yojimbo wrote:Hey Kirk, I understand you landed on the rocks by the Pit. Could you give us a first hand account of what to expect should this befall us as well, and the best way to get to exit, either by water or by hiking to the beach?
I see waves crashing on those box like rocks and cannot imagine landing there. Glad you were not hurt.
Yeah great Simon - just out me as the Snorkeler of the Shark Pit. ;^)
Since I've been kiting at Dillon (~4 years), specifically over against the wall, I've always been aware of the risks involved with an equipment failure or pilot error/mistake. Aside from the rumors about the origin of the name "Shark Pit", the current can be *quite* strong and when it's ebbing, its all moving straight out to sea - fast. And then there is the surf. Definitely not for beginners, the sane or the faint of heart, especially mid-winter or in the spring. I've always thought "It's gonna be a gnarly situation when someone has a major train wreck out here... and it's gonna happen... eventually."
On 12/22 I was out kiting during the "king tide". It was quite light 10m conditions and I took off on an overhead wave. Essentially I just classically screwed up and got too into riding the wave, didn't keep my kite turning enough, slacked my lines and drug a wingtip.
I took a few waves on the head with my kite down in the water and got to go for a few underwater sleigh rides (loosing my board in the process). But with the massive ebbing tide, my kite kept coming towards me, slacking my lines in the water. I felt the lines start to swirl and wrap around my feet/legs so I punched out to my flag line. One more wave on the kite broke the bungee part of the flag system and I was kite and board-less, pretty much a worst-case scenario. Bad choice of days to be swimming around out there - the current was crazy.
Within about 5 minutes, my buddy Steve Dunlop said I'd already been swept almost 100 years out to sea. He kept his cool and kept riding, while keeping an eye on me. The wind was too light for him to ride upwind and just pick me up, but he stuck around, as close as possible.
Since I'd thought about this situation many times before, the only real option was to swim towards the rocks on the Point Reyes side (to the South). Swimming against the current (straight East towards Lawson's Landing) wasn't even an option and swimming North towards the parking lot (1.3 miles away) seemed like a *really* bad idea - it's just too far to try to swim.
Think of swimming in the heaviest rip you've ever seen. The only option is to go perpendicular to the current and in this case the shortest distance to safety (well, sort of - it IS pretty rocky), was to head towards the headland.
Once I realized I was actually making progress towards the rocks, I was able to relax and really assess how much trouble I was in. As I approached the rocky shore a few hundred yards outside the Pit (almost parallel to the big buoy now), I started checking out how the waves were hitting the rocks. I swam slowly as I got closer and noticed the waves weren't breaking top to bottom onto the rocks, but more rushing up against and receding. Still, it wasn't a great place to be and there was lots of water moving around.
I waited for a set to pass and scrambled up onto one of the individual rocks, about 10' from the actual wall, figuring if a bigger set wave came, I could jump off the rock, back into the water and not get slammed. From there I just waited out a few more sets and got a sense of how often and hard the waves were breaking against the wall. It wasn't too bad so I waited for a set to pass and made a quick move from the rock, into the water and scrambled up to "safety" on the rocky area.
Here's the view you *don't* want a chance to see:
- Shark_Pit_Rocks.jpg (129.12KiB)Viewed 4301 times
(View from the rocks, looking East, back towards Lawson's Landing. Photo Credit: Shark Pit Snorkeler)
From there, I walked and scrambled my way downwind (East) towards the mouth of Tomales bay, where I finally came to a somewhat sandy area. Steve was able to ride in close, give me his board to lie prone on and drag me back, downwind across to the beach near Lawson's. Given the king tide and the omnipresent thought of being King Bait, I wasn't going to get back in the water and try to swim back across the mouth of the Tomales. Had Steve not been there, it would have been a very long walk home.
I can't say I'd had
nightmares about something like this happening there,
but I had given it a lot of thought. When my kite went down, it was pretty much a matter of realizing this was gonna be the gnarly day and then just implementing my plan to save my ass in a bad situation. Swimming any other direction really wasn't an option. Maybe I got lucky, but below are some the things I'd done in advance to prepare for such a situation - again, I *knew* it could/would happen at some point:
1. Wear enough rubber. 4/3mm with a hood.
2. Wear (a little) extra flotation. When swimming in heavy situations, simply staying afloat shouldn't cause you to expend energy. I wear one of these:
http://www.litewavedesigns.com/accessor ... ry=3411237
3. Wear booties. Without proper footwear, my feet would be hamburger. Even worse if you have to then walk out 4+ miles.
4. Carry a phone or radio. Even though you can barely make a phone call or send a text in the Dillon beach parking lot, there are 4 bars (!!!) of AT&T signal out there on the rocks. I'd tested this previously by driving down to Lawson's Landing and checking the signal strength. While it's fun to take pics on the water with your phone in a water-proof case, having a phone for emergencies is a must. This was an emergency. It was nice to know I could call for help if needed and/or find a map if I needed to hike out to a trailhead on the Pt. Reyes side. I use one of these:
http://store.hitcase.com/hitcase-pro-pl ... undle.html
5. Ride with a buddy who is competent and cool with the current conditions. This is what saved my ass. Thank you Steve!
Future Prep:
6. I'm considering taking a long day hike on a no-wind day from the last parking lot you can drive to - to familiarize myself with what might be involved in hiking out. There's no guarantee this couldn't happen again. Would this be Pierce Point?
Reminder (OK, I'll call it a "warning"):
7. Don't screw around in conditions you're not prepared to swim in. The power of the kite can lead us to think we can handle bigger waves/gnarlier conditions than we would otherwise be riding in. As I've always said about kiting: "Its all good until it isn't." This went from a fun situation to a somewhat critical situation in the blink of an eye.
Oh yeah, my kite/bar blew in as I was walking up the beach, about half way back to the parking lot. My board rinsed up on the beach right in front of the parking lot about 2 hours later. Good karma? Who knows, but I'll be looking for opportunities to pay it forward for a while!
Kirk out