Selected articles from the Summer 2006 issue

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Louise Adie

      I had only intended to start kayaking as a way to build upper body strength for Nordic skiing. Famous last words.

      My paddling had been limited to 8- and 12-mile outings on Cayuga Lake here in the Finger Lakes Region of central New York State. So after two years of four-season paddling (jumping in my boat in full ski clothing when the snow was too scant) I began what would become two years of planning for a small expedition to celebrate my 50th birthday.

      Four years after testing, then buying, my first kayak I stood poised on the shore of Lake Ontario about to undertake a 6-week, 450-mile journey, just me, my kayak and the lake.

      It was after I purchased my second boat, the Derek Hutchinson-designed Slipstream by Current Designs, that I read the review in Sea Kayaker: "…well suited for day trips only." I probably wouldn’t have bought that boat had I read the review first. As it turned out I couldn’t have picked a better boat. Being high waisted with a short torso I prefer its low profile. Minimal stowage space kept my cargo load light, forcing me to choose my gear and clothing sensibly. No room for the kitchen sink here. Plus it handles itself beautifully in heavy and confused waves.

      The first 325 miles of the trip were pleasant enough. A mixture of strings of glorious late summer days, spent paddling in bathing suit or topless, evenly spaced with the standard Great Lakes "three-day blows" ate up the first four weeks of my trip. Sleeping on beaches in torrential downpours, or under a canopy of stars on clear nights, I was nearly lulled into a rhythm of long paddling days and forced shoretime retreat when storm driven waves got too big.

      Showers and laundries were easy to find at the marinas and I actually had time to catch up on reading and writing postcards on those three-day sit-outs. Meeting strangers at my many stops became the joyful highlight of my trip.

      Then the hurricane watch hit. Sensing something sinister in the atmosphere that morning and having no explanation why the wind was suddenly so strong and the waves so huge, I came ashore in a small, protected cove, frantically trying to find a weather report. An FM station in Rochester was advising people to get off and away from the lake, a hurricane was bearing down on the city from Lake Erie, and judging by the map I was right in its path, just across the lake.

      The next half hour was scramble time as I lashed down the bow and the stern to two solid looking trees behind a small summer cottage, emptied all my gear into a tiny shed, set up my tent with as many guy lines as I could find, and prepared to wait it out. Before the torrents of rain hit I watched the waves build out beyond the point. In my journal I recorded "…eerily powerful with its enormous waves, sickly green cast and spindrift sailing off the crests of the frothing turbulence, the wind rushing so hard and fast it outruns the waves. The constant roar is deafening. The profiles of the waves pushing northeast past the point reveal curling, snarling waves of 10 to 12 feet, sudden eruptions of crests boiling up to 15 feet. This was the stranger I feared lurked within the relatively calm friend who had accompanied me these past four weeks." In this shallow part of the lake, without the privilege of depth, as in the ocean, these waves stack up ferociously.

      After the hurricane watch passed, the lake never really calmed down much again. It was early October after all.

      Anxious to finish this venture and tired of waiting, I hitched a ride in a pick-up truck, backward to an inland waterway, still considered to be part of Lake Ontario. I figured I could get some mileage in on the protected Bay of Quinte then come out into Prince Edward Bay, in all adding an extra thirty miles. If it were still blowing hard at least I’d be in the protection of the lee shore.

      I then waited two days at a marina in one of the most remote areas of the entire lake, watching as boat after boat got plucked from the water, drydocked for the winter. I smelled snow in the air. An experienced Danish sailor greeted me on the third morning with his usual offering of coffee, but with this advice: "You’d better get your ass in gear. You’ve got two days of good weather then all hell’s gonna break loose." I put the cup of coffee down and ran. In twenty minutes I was back on the water.

      I had come to the most terrifying aspect of my trip, the area I had dreaded for two years, and I had only two days to pull it off: a 20-mile open-water crossing through shipping lanes to a tiny uninhabited island, then another 18-mile open-water through more shipping lanes, all in the easternmost end of the lake, an area famous for monster waves preceding quickly building heavy storms from the west. At the bottom of the lake in this area lay shipwrecks more numerous than all the others totaled together. All the way around the lake power boaters and sailors had warned me of these treacherous waters. Most of them choose the inland waterways, adding an extra 50 to 60 miles. I didn’t have that kind of time, nor did I wish to be crammed into these waterways with their treacherous currents and the ever-present ocean going freighters.

      The first day was pleasant, warmish, a long hard paddle, with waves never reaching more than a foot. If the second day were like this the dreaded crossing would be a breeze.

      As I finished setting up my tent on a narrow and exposed beach I noticed a sickening little breeze on my shoulder coming from the west. The hair on my arms stood up. I called a friend about 70 miles away who alerted me to more bad weather on the way. "You’re not going to like this," he said. "Waves building to 4’ overnight and 6’ by mid-morning. Rain and heavy wind for the next three days. Have you got enough food?" I had.

      I thanked him and hung up. I moved my tent to a beach on a protected cove, greeted in the beam of my headlamp by the reflective eyes of a fox and a beaver, a good omen I thought.

      During the course of the next two days the wind shifted from the west to northwest to north then settling in from the northeast. My little pebbled beach was disappearing under the rising waves, leaving me nothing but a plateau of poison ivy. The other side of the island was cliffs.

      I spent the time pleasantly enough but I was getting dreadfully tired of all the storm commotion and started believing the weather had changed for the duration of the year and that my time had simply run out.

      That night I decided I had had enough. It was rescue time. Call the Coast Guard; be done with it. But at least wait until morning – why make them come out in this nastiness, in the dark. In these howling conditions it would be a logistical nightmare, both for them and for me.

      At 7:30 a.m. I called 911. In the middle of the briefest of explanations the cell phone charge went dead. I had foolishly wasted twenty minutes of charge on a phone conversation with a news reporter on my way to the island. The article never appeared in the paper and the bill for that call totaled $45. For the rest of the morning as each freighter passed in the shipping lanes I ran from end to end of the island waving my t-shirted paddle at them, offering reflective flashes with my mirror. No helicopter, no rescue boats, no blast of acknowledgment from the freighters. By 12:30 p.m. the storm had blown itself out and I was on the water again. It was clear I was meant to finish this trip under my own steam.

      For the next four hours I paddled as hard and as fast as I could without a break, my heart in my throat. Who knew if this was just a lull between storms, if another storm was building from the west. I couldn’t get a weather report for the area. I just had to trust my luck. I had another 18-mile open-water crossing ahead of me. If a storm did blow up I assumed I would be turning tail at the last possible moment, riding the waves toward the St. Lawrence River, hoping to land on the New York side in some protected cove. I knew the shoreline was mostly soaring cliffs, so a protected cove might not be a possibility.

      At one point a freighter was bearing down on me then suddenly veered away from its path. It had turned exactly where it was supposed to be according to a later check of the nautical chart. It if hadn’t it might have been a near miss. I don’t know – where do you go to get out of the way of a speeding freighter?

      I landed safely on the shores of New York back in familiar territory. I made several attempts at finishing the trip over the course of the next five days, but 3 to 4 miles a day wasn’t going to get me anywhere. The weather had now changed for good. Unnerved, cold, wet, tired, lonely and simply out of time I vowed to return the following year to finish what I had started. If not for the record books as the first person to ever circumnavigate Lake Ontario, then for my own personal sense of accomplishment.

      It was a horribly restless year, this unfinished business nagging at me.

      One year later I did return to the lake knocking off that remaining 50 miles in four days. I left behind a lake at peace, and found peace within myself.

      What I brought back were stories too numerous to tell in one sitting, and through my newspaper accounts an inspiration freely given to those who have always dreamed of doing something big but have always put it off. Already two men in their sixties from separate towns have revealed to me their dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail. With dancing eyes and a quickening flush of the cheeks they’ve told me that after reading my story they now have the courage to do it themselves. I know I’ve gotten my inspiration from others who have gone before and have been kind enough to come back and tell us their stories.

Louise Adie is a kayaker who lives near Ithaca N.Y.; she works as a kayak guide in Antarctica during our winter. She is planning a circumnavigation of Georgian Bay next summer.

DEALING WITH BOAT TRAFFIC

Bert Millar

      Probably most of us would prefer to do our paddling in quiet, pristine areas, listening to the sounds of the wind, water and wildlife, free from the stress and danger of our modern and over-mechanised world. Sometimes we do get a chance to escape to these peaceful and remote wilderness regions, a chance to recharge our spiritual batteries and experience the tranquillity that we need to think, meditate and relax. But the bulk of our kayaking is done in southern Ontario where we must share the waterways with thousands of other boaters. Much consideration is given to safety in respect to weather, accidental capsizes, hypothermia, rescues, etc., and rightfully so but I have observed that many paddlers don’t give too much thought to avoiding collisions with powerboats, so I would like to serve you a small portion of food for thought in this regard.

LOOK AROUND

      It is not easy to crank your neck around like an owl to observe boat traffic but that is a skill that should be practised. In a headwind, a quiet powerboat or sailboat can come up behind you without notice. Practise turning your head and/or your boat to look behind. If you are having trouble doing this, learn how to do a sculling motion with your paddle that will allow you to get enough support to look back.

WORK ON BEING SEEN

      Let’s face it – you are in the tiniest boat possible, you stick up much less than one metre above the surface so in one-metre waves you will disappear momentarily in each wave trough. The windmilling motion of the paddlestroke may catch the eye of the more alert motor boat operators but not the dazed or impaired ones. Bright coloured blades work especially well to attract attention, red or yellow are best, while white blades can get lost in the confusion of white caps in breaking seas. If purchasing a boat, PFD, paddle jacket or hat give consideration to colour, again yellow, red and orange are the most visible. Sea kayaking tends to be a colourful activity anyhow, so take advantage of all the pretty gear that’s available. (I’m not into hair myself, but if you have any it could be dyed red or yellow.)

ALWAYS ASSUME YOU CAN’T BE SEEN

      Following the suggestions above gives you an edge but you should always think that you can’t be seen as far as other traffic is concerned. The less you rely on the vigilance of others to spot you, the better off you will be.

KNOW WHERE THE BOAT TRAFFIC IS COMNG FROM

      And going to. Much of our paddling is along shore where it seems to be much safer than out in the open water but this is where you can be vulnerable to large boats coming out from wharves and marinas as you pass by the openings and breakwalls. Also, look for powerboats coming back from the open sea after a long day when the operators have let their guard down. When paddling in unfamiliar areas, consult a chart to determine where the channels, ferry slips, marinas, oil depots and commercial shipping areas are so you can be extra alert when in these danger zones. Know where the channels are and stay out of them as much as possible, we have the advantage of shallow draft boats and can travel in less active areas. Remember: a large, tightly clustered group of kayakers is more visible than a series of stragglers, so if you must cross a channel, gang up into a tight group, wait for a lull in the traffic and get across as quickly as possible. And lastly, be very careful in areas where there are large numbers of jet skis, as they can and will come into shallow areas at high speed. These little lake gnats are involved in more accidents and tragedies than all other classes of boats. Be alert!

LARGE VESSELS

      Remember that large vessels appear to be moving slower than they really are. Check out this deadly illusion for yourself. Stand on a dock in a no-wake zone and focus your attention on a set point in the water as the boats go by. Watch as a small motorboat and then a larger vessel go by at what should be the same speed because of the zone. The larger vessel seems to be going slower. Why? Because all of the smaller boat passes your sighting point right away while the larger one still has more length to go by even after its bow crosses your point. This has the effect of making it seem slower. Therefore a paddler can often underestimate the speed of larger vessels – just the kind of boat that can’t stop quickly or make turns on a dime.

      Vessels seem to be farther away when viewed from a low vantage point. This low position already makes your situation quite tough by limiting your horizon and how far you can see. It’s good to make a practice of studying vessels when out on the water: are they going fast or slow, upwind, downwind, or with the current.

REMEMBER TO BE COURTEOUS TO POWERBOATERS

      Yes, we know these gas guzzling behemoths are noisy and spew out wholesale amounts of pollution into our faces and the surrounding environment, but every year many kayakers in distress are rescued by powerboaters. You can’t have too many friends when you’re swimming for shore.

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