HMB rescue - Written by the yakker that performed one of the rescues(not me)

A buddy of mine sent me this and asked that I post it for everyone to see.

It is a sobering reminder that things can change in an instant. Be safe everyone and have a great weekend.

( this appears to be from another discussion board but I am not sure which one)

Yes, I happened to witness the very tragic events Sunday at Pillar
 Point. There has been quite a few reports about this in the media, but
 almost all have some basic facts wrong, so here is a description of
 what happened as I saw it.
 Intro
 ------
 I was teaching a Beginning Sea Kayaking class for CCK in Half Moon Bay
 harbor. The students and I were having lunch on the beach beneath
 Pillar Point, at the base of the jetty that forms the harbor (a.k.a.
 "Maverick's beach"). We saw a motor boat navigate scarily close to the
 breaking waves on the open ocean outside Sail rock / Mushroom rock.
 This is a few hundred yards south of, and a bit inside of, the
 infamous Maverick's surf break, and a couple hundred yards northwest
 (and outside) of the Mushroom rock surf break where some of us like to
 surf kayaks. This day, big sets were periodically pounding this area
 with really large breaking waves. There were also significant windows
 when no waves were breaking here.
 The Wave
 -----------
 I told the students "That boat is in a very dangerous position". Only
 moments later, a big set came in and overwhelmed the boat which pitch
 poled end-over-end backwards and remained  capsized floating upside
 down. The wreck continued to be pounded by large waves and soon it was
 pushed over the rocks between Mushroom and Sail rock. It continued to
 drift eastwards in the 'lagoon' inside the reef. On a high tide when
 waves break over the reef, there forms a relatively strong current
 flowing east and then bending south. This day, due to the large swell
 and high tide, a very pronounced current was present.
 I immediately used my VHF to call in the emergency to the Pillar Point
 harbor master, where I know they have highly competent search and
 rescue crews with jet skis. They carefully recorded the details and
 finally replied that help was on the way.
 I asked one of the students to help me carry my kayak from the beach
 inside the harbor where we had left our kayaks over lunch, and across
 the spit to the ocean side. As we came down to the beach another
 student told me that she thought she saw the head of a swimmer among
 the confused waves. I also briefly saw what I hoped to be the head of
 a swimmer.
 The Rescue
 ------------
 I had the students promise they would stay where they were and then I
 set out to look for someone to rescue. As I paddled out, a strong
 smell of diesel fumes made it clear that this was different from a
 normal play paddle. I soon saw a head in the water and found the
 swimmer treading water east of Sail rock. Note that this unfortunate
 person had just experienced the horrible wave that capsized the boat,
 then being pounded by several sets of waves and pushed over the rocks
 of the reef, only to end up among the confused, and at times breaking,
 waves inside of the Mushroom surf break, and was now rapidly drifting
 out towards deeped waters south of the harbor.
 While the area immediately outside us had large plunging waves of
 considerable height, where I actually paddled there were only ~5ft
 waves and only a few of them were breaking.  I talked to the swimmer
 and made sure he was not too panicked, but he seemed mellow and a bit
 incoherent. I paddled the last few feet up to him so he could grab
 onto my bow. I got a bit scared when he started to climb up on my
 foredeck and I had to tell him in no uncertain terms to hang on but to
 not climb onto the boat since that threatened to capsize me.
 We turned around and paddled across the current, back to the beach. We
 landed on the beach at the base of the spit and immediately other
 people helped the swimmer up the beach. I was totally exhausted and
 needed to rest before I could even think of heading out again. As I
 was recovering, I and the students constantly kept all eyes looking
 for more swimmers, but we did not see any signs of more people in the
 water. Soon jet skis from the rescue patrol showed up and started
 searching the lagoon and the area south of the jetty. Police,
 paramedics and ambulance personel arrived and started treating the
 person I hauled ashore for hypothermia and shock. By the time I had
 recovered enough to go out again, the jet skis had found one more
 person alive, and had recovered one body from the water. Since the
 real rescuers seemed to have the situation under control, I remained
 on shore. A few minutes later they hauled the body of the last victim
 from the boat ashore for resuscitation attempts by the paramedics.
 Thoughts
 ----------
 I saw that one of my students called what I did a 'heroic act' in one
 of the media interviews. I understand that it can seem like that to a
 beginning paddler, but the conditions where I actually paddled were
 not very challenging, even if they were quite big a bit further out. I
 know this area extremely well and have paddled here several times in
 much more challenging conditions, so physically, this was not a
 difficult task. The only scary part was when the swimmer tried to
 climb up on the boat. Luckily he behaved well when I told him to. This
 was a calculated risk I took, but I knew help was on the way and I was
 dressed in a dry suit with thick fleece underneath and I had a good
 PFD.
 The mental side was much tougher. Witnessing such a brutal capsize
 definitely starts very primal processes inside you. The hardest part
 mentally was definitely seeing the recovered bodies being carried out
 of the water, but the whole set of events created a stress level I've
 never experienced before. I was fortunate to have the skills and the
 equipment to allow me to take some action and try to be of some help.
 I can only imagine how hard it must have been to watch it all from the
 beach without any chance to help, like my students had to do.
 I was extremely impressed by the professionalism all the responders
 exhibited. The jet ski rescue patrol crew was on the scene in no time
 at all and found the other person and the two bodies really quickly. A
 surprise was how much force the paramedics used for the chest
 compressions during CPR. This was very far from what you see on TV. It
 was extremely clear that this was reality, not a show and not
 practise. I am really sorry that two people had to die like this. One
 moment they were out enjoying a nice sunny day, the next moment the
 ocean was showing its brutal force in the most horrible way.
 Aftermath
 -----------
 I was warned that I would likely suffer from Critical Incident Stress
 problems. I must admit that I've not really taken this seriously
 before, but believe me - it is very real. I could hardly sleep at all
 the first two nights, and my mind was fixated on replaying and
 rethinking all the events from all sorts of angles. Seeing the list of
 symptoms and learning that this was perfectly normal after something
 like this was a great help. And I was only involved on the sidelines.
 I can only begin to try to understand what this must be like for the
 unfortunate persons who were at the center of the action. I've also
 been adviced to talk about this and express my feelings about it.
 That's what I'm doing now. Thanks for helping with my therapy.
 Analysis
 ---------
 I happened to carry my Garmin Forerunner GPS on my PFD that day. By
 looking at the time and my movements it recorded, I have been able to
 put a timeline together for the events. Per my analysis it took a
 little over 17 minutes from the capsize until the swimmer and I landed
 on the beach.

                              Time (Min:Sec)
 Event                        Min    Sec
 Capsize                        0     00
 Run to kayak and grab pfd
                            1 00
 Start VHF call                 1     25
 VHF call ends                  4     03
 Turn back to carry the kayak   4     18
 Kayak in the water             7     47
 Picking up swimmer            10     34
 Back on shore                 17     09

 A map with the GPS track can be found in this article:
 [1]http://www.halfmoonbayreview.com/articles/2008/10/08/news/doc48ed19
 f616d14141217057.txt
 At the time of this event, the Half Moon Bay buoy, 27 miles offshore
 recorded 11 ft swell every 11 seconds. The breaking waves that caught
 the boat outside the reef were much larger than this.
 

Thank you, Yakattack, for posting this.  What a harrowing experience.  The writing of our fellow kayaker is very well thought out and conscientious.  We all hope to avoid such tragic situations, but they do occur, and we, as outdoors enthusiasts who have some level of conditioning and knowledge of the water and other aspects of our surroundings, as well as having a fair amount of safety equipment aboard, all stand the chance of being looked to for help in situations like this one.  Remaining ready, steady and sure is a big deal, but we should also all make very serious considerations about what we are capable of accomplishing should we attempt a rescue or other assistance OTW. 

Wow, that's an intense story. Thanks for the post.
Z

Wow, that's an intense story. Thanks for the post.
Z

The original post came from the BASK (Bay Area Sea Kayakers) listserve and was written by Anders Landin, who is a BASK member, an outstanding paddler, and an instructor for CCK (California Canoe & Kayak).

Janice aka "Big J"

 Thanks for posting,

 Intense story and well told. Great solid effort put out by this individual and in my Book,

 I would consider him a " Hero ",  Strong Work....

 Excellent job in explaining his concerns and his actions of caution approaching the Victim,

 Well Done.........

The original post came from the BASK (Bay Area Sea Kayakers) listserve and was written by Anders Landin, who is a BASK member, an outstanding paddler, and an instructor for CCK (California Canoe & Kayak).Janice aka "Big J"

   Big J IS still around!!!!
I would be interested to know exactly what kind of motorboat they were on and if any of them were wearing PFDs or if any were found floating in the water.
Seems to me with those kind of waves and being that close to them they should have been prepared for the worse.
Congrats to the kayaker who took control of a bad situation and made it better for a lucky few.

Hero, not alot of people woulda taken the same action.  Who knows how long that guy coulda stayed afloat or fought off the hypothermia.



From what I've read it was a 21' seaswirl striper.

  How fortunate for that boat guy that that kayak instructor happened to be there and witness the event.  It surely would have been a different story had he not been there.

  This is why we look at the forecasts. These poor people didn't look at the forecast. If we don't have a radio, look at the newspaper. That Harbormaster posts the bouy reports every morning on a chalk board. Those waves were on their way for days. Almost everybody knew a swell was coming in saturday afternoon and would only last 'till sunday night. If they only inquired! I thought it might be a language barrier, but Anders told me the guy he saved spoke english. Look before you go!!

Wow. Back when I worked at CCK, I used to have the BSK class sit right there & have lunch, so we could watch Mav's, just like the article states. I can picture the event too easily.

That's heavy stuff.

It wasn't about the forecast, they drove the boat into a place with breaking waves and were summarily bashed.  That can happen even on the best of days.

Really sucks that someone died, hope it wasn't a kid.

  Yes, I suppose you're right. The next time I go fishing in 40' over a reef, and the bouy reports say 12', 20 seconds, I'll go out anyway and hope no sets come in. 

this could have and should have been avoided, but IT WAS NOT. I wish the family(ies) well.
A lot of boaters and ocean go'ers don't know how to interpit or even where to get this info from......a "must" if you're ANYWHERE near breaking surf and rocky shores....too bad for all involved.