respect the ocean 2. MY experience

[William Novotny]

OK so this happened yesterday and after just reading momo fish's post I feel like I have no one to blame but myself. It's funny how easy it is to have a "it won't happen to me" attitude until you're in a bad situation. This is the second time I ended up in the drink in less then 2 weeks after a solid 3 years with no incidents. This experience was quite a bit more sobering than my spill in the surf last Sunday.

So I decided to drive down to la jolla for a late afternoon session after picking my daughter up from class. The wave forecast was 1' and wind at 8am was 3 knts. Super hot day andi just wanted to be on the water. By 1 PM when I got to the shores the wind had picked up pretty good and i could tell that getting to the zone would be easy. Getting back would be a b*tch. Paddled through the ankle slappers and started heading for the kelp. Was taking a good amount of wind chop over the side of my hull but didn't pay it any mind. Been in a lot worse. Sun is shining, it's hot. The wind and splash feels good. It's not the only thing that's bothering me is how hard it is to steer and keep pointed straight. It's not until I was well past the boundary buy that I started to notice how sluggish my kayak feels and I'm definitely listing to one side. I open my center hatch to see what the issue is andi hear it. The steady running faucet of water pouring into my hull. I look back behind me and confirm that my drain plug never got screwed back in after my last outing. I've taken on enough water that the back end of my kayak is now under water and I can't reach that now submerged plug. Think think think. The only other vessels on the water are 2 dive boats. One in the center of the kelp forest, the other on the far out skirts of the kelp. I'll never make it back to the launch in the condition I'm in and the kelp will actual help keep me afloat, so I started my paddle towards the first boat to hail assistance. It this point I figure it would be a good time to turn on my vhf that is strapped to my pfd in case I need to hail the boat or send a mayday. Battery is dead. Shit.

I make the paddle to the first boat to find that no one is home. The occupants are in the water and I don't know how long till they are up. I made the decision to not wait around and headed out towards the second dive boat on the outskirts. After what seemed like an eternity of paddling I got within 100 yards of the boat when they fired up their engines and went to take off. F*ck. I remembered my whistle clipped to my vest and let off 3 short bursts. Pause. One long whistle. Pause. 3 short bursts, all while waving my paddle. The boat does a u turn. I got within ear shot and yelled thati needed assistance and was taking on water. I got along side the boat and one kid plugged my drain plug for me. Because of all the water in my hull my tail end was sitting extremely low. When I opened the center hatch it looked like there was no water to pump because it was all to the rear. The boat owner said he didn't know what he could do about getting the water out and asked if I felt comfortable paddling back in on my own. I thought about it for a second and rationalized that I wouldn't take on more water, my paddle back would be slow but I don't have any other options. Even ifi hada pump I can't reach where the water is. I gave the dive guys to ok to leave and committed to paddling back. The boat took off and as soon as I left the protection of the kelp and the choppy water immediately capsized me. The rod holder I temporarily fixed immediately ripped out of the hull and opened an apple sized hole in my hull letting in A LOT of water. My kayak is now upside down under water with whatever air bubbles trapped inside keeping it from completely sinking. I started laying on my whistle again but lucky the boat saw this all go down and was returning. We got a rope around the nose handle of my kayak and i swam up on the swimstep of the boat and took a minute to catch my wind. We pulled my yak around and got it up on the swim step and bailed all the water out. I shoved a water bottle into the hole where the flush Mount used to be temporarily sealing that off, did a full inspection on the rest of my yak to make sure there was no other issues, took another minute to drink some water, catch my breath and prepare for my paddle in. The boat owner wanted to take me in to mission Bay but I assured him that was up to the paddle back, that my kayak could make it and with the hull plugged up this wasa very seaworthy yak. It took me about an hour anda half to get back to the launch without incident. Easy landing, packed up and headed home.

I learned a few things yesterday.

There is no such thing as being too prepared.
A checklist of all emergency equipment and things like plug the drain before getting on the water, charge vhf, etc. is a must.
Have a buddy with you.

I made some pretty foolish mistakes in being unprepared but the things i will take credit for is wearing my pfd with my emergency whistle attached and keeping my cool. Without that whistle I would not have been able to get that boats attention

I'm unspeakably grateful for the captain of the Whitey and his assistance yesterday. If there was no one to hail down I probably would have ended up bobbing in the ocean making an emergency call for vessel assist on my phone. Which i had locked inside of 2 ziplocks in a pocket of my pfd.

Do not think that this could not happen to you. Before yesterday I thought I was prepared for anything. I'll be installing a bilge system this week. And buying a hand pump. And fishing with a buddy