Jalama Beach to Point Conception Maelstrom & Beyond!

I had been kicking around the Jalama Beach area since the early 1990's.  I always loved it from the first time I saw it.  Anyone who has ever been there knows what I mean.

Pt. Conception (aka the cape horn of the pacific) is a mere 4 miles to the south & Pt. Arguello is about the same distance to the north.  The area is known for being an arse-kicker.  Anyone who has ever spent any time in the water @ Jalama is sure to spit out an I-swear-to-god-I-almost-drowned-at-Jalama story from time to time.  I personally have heard over 30 such stories & experienced a few myself.



Conception is the spot where the North/Central's south-moving current meets Southern California's warmer water current. The coast makes a sharp turn to the East & is the focul point of gale-force winds.  Master Mariner Juan Cabrillo was turned back several times @ Pt. Conception due to strong prevailing Northwest winds.  It's believed that in his final passage he never made it successfully around the Cape Horn of the Pacific & was forced to retreat to the Channel Islands where he is believed to have died.

Many a ships have been wrecked in the area, many a large fish have been spotted & landed in the area, and many a strange phenomenon have been rumored to appear in the area.  All this, combined with one little irresistible fact (Rockfish opener south of Conception is March 1), meant that we had to be @ Jalama sometime after March 1.



It was Greg's birthday trip & I knew the times would be fun, we would fish & yes the Vodka would flow freely & flow often.  I hadn't seen Greg in some time.  In fact, the last time we fished together was nothing short of spectacular.  I had landed my personal best, an 8 foot Thresher, amidst a vodka-fueled binge, (courtesy of Greg), complete with tirades in Russian & screams about someone named Ivan?  We were with another odd guy by the name of Alex.  He was a Hollister Ranch local & combined with Greg, they made the catalyst that turned a good day fishing into a bizarre trip a la Hunter S. Thompson.

I knew I should keep the 2 apart if we were to fish & not have any problems, but with Greg's taste for adventure & Alex's connections the 2 would have to be @ the top of anyone's list for a trip to Conception.

The night before I picked up a bottle of Trader Joe's 2nd cheapest bottle of Vodka, an Austrian potato-based Vodka by the name of Monopolowa.  We camped @ Jalama & partied late into the night.  We gathered as much intel as we could.  I talked to locals about currents, reefs, yes sharks & property rights in the vicinity of the point.  A reliable source said it was a trespassing fine of $900+ bones for stepping foot above the mean high tide line anywhere on private property in the area.  4 surfers were given such a fine just the week before for camping around Cojo south of Conception.



We launched @ 7:30 a.m. the next morning.  The surf was small, by Jalama standards, the tide was high & the wind was down.  I knew this was as good as a Jalama launch would get, but we recognized that it would be very rough getting out.

I figured I would walk my boat out as far as a could, holding the nose to keep it straight, wait for a break & paddle like hell!  I wanted to talk strategy with Greg but his blood-shot eyes indicated that without a Bloody Mary in my hand I had little chance of gaining his attention.

The surf was called 4 feet @ 10 seconds & that seemed about right.  I rolled my new boat up the beach a hundred yards to a small protrusion that had a little lull in the surf just below it.  I put EVERYTHING below deck.  Wheels, rods, bait, hats, radio, water, extra paddle, gaff, EVERYTHING and I planned on doing at least 1 360 degree roll. I waded into the surf getting hit in the knees, waist, then chest.  I held my ground for around 4 minutes, saw a lull, climbed aboard & paddled like hell.  As I shot out I took small wave after small wave across the boat.  The water pooled in my cockpit & with the 10 second period between the swell, the water drained slower than it came in.  After 30 second I was sitting in a pool of water inside my boat.  It felt as though there was an extra hundred pounds on board but the yak moved forward with pretty good speed.  I popped over one final breaker & passed to open water.  STOKED!



I looked to my left & there was Greg, casually pulling his gear out of his hatch, hair perfectly dry, completely without a scratch.  The goal was pretty simple, we would hug the coast to the south for 4 miles, pass the point, be in legal rockfishing grounds & head out to deep water. 

The first mile was a blast.  We were kayaking somewhere we had never been before in an area few get to see.  The second mile was a snap as well.  After the third we began to wonder why it was so easy.  Did we eat our Wheaties, extra carbs?  Could it be the potato-based Austrian Vodka imbued us with some kind of super-human paddle power known only to some sort of weird Austro-Russian hybrid folk?  Greg just chuckled every time I brought it up.  We were in new boats & he had fixed his Trident with a little ledge just inside the cockpit hatch.  It was just the size for a fifth of vodka.  I vowed I wouldn't touch a drop until we made it back to within 1 mile of the campground.  At least we could haul out & walk the rest of the way if we had to.

Mile four & we're within sight of the lighthouse.  I'm feeling pretty good & a little silly having had so much concern about the length of out trip into uncharted waters.  We decide to take a break before we round the point & head offshore.  Greg whips out his Monopolowa, head goes back, and a  couple swigs go down.  He offers the bottle to me & I remind him of my vow about not till we make it back.

As we admire the view we're transfixed by the beautiful rolling hills, marine terraces & pristine beaches.  They seem to be moving by at a pretty good clip.  The wind is calm, the sun is out & the swell is down.  Greg notices that not only are we moving at a pretty good clip, we're cooking.  I line up 2 objects on land & see that we're drifting fast down the coast.  It's at this point that I wonder if my initial apprehension may be justified.  I bust out my GPS & zero out our position.  After a few seconds it gives us a moving speed of 8 mph.  A few more & it's down to 5 then back up to 8.  The lighthouse on the point is getting closer & closer no matter what we do.  I am a little concerned but figure we'll drift out of it as easily as we drifted into it.

Finally after a little over an hour of paddling, we're at the point!  It's a spectacular spot.  We begin to head west-southwest off the point to make sure we're in legal water.  As we paddle we begin to see the coast falling away & notice the calmer seas to the south.  We see some white-water at what appears to be the intersection of the two currents as we paddle on our course.  Another few minutes & we appear to be closer to the intersection of the currents regardless of our trajectory.

"This is for bullocks!" Greg yells, "I'm dropping my line".  I do the same as I keep an uneasy eye on the water water off our port side.  I post a way-point on my GPS & notice that we're still headed for this unusual intersection.  I see Greg staring in the direction of the white-water as be begins to muddle something under his breath.  &*^^sssttrrmmmmm.  I write it off as another one of his alcohol fueled ramblings.  Again he garbles the same thing.  Maiillllssstruummee.  Sounds like he's talking about the mail or something.  Finally he screams at the top of his lungs, "MAELSTROM, MAELSTROM!!!!".

"What the &*^#?  Isn't that some kind of tidal vortex?" I ask him.  He's looking nutty but I have to admit, after the launch, the last thing either of us want to see is more white-water.

I nervously look @ the vortex as we drift by 100 yards to the East.  It's confused seas.  Current running North to South on the East & South to North on the West.  "We should stay the heck away from there if you ask me!" I tell Greg.  "Yes but...if all things are drawn there, then what kind of fish are there?" he responds.  He points his boat to the West.  "You're Nucking Futs you crazy Russian-Bas&*(@!"  I yell back.

I glance down again & see that we're now traveling due West.  The trail on my GPS shows a semicircle from where we passed Conception.  No problem, well kick out of the current @ the furthest point South.  "MAELSTROM, MAELSTROM!!!!".  Greg screams again.  He begins insisting that WE'RE in it already.  I view my GPS again & see a spiral 3/4 complete.  We're now 50 yards from the white-water.  "Paddle!" I yell as I turn my boat out & stroke like hell.  I hear Greg screaming periodically as I become disoriented in the constantly changing current.  I had my gps screen to orient North so it sometimes becomes confusing as to which direction I'm heading.  I knew I should change it but never got around to it.



I am making headway out of the current.  I periodically glance back to see Greg but I can't see him anywhere.  There is white-water, there are rocks, there are swells that seem to come from nowhere, so I head south towards Government Point.  I know you should never leave a buddy but I'm not going to do any good if I get sucked into some kind of weirdo-vortex-current-maelstrom-vodka-fueled-whirlpool!  I appear to be out of it but can not see Greg anywhere.

At that point I see a skiff heading up the coast.  "Perfect, thank god!"  I figure I'll flag him down & he can find Greg.  I wave my arms & yell as loud as I can.  The skiff sees me & turns in my direction.

Enter Stan The Old Man of The Sea

An old man in a skiff pulls up along side me & shouts a hearty hello.  He's straight out of Nantucket.  He's in a 14 foot ship-lap wooden skiff with a small outboard motor.  He's happy to see me & I'm relieved to see him.  I start telling him what's going on & that we have to immediately find Greg.  "Maelstrom, sure, oh sure, over there.." he says.  He begins telling me odd stories;  he lives by himself on the beach, he has property rights in the ranch, he fishes, he loves vodka, particularly Monopapawhatever...  I'm yelling at him by this time & finally he gets the point.  I tell him my friend has a fifth of Monopapawhatever over there & he can have it if he helps him.  He darts off towards the white-water & is disappearing between swells.

The old man is gone, I can't see the white-water & I'm certainly not getting anywhere near it.  "WHAT THE PUCK!".  I am faced with fighting the current 4 miles back or continuing south to the Ranch & Alex.  There's no way I'm going back upstream so I begin to head south along the coast.  No Greg on the radio, no Old Man no anything.

It's another 6 miles to the St. Augustine's haul out where my friend is.  I begin paddling all the while wondering what became of Greg, the Old Man & the Maelstrom.  I'm not making good time.  I guess that it's the southerly current that's kicking my arse.  I struggle with every half-mile.  I pass Government Pt., Perkos, & shoot for the Point @ Cojo.  Eventually I pass the point & I see a figure on the beach, beyond it there's a shack.  I figure fine or no fine, my friend was missing & this is an emergency.  I head for the beach.



I see the old mans encampment, I'm pissed so i head for it, he runs to me on the beach, he's spewing the same bs.   He's babbling about 'Reason' he tells me "Reason, refers to mental faculties that consciously create explanations about the way humans think about things and events - judging, predicting, concluding, generalizing, and comparing for example."  "Huh" I respond.  "The precise way in which reason differs from emotion, faith, and tradition is controversial. Reasoning may be conscious or unconscious, it may be done mentally or with the steps written out. 'Reason' is closely related to the concepts of language and logic..." he rambles on.  "Dude, WHERE THE HELL IS MY FRIEND!"  I demand.  "Ahhh, your friend, yes I'm getting to that but first you must look @ things in the correct manner..."



"You suppose me a very old man," he says, "but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a brown to grey, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves." He begins to tell me about his fishing exploits in the Pt. Conception Maelstrom.  He says that his brother & him have caught many a record fish, fish that no one would believe could be caught in these parts.  The old man goes into detail about other strange phenomenon in the area.  He states that the Maelstrom is, "some sort of vortex prone to hurricane force winds coming from nowhere on any seemingly calm day".  He tells how he first found the area, "fishing with my brother on day during the early spring.  I found the bite to getter better & better the closer we went to Conception.  It was just south of the point when we first saw the tidal vortex, birds were diving everywhere, bait-fish jumping, warm water fish, cold water fish, it was incredible.



At one point my brother fell overboard as our boat was rocked in the current.  I was about to loose my mind when a eerie feeling of calm fell over me.  I couldn't hear anything.  The wind stopped blowing & the temperature rose around 15 degrees.  It was then that I realized that this is more than just a whirlpool or some freakish tidal events-made worse by the cold water from the north colliding with the warm from the south..." he stopped as he stared toward the point.  "So what happened to your brother?" I asked.  "Oh, he was fine, he washed up down around Drakes Beach none the worse for wear.  He clung to a barrel."  "So your telling me the current will take you out & dump you down @ Drakes?" I said.  "Works almost every time, almost." he responded.  Of course I had an image of Greg, kicking it on the beach, Monopolowa in one hand in front of a bonfire watching the sun going down.

"That's the consciousness you have to be aware of.  If you act with your emotions, the Maelstrom will pull you to the side of unreason, if you see the beauty in it, you will be rewarded with experiences no one will believe." he said.  He was right, I was the one who panicked, I was the one who ran like hell, I was the one who was afraid for my life.  It was Greg that had the lack of fear & curiosity that drew him into the vortex.  He was calm, & according to the old man he would be rewarded.

We turn toward the old mans shack as he invites me up for me up for some grub.  Out steps Greg with a Bloody Mary in his left hand & a 22" Verm in the right.  His hair has turned white, he's aged 20 years.  He looks up @ me & says, "Where the hell did you go?  I had the time of my life out there!"

PJ

Wow, thats agreat story. I thought your report with your thresher last year was cool . This is off the hook. You guys got balls way bigger than mine. The photo of Greg heading out is just Steven King like. Being drawn to a place thats just to wierd to even want to be. I mean the vermillion is OK. Not a monster but the story is.

PJ you have the best stories.  we need to get them published.

I call Shenanigans! 

Awesome!

Wait...

What?

A bit early for April fools but ,hmmmmmmmm, highly possible. Thanks sin for bringing me back.

Thank you for sharing your adventure and nice pictures!

You'd be a fool to miss that read.  Nice one, PJ.  

BRAVO!!!  Now that's a fish story, people!

another great story pj, loved it. brought back some memories to, spent alot of time at jallama in the eighties and havent been back since about 95, cameron

Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Maelstrom is. You have to see it for yourself.

You could get that story redone on the tv-show "I SHOULDN'T BE ALIVE"
Great Read!~ and I would have been panicing right behind you!

Second cheapest vodka?

Incredible!  Glad it all worked out in the end!  Sweeeeeet Pics!

I call Shenanigans! 

Such cynicism, how could anyone not believe this story?  Particularly on a day like today!

I gotta tell you though, the shot below of Littorals launch @ Jalama is 100% real.  Swear to god, no foolin'!