Mothership Meanderings: The Perception of ‘Safety’

April-May 2005

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
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by Alan Wilson

I want to tell you of an experience which is unremarkable except for the point it illustrates: that ‘safety’ is partly a matter of perception.

We had just spent a few days anchored in Pender Harbour on BC’s Sunshine Coast and it was time to be heading home. Pender Harbour is an amazing formation of sheltered bays which provide excellent anchorage for a great many boats, and we’d really enjoyed paddling its convoluted shoreline. But all good things must come to an end and it was time to head back across Georgia Strait to the Gulf Islands where we live.

However, we hadn’t counted on the wind coming up so quickly that morning. The weather forecast had been for light to moderate southeasterlies. We thought an early start would do, but clearly not.

As we rounded into Malaspina Strait, open to the fetch of Georgia Strait beyond, our bow started to rise and fall on the whitecapping swells rolling our way. Heading south along the windward side of Francis Peninsula which encloses Pender Harbour, we began taking a lot of spray on the wheelhouse windows.

We either had to turn back, which I never like doing, or put up with a pounding, and maybe worse. Scanning the chart, we realized our best option would be to pull into Bargain Bay on the south side of Francis Peninsula. Although open to this weather, the Bay looked to be narrow and elbowed, so that the inner portion would be quite protected.

I noticed that the chart showed two ominous crosses in the entry, marking rocks. In this weather, riding the swells, we’d have to steer carefully. In rough water, with tons of boat rising, falling and rolling, the wind moaning in the rigging, and a rocky lee shore with bursting waves, it’s an awesome and scary prospect to enter an unfamiliar bay.

A decent anchorage is a pretty specialized piece of geography, requiring enclosing landforms to provide wind and wave protection, waters shallow enough to set an anchor, a decent bottom to hold it, and a broad enough area to swing on the radius of your anchor line.

Pender Harbour is a marvel in all these ways and Bargain Bay is really just part of it, though separated from the Harbour proper, joined by a narrow channel crossed by a road bridge.

Rolling and slewing in the swells as we turned to port and began to take the full force of the southeast swell on our beam, we cut in behind Whitestone Island, which gave us some brief protection, then swung downwind with the building swell astern, into the mouth of the bay.

Downwind steering in a following sea can be challenging, as all boats have a tendency to slew around on the face of the waves, and can broach (be rolled broadside) if not corrected. Fortunately our sweet little double-ender handles such conditions beautifully, the seas lifting our stern, pushing, but not overpowering the steering.

Rapidly multiplying risk factors added to our sense of trepidation as we surged towards the rocks in the narrows—definitely an adrenaline rush. But then, magically, we were through. Laurie called out that her landmarks had passed astern and we were clear of the rocks. The breeze still blew, but the water was flattening out around us.

We putted quietly up towards the end of the bay and set our anchor. With a sigh of relief we shut down the engine and took deep breaths, admiring the shelter we had found. The turbulence of moments before was gone.

At that point, I noticed Laurie’s gaze fall longingly on the book she’d started the night before, so I offered to leave her to it and go off paddling on my own to explore our new surroundings.

As I dropped my kayak into the water, grabbed my gear and slipped into the cockpit she called out to me: Be careful. Of course, I replied, swivelling the round bottomed hull with a backstroke, my rudder cranked to the side. I had some fun on my mind.

It was actually a gorgeous morning, and despite the disappointment of not being able to cross the strait today, the conditions were ideal for some thrilling paddling.

I slipped past the rocky entry to the bay and smiled, thinking how carefree I felt in my little boat compared to all the stress only minutes before. Sure it was breezy, but kayaks are seaworthy and when the waves started breaking over my bow, it wasn’t fear that I felt. As I neared the little rocky islets just beyond the bay, my chest was filled with a pure, bounding joy as the bow of my boat rose and fell in miniature of the big boat earlier.

I stroked into the calmer shallows between the rocky islets and marvelled at how friendly such areas are to kayakers, yet how dangerous to boaters. I could even pull ashore, if needed, on any tiny stretch of sand. The number of pullouts for paddlers on the coast could be a hundred, perhaps a thousand to every one decent boat anchorage. But pulling out wasn’t my plan just then. I nosed out beyond the islets. Catching the breeze again in my face, I paused to feather my paddle, check my sprayskirt, and take a deep breath. Then I leaned slightly forward, choked up on the paddle, dug the blades deeply into the water, and steered determinedly out towards the cresting waves.

Paddling almost beam on the advancing waves, staying as loose as I could, bracing on wave faces, my little hull rose and fell as the swells passed under me. Reaching what I judged to be the mid-point, where the waves reached their max, I turned downwind, toward the mouth of the bay and began to surf in, foaming forwards, falling back down the backs of the waves, rising again, foaming ahead, bracing so as not to broach, falling back again, being hefted up, time and again. A whoop escaped my lips.

And I thought about the relativity of ‘safety’. Surfing in on the swells, I felt entirely safe. But if I capsized, there would be no one to rescue my sorry ass. A self- rescue in this sea would be difficult at best. Hmmmm.

While previously, steering the big boat through these rocky shallows, our anxiety had been running high, we’d really been quite safe. Now, in my kayak, though the rocks and reefs didn’t bother me, a capsize might be the end.

Somewhat chastened at the thought, I headed back into calmer waters and back to the boat, where I enticed Laurie to join me on a gentler explore, under the bridge and back into the complexities of Pender Harbour’s shallows.

© Story and photos by Alan Wilson