories from the CG tho l had my radio on scan mode.

2 fish and a tsunami, doesn't sound too bad!

J

Yeah, that was tsunami action, Tom.  My friend Captain Jimmy was trying to dock his boat.  4 tries and he couldn't get it in.  fianlly he and three friends grabbed ropes and pulled it in forward to his slip.  Surge was bad enough that his anchor caught his dock box and ripped it out.

Word is that Crescent City got a 6-foot wave today that did some dock damage, but not corroborated yet.

Allen

Yep - local news interviewed Troy Nicolini of the NWS who confirmed that a Tsunami hit Crescent City this afternoon.  About a 6 footer, and it did do some dock damage.  Remember, Crescent City got largely wiped out and 11 poor souls were washed away in March '64 after the 9.2 in Prince William Sound, Alaska caused a Tsunami there - unique physical characteristics of that area make it susceptible.  Interesting stuff. 

Thanks for the unique report.   

Keep Santa Cruz weird right?  Even fishing here seems weird!  Can a kayak be tie dyed?

Eugene

Keep Santa Cruz weird right?  Even fishing here seems weird!  Can a kayak be tie dyed?

Eugene

Some Ocean Kayaks come pretty darn close 


Z

Keep Santa Cruz weird right?  Even fishing here seems weird!  Can a kayak be tie dyed?

Eugene

I've seen some pretty cool airbrushes.

MolBasser