Mountainous waves and awesome caves. And lumpy. Yep, that was Cape Flattery September 21st, 2007. The coolest kayaking place I have seen.
As I recall, the forecast was for something like 6 to 8 foot swells out of the NW and 3 to 5 out of the SW, wind out of the SW, with a weak front producing rain by the afternoon, and that was about what we experienced. With waves crossing at 90 degrees, the lumpiness and occasional breaking wave kept things interesting for the first few miles. A strong brace was needed a few times to stay upright. Navigation and checking on each other was done cresting the swell tops. Offshore reefs pumped the swell way up over the horizon, sometimes breaking. We zigzagged our way north to the cape inside and outside of these spots as judgement dictated.
Once near the cape we got inside the rocks to play around in milder conditions. What a blast. It was perfect. The surge kept things alive and would break over shallow places, always pushing or pulling. Take a look at photo 15 to the right of Marylee for a good example. The photos in the slots of the cape look deceptively calm. Trust me, it was not boring. Near the end Holly let her guard down and got close to a gap between two rocks. Sure enough, she caught a blast of water in the chest and got washed out of her boat. We towed her away from the breaking waves to reenter and we were on our merry way.
Somehow the bull kelp seemed different. Between swells it would stick up like stiff poles only to leave little eddies sinking into the next swell. We saw a lot of kelp, but alas, no sea otters.
A whale, probably a grey, surfaced directly in front of me about 50 yards away, blew, put its fluke in the air, but never showed again. Unless the tail I saw later at a distance was the same one.
In the afternoon a light rain settled in. Some of us noticed how the silvery drops beaded up on the surface momentarily before being absorbed. It was kinda cool.
About the only birds around were Harlequin Ducks. Perhaps the food supply was currently elsewhere. We ran across a handful of sea lions. One particularly large one elevated out of the water several times to stare at us. He looked undecided about what to do. Later we came across a bloated dead sea lion entangled in the kelp. Being downwind we smelled it well before finding it.
The rest of the way from the cape to Neah Bay was still interesting, but became less so and more tranquil as the miles went by. We portaged over the base of the jetty instead of paddling another 3 or 4 miles around it.
The next two days were spent on the tranquil turquoise waters of Crescent Lake, camping, eating, splashing, jumping off rocks, and making sounds in the dark. A few photos are here.
