“Excuse me. I’m just going to need to borrow the leg of that park bench.”
It was another fine conversation starter from the madman to the group of ladies who were eating lunch along the Port Angeles waterfront.
To be fair, I had my kayak nearby before they sat down, so they should have known what they were getting into. Once I secured permission to borrow the sturdy iron leg, I secured a polypropylene line to it and tied the other end to the nose of my boat.
It was about 12 feet down to the water over the riprap. One does not tosses a fiberglass kayak over that kind of drop and hope for the best.
The crappy launch spot was not my first choice. I’d already gotten shafted out of one easy beach launch because of parking. I knew of a couple other launches around town, but neither was the kind of place I’d want to leave a car overnight. The riprap descent was the best way to get out of Port Angeles I could think of.
Meanwhile, It was after noon and the day was slipping away from me. Only 20 miles of kayaking against a 15-knot headwind and a flooding tide until I reached camp at Lyre River.
Now I was cam-strapping my foam sleeping pad to the bottom of the boat for protection. Down I went, wriggling the boat from rock to rock. Of course I banged it a couple times. Things got easier when I used a taut-line hitch to moderate the descent.
I rested the boat on the cobbles, carried some more gear down. The boat had to move a couple times so the tide wouldn’t snatch it away.
I was paddling away from Port Angeles at 2:30 p.m.. My bow was pointed for the eastern tip of Ediz Hook as the wind chopped up sharp little white caps in the harbor. It was nothing compared to what the open water in the Strait would throw at me.
The water around the point of Ediz Hook can become what one kayaking friend described as “a washing machine” when wind and tides are right. It is a point of conflict between warring elements. It is also a point where seals like to congregate. I avoided getting to close to the beach so that I wouldn’t alarm any federally protected pinnipeds. None were on the sand, but I did see a couple shiny heads pop out from the water.
Other boaters, less aware/concerned about the sea mammals whipped past the Hook with their outboards going full bore. Since I’d retrofitted my paddle and helmet with reflective tape, I am sure they saw me, but better visibility can’t protect against assholes. They cut within a dozen yards of my boat, adding their wakes to the already confused seas.
A couple curious seals got behind the kayak and followed me. The black eyes would pop up with their quizzical expressions. I would make eye contact, and the funny face would submerge silently with nary a splash. I have yet to have a seal climb up on my boat, but it is something I’d like to avoid.
The seals followed me for several minutes as I thrashed against the waves.
My opposing the wind and current made for tough paddling indeed. I measured my progress against buildings at the Coast Guard base at the end of the Hook. I crept past them at glacial pace.
The shoreline was a straight line of riprap with no projections for me to grab shelter behind. The waves stacked up and crashed down close to the jagged stone, giving me incentive to keep a healthy distance off shore.
After almost an hour of paddling, I finally came to the paper mill at the Hook’s west end. No more white smoke came out of the chimney towers. The whole operation had been bought out and shut down a couple months ago. Now the blank edifices of concrete and metal sat dull against the mountain skyline — Barad-dûr by the Sea.
Beyond the Hook were 75-foot sandstone cliffs. The western suburbs of Port Angeles sat up there, perched above the tsunami zone and cut off from water access. A lonely beach meandered behind a riprap wall. I saw two figures walking near the factory, but no others for miles of shoreline.
Here I could swing my boat south and grab some shelter behind the Elwha River delta. My paddling progress increased markedly as I swung out of the direct path of wind and tide.
The advantage didn’t last long. As soon as I rounded the point, it was back to kayak versus washing machine.
There was a long beach here where the waves came in at an angle. Watching the waves fold over on themselves as they angled into shore was hypnotic — as if someone were pulling the tab of an enormous zipper.
It was amazing to consider that the long stretch of beach was completely new. Before the Elwha River dams came down in 2012, there was bare rock shore here. In this short amount of time, freed-up river sediment has created as much as 85 acres of new beach, a new coastal habitat for salmon, sand lance, eel grass and other crucial marine biota. *
The snowy peaks in the Elwha River Valley brooded in cloud layers to the south. As the snow melts, the Elwha surges. Mountain snowmelt can account for as much as 80 percent of river flow on the Olympic Peninsula in summer. ** The freshwater pushes its way far out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I could tell I was getting close to the river when I dipped my hand in the water and barely tasted salt.
The river mouth revealed itself in sharp angular waves where the river current pushed back against the oncoming rollers.
Before I knew it, there were waves breaking to my left and right. One of them dropped over me at shoulder height, sending me sideways. I leaned into the foam with my paddle blade, riding the white bronco against the current. As soon as the wave dissipated, I paddled madly upstream. Another wave thrust my boat a few more yards up the river mouth, where I paddled hard again to avoid being swept backwards.
I steered my boat to the left, where the current and waves were not so strong, and fought my way further upriver. I found a slower side channel and pulled my boat onto a bank of cobbles.
“What the hell?” I said. “I’m having dinner here.”
Preparing shelter and cooking dinner are the two big tasks that loom at the end of any expedition day. It was relieving to check one chore off the list while there was still warm sun on my back and I had good light to work with.
I dug out the bear canister where I kept the stove and food. Pasta and rehydrated pea soup with a parsley garnish were the chef’s specialty. I felt pretty pleased with myself.
The light was lower in the sky by the time that I pushed off. I rocketed down the current at top speed. The angry waves were waiting for me at the river mouth. I plowed through a chest-deep breaker. Right beyond it a dark blue wall loomed above my head, getting ready to bring its weight down on me. I paddled hard and topped it right before it broke. The current bucked and undulated in its war with the waves. I relished the immediacy of the situation, the little micro-adjustments and slick moves that I used to stay upright in the morass.
Beyond, the mouth, the sea calmed into graceful swells. No longer did I have to push against the tide. The winds seemed to have calmed with the onset of evening.
About 20 minutes went by, and then the wind picked up again, throwing whitecaps against my boat.
Up ahead, there was shelter in the cliffs west of Bachelor Rock. This was territory I knew well, having guided extensively there since I arrived in Washington. I shot in and out between offshore rocks, the “field goals” that I have messed with over the months. These narrow little passages are addictive because going through them will bring the boat close to disaster, and yet you never feel so alive as when you emerge unscathed. Some require a quick turn and sprint to get out before the next wave crashes in. The best ones are those that require you to aim for a barnacle-clad stretch of rock and scoot over it at the exact moment that a wave washes in. Doing this in a fiberglass boat is all the more risky, because a sharp blow from a rock could easily put a hole in the hull. More than once, I swung behind a large boulder just in time to get a face-full of breaking wave.
The sinking sun cast a pink light over the cliffs, stretching my shadow over the sandstone. The sea smoothed out beneath the darkling sky. Venus shone down from a blue-orange mantle.
I sped past Crescent Bay, swerving through the boulders at Tongue Point.
One of my early bailout campsites was already a half-mile behind me. Screw that. I was going all the way to the Lyre, even if it meant paddling in the dark.
Even if it meant paddling in the dark?
Paddling in the dark was awesome. The wind was completely dead, allowing me to scoot along the coastline with no resistance. The Big Dipper lit up over my head. A shooting star flew east to west across the heavens.
The deep piney smells of the forest leaked out over the water, aromas of dark leafy growth. Little lights from box cottages glimmered here and there. Woodsmoke wafted out over the saltwater. I felt tapped into some primordial relaxation circuit.
Here and there little sparks of bright green light drifted through the depths — little phosphorescent beings. One of them clung to my paddle blade for a moment before slipping back into the water as I took my next stroke.
I became aware of the moon before it rose. A pale halo emerged above the trees. The vast pale face climbed into the sky. It cast a white glimmer path upon the water behind me, then vanished as I swung beneath tall, dark cliffs.
The Lyre River pushed a delta of land out into the Strait, though not as large as the Elwha’s. I recognized the small peninsula ahead of me from my nautical chart. Even though the sea elsewhere seemed calm, the waves were breaking like crazy at the river mouth, where a shallow alluvial fan created a perfect break zone. I took one breaker across the bow, stuck my paddle in the water and encountered gravel about a foot down. There was a roar from above as the next wave crashed in and sent me sideways into the river mouth. I paddled hard to get up current, looking for promising camp spots.
Several sleeping geese honked angrily and flapped their wings at me. A flock of similarly indignant ducks took off as I paddled past. The river was really only about a creek as far as width goes. The current was fast enough that I could barely make progress against it. Close to the bank, there was a no trespassing sign and the lights shining out of someone’s home. I could see the TV on in the living room.
The thought occurred to me that people living there might be alarmed by a boater splashing up next to their house at close to midnight. There are plenty of gun owners in Clallam County. At this time, it occurred to me that there was no easy way to turn the boat around in the tight channel without whacking a rock or getting hung up on tree branches. If I’d paddled further, I might have found an eddy to make things easier, but the water scared me less than the idea of encountering people on shore.
I leaned away downstream and let the water spin me around. I made a quick correction past a rock and shot back down to the river mouth. It looked like I was going to camp there after all.
I pulled my boat up over some driftwood to above tideline. The tarp I was going to sleep under was right behind the seat. I threw it over the nose of the kayak and secured the grommets to various beach logs. I put rocks in a couple of my dry bags for additional anchorage. The shelter was crude, and yet it was all I wanted on that calm night. I huddled into my sleeping bag while the sound of water crashing in the delta lulled me into sleep.
* http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/new-life-along-washington-states-elwha-river
Here is another great story about the rehabilitation of the Elwha River, dealing specifically with the river mouth.
** And a story about how much the rivers on the peninsula depend on snowmelt.
Above-average Olympic snowpack holding firm as spring begins
On our next installment of Tom’s On The Move:
A roll gone wrong, seasick, big breakers, surfing, a rescue.
Stay tuned!