Hit and run, OC 09.27.15

Holy Shit!!  good to read no blood was was split.

WTF could do such a thing.......if that EVER happens to me, I AM DONE FOREVER.
That takes a whole lot of power to upend a yak.

YIKKES!! 

 

   Hmmm lets see, 50 ton whale, lets say 275 lbs worth of kayak? (Kayak and occupant, and gear) that kayak is simply a very tiny "Rubber ducky" in his bath tub!  I can't see a really big fur bag having that kind of mass needed to make swirls that big in the water.
  Now a whale tail spanning 15-20 feet hell yeah.
I'm voting a whale.
  Glad it wasn't worse for you!

I'm glad Gary is ok and no serious injury. The inflatables that didn't want to help. karma to them. it doesn't fail. sooner or later it will come around.
It's great to know this community stands by and watch out for one another. That makes group outings so much more pleasant and more enjoyable.

I do have 1 question about VHF radio range. how far can we contact one another?  I say this because I was out of range while in HMB semi-trolling.
I hear no activity over 69 and when I radio out I never got a respond back. I think I was out of communication range.

anyway glad to hear everything turn out better than it is. SS is something I will look into the future.

Most handheld VHF radios in the 5watt range are good to about 5 miles, line of site.  If you are on the other side of a peninsula, then no-go.

I hear no activity over 69 and when I radio out I never got a respond back. I think I was out of communication range.

Are you *always* out of range, or sometimes you get a response? First thing I do going out is radio check, and if somebody replies I feel better.

Thank you for all the well wishes, I do really appreciate it.
I am also thankful for those who came to my aid when the call came over your radio.

I ended up having a little worse bump on the head than I first thought.  Not concussion status, just a sore noggin.
I also have a moderate whiplash, mostly the right side of my neck.  It'll heal with ice, Motrin and lots of stretching.

For those of you not in my kayak that day, I'll try to describe the collision.  It was a high speed violent collision.
I did not get bumped and rolled, I did not get lifted and tossed.  I got flipped ass over nose and by the time the noise of the impact registered in my brain I was face down in the water with a kayak on my back.

Having spent the last 23 years as a midlevel medical provider I have learned a few things such as
In a crisis take your own pulse first. 
Focus on fixing what you can and move on.
If you hear hooves, don't go searching for zebras.

When I look back at this event, I have no data points to look at concerning what went on below the water line.
I did not see, smell, taste, touch or hear anything from beneath the water. 

I did see a swirl on the surface, about 4 -5 feet in diameter. 
I did not hear any sign of an air breathing cetacean or pinniped.

What I do have after the fact is a few small pieces of information about the energy that was transferred to the kayak and myself.
1.  I had my Hobie Trax cart upside down in the scuppers behind the seat.  I have rolled a kayak at least 10 times, I have been pitch-poled at Bolinas. Never have those wheels come out.  My wheels were 30ft from me.
2.  I had a tennis ball on each leg of the cart to act as shock absorbers and keep the hull off the crossbar of the cart.  I cut holes in them too small and then force them down onto the legs.  1 tennis ball got ejected and sank.
3.  There is a cap with a SS pin on one leg of the cart that is held in place with a bungee cord.  Those of you with Hobie carts know this as the "cart keeper".
My "cart keeper" got ripped off of the cart.
4.  I keep my fish finder battery in the rear hatch in a Hobie battery holder that sits on the rear hatch lip and the door closes tight onto it.  The battery terminals got ripped almost completely off.
5.  I keep a Standard Horizon HX300 radio attached to a lash tab on the left upper chest area of my PFD.  That radio has a spring loaded clip.  That clip has a prominent lip on the end.  In order to get the clip onto the lash tab you have to tilt the clip outward and force it in.  It's such a pain in the ass to do that I never take it off the PFD.  I just unclip it from the back of the radio to charge the radio.  The radio with the clip still attached was 40ft from the boat.  The lash tab did not rip, the clip did not detach from the radio.
6.  This one will only make sense to those that were there...........those two matching cuts on my forehead were caused by my head hitting my mirage drive.
On each pedal are an inside and outside tab that holds the pedal strap.  I don't use the straps.
I held the drive pedals up to my forehead out of curiosity and sure enough the inside tab of each pedal matches the cuts.
Since I landed face down with the kayak on top of me I think my head hit the drive with the initial impact of what ever hit me.

Think about that for a second.  The impact had so much energy that my feet slipped of the pedals and my body got bent in half slamming my forehead into the pedals.

None of the above points specifically to any 1 type of animal.
My own thoughts are....... no pinniped in the local area has the mass and speed to impart that much energy.  Secondly why would they?  I was traveling at 3.5mph in about 45ft of water.  I do not represent anything a pinniped would hunt.  There were not any fish on my kayak.  Pinnipeds do not ram objects larger than themselves as a hunting technique.
If it was a whale it would still have to be traveling almost vertical and fairly fast in a 45ft column of water.
I don't know enough about whales to know what species would do that.  I've seen humpbacks in shallow water cruising horizontal, never vertical and breaching.  I've seen humpbacks in deep water out of Moss Landing breach almost vertical. 
I'm sure many other species of whales travel through this time of year, I just haven't seen them.

The one glaring missing data point is no teeth marks on the kayak, no bites on me.
I am thankful for that. 

Man thats a hella hard hit

That's a detailed and concise recounting of the incident along with some thoughtful reconstruction and analysis. Thanks for sharing the follow-up, Gary. Dang!

Scary, interesting and confusing are what comes to mind. Do we have any marine biology experts on here that could speak to the described behavior and identify the animal?

Several scenarios seem possible to me from the beach...

This is crazy.. i'm more and more thinking about shark shield.. do they do group buys?

Glad you are OK,  Gary!

I think there is still a specisl for the central coast Slam Down I'm not sure what the rules are but I think you have till tomorrow. Contact these guys.   http://www.prokayakfishing.com/

Did anyone actually see a whale or large pinniped on Saturday or Sunday? I didn't. From what I am seeing, the behavior (multiple boils/stalking or playing) seems most likely a shark or pinniped. If it had been an orca we probably would have seen it.  Filter feeding whales aren't really known to stalk/play with kayaks.

I don't know about that I think Juveniles are curious by nature and still very big. I had two last year head straight for me and dove under about 20 ft away. Then this yr I had one large one buzz my bow. I was in the kelp and they feed inside the kelp as well. Just for an FYI. I think it had to be a young whale playing. If that is the case a shark shield would not help. 

On Saturday in the area a few of us were fishing I saw no Sea Lions, heard no whales, and had one whirlpool/ swirl about 10-15' behind me. It looked like when you have a fish on and it makes a sudden turn under water and disturbs the surface. It was not bubbles coming from a whale either. I am fairly sure the encounters at OC were sharks. It sounds like when Gary was hit it was a super hard blow, just like all the other White Shark attacks we have heard about. Only difference is the shark had bad timing and forgot to open its mouth to expose it's teeth. I think the swirls we saw were test runs by an unsure attacker. Remember this too, we were all paddling on Sat and no one got hit. The sudden change and addition of a Mirage Drive on the kayak may have been the trigger. We all know that Whites frequent the area we were fishing.

On Saturday in the area a few of us were fishing I saw no Sea Lions, heard no whales, and had one whirlpool/ swirl about 10-15' behind me. It looked like when you have a fish on and it makes a sudden turn under water and disturbs the surface. It was not bubbles coming from a whale either. I am fairly sure the encounters at OC were sharks. It sounds like when Gary was hit it was a super hard blow, just like all the other White Shark attacks we have heard about. Only difference is the shark had bad timing and forgot to open its mouth to expose it's teeth. I think the swirls we saw were test runs by an unsure attacker. Remember this too, we were all peddling on Sat and no one got hit. The sudden change and addition of a Mirage Drive on the kayak may have been the trigger. We all know that Whites frequent the area we were fishing.

Yes, without harping on it too much.. I think a large mammalivorous fish was most likely responsible for what I saw on Saturday, and what Ghan experienced on Sunday. 

On Saturday in the area a few of us were fishing I saw no Sea Lions, heard no whales, and had one whirlpool/ swirl about 10-15' behind me. It looked like when you have a fish on and it makes a sudden turn under water and disturbs the surface. It was not bubbles coming from a whale either. I am fairly sure the encounters at OC were sharks. It sounds like when Gary was hit it was a super hard blow, just like all the other White Shark attacks we have heard about. Only difference is the shark had bad timing and forgot to open its mouth to expose it's teeth. I think the swirls we saw were test runs by an unsure attacker. Remember this too, we were all paddling on Sat and no one got hit. The sudden change and addition of a Mirage Drive on the kayak may have been the trigger. We all know that Whites frequent the area we were fishing.

I was about 150 yards off of the first campground bluff in about 55- 70 fow.
I had heard something behind me exhale didn't sound like a seal much deeper of a exhale.[something bigger] and when I looked back I seen a little bit of a swirl movement  going on. Thought it would be a seal but didn't see anything on the surface. may have went under already ?  This happened twice on Saturday.
I seen a few harbour seal in close to the cove Sunday morning when we went out ???

This tends to support the possibility of a juvenile GWS:

http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/dist.htm

"At a length of 2 to 3 meters the White Shark's diet expands to include pelagic fishes, such as tunas and mackerels. After attaining a length of 3 meters, the sub-adult White Shark is now capable of capturing marine mammal prey, like Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) and California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) . Photograph of the Harbor Seal ( http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/images/childrens_pool_seal_2005_1.jpg ) taken at the Children's Pool, La Jolla in 2005 courtesy of Debbie Beacham clearly demonstrates a White Shark bite. This is also the size when the shark starts employing ‘Polaris Attacks' when hunting their marine mammal prey. It is believed that this type of hunting strategy either disables or kills the prey on impact, thereby reducing the likelihood of injury to the shark from the struggling pinniped. Larger marine mammals, such as the Elephant Seal, seem to be a favored prey of White Sharks over 4 meters in length. The size of both predator and prey would seem to be the determining factor in this dietary stage."

It seems odd that despite the sight of so many swirls by so many folks, no fin or tail was reported.

Glad to hear you are OK. Your description of the violent impact, having your face/head slam into your pedals, and finding yourself face down in the water is very scary. Kudos to those that came to help you and ensure you made it back to shore. We were driving out of OC to dive TC when Naoki told us you had been knocked out of your yak by a drive by, but were OK.  Still went diving but but felt very vulnerable.