Surfski Knowledge Base

Larry Goolsby

06/17/07 #3155

I was stoked to see that some of the guys were wanting to do a long paddlde on Father's Day from Marine Park, out around Lummi Island and back again. A mere 30+ mile jaunt. The weather prediction was for mild winds (wrong) and temps in the 60's (wrong again). We (Dean, Mike G., Abe and I) left Marine Park shortly after 0830 in a steady rain with 10-15 mph winds from the south. Dean had this great idea of going counter-clockwise and fighting the current up Hale Passage so that we could ride the tide down the other side. The other 3 of us were so stupid that we agreed to do this. First, you gotta picture this: you couldn't see Lummi, Portage or Eliza Islands from Marine Park. That should have been the first clue of what lay ahead. We fought beam waves (1-3 footers) all the way across to Portage. You got this warm fuzzy feeling when the clouds parted and the islands finally did appear on the horizon. Then this warm fuzzy feeling disappated when you saw the big rollers in Hale Passage. This was one of those high volume tides and Hale Passage was a roller coaster of standing waves.

At first it was fun and I thought we were making some great speeds until Dean reported that he just hit 5.9 mph surfing down a wave. We were barely moving and we had miles to go. Then the crap hit the fan when Abe (in his sea kayak) broached on a 5 footer and got rolled over. He was out of his boat and trying to get back in like it was a surfski (not going to happen). After a couple of missed tries in big water, Dean finally came alongside his boat so that he could stablize it long enough to get Abe back aboard. We then sat in the dead center of the channel because we didn't know which way to go: back to Portage or over to Lummi. I figured that if we went back to Portage, we would have called it a day (a bad day at that). However, Abe shot over to the Lummi side to dump out the water in his cockpit, with the 3 of us in tow. We were wet and cold but I don't think there was enough money to pay Abe to cross that channel once more so we voted to continue our trip around the island. It did not get better after this.

Going around the top of Lummi was the only calm water we were to see during most of this trip. We had planned on riding the ebb current down the west side but our delay in the channel and some poor timing placed us on the west side in the rain with 15 mph headwinds and the current against us. This was just nasty. It took forever to get to Lummi Rocks and we had to pass them up in favor of landing on Lummi Island instead in order to get out of the wind. Skirting the shoreline of Lummi proved to be faster than being out in the open so we were once again making some headway. We finally came around Carter Point and actually got some good rides with some westerly swells that were being sent throught the pass between Eliza and Lummi.

We then stopped on the north-eastern tip of Eliza for one last pee break before doing the last crossing. We were all so cold by now that nobody could find their penises so we just drank more fluids and took off into a 15+ mph SE wind for Fairhaven. If you have ever crossed from Eliza to the mainland, you'll know that the southeast wind is the worst wind to do this in. This was just a rude ending to an already tortuous trip. We finally ended up aiming for Govornor's point because the 2-4 foot waves were steep and we were too tired to take them on the side for that 5+ mile crossing. Dean headed off in his own direction while Mike, Abe, and I headed to Govornor's to get to calmer waters before turning north to go home. The last 3 miles of our trip was the best with nice rollers from the SE driving us back home. You could paddle to catch one and then rest as you rode the front of a wave for a good distance. Our total distance was 32 miles and we had to paddle 29 miles before we got the rides we wanted.
LG