Paddling Alone & Dodging Death

Ego Meets Cattle Pass

18 August 2024

During my initial conversation with Calvin Croll he asked what my kayaking goals were and what I wanted to get help with. This was a bit of a tough question at first, but after giving it some thought I came up with the follow goals.

A Firm Grasp of Basic and Advanced Kayaking Paddling & Safety Skills

A Practicle Understand of Kayak Navigation

Experience & Competency in Dynamic Water

Specifically I thought this meant that at some point we were headed to Cattle Pass. So I was a bit surprise when Calvin proposed that our next session would be an excursion on the south end of Lopez Island with a separate launch and landing location. I was even more confused when he mentioned the morning meeting time since it seemed to put us at Cattle Pass near slack.

I need not have worries. The day before our scheduled session I learned a few more details. The plan was to depart from the county boat ramp at MacKaye Harbor and work our way north through Cattle Pass and then land at Otis Perkins Day park. We spent an hour, maybe a bit more, studying charts of the south end of Lopez Island and doing a risk assessment of our journey before loading up our kayaks and heading south.

The MacKaye Harbor boat ramp is a sweet location to launch kayaks and launching was quick and easy. I did a few practice skill tasks to show Calvin if I’d done my homework and then we each performed an assisted rescue before setting off. We paddled a leisurely pace west toward Charles Island with the thought taking the outside route around Long Island.

Our thoughts of going the outside route faded as a fog started building in the strait so we stayed inside and went in between Charles Island and Long Island. This was also the first opportunity to start “playing” in the eddy lines around the various rocks on the south end of Lopez Island. We continued northwest and took a break for lunch at the beach at Davis Bay.

After the pre trip planning, our leisurely pace and lunch break any fear I had of a boring Cattle Pass transit were quickly gone. With a maximum flood of 5.4 knots I was gonna get my Cattle Pass dynamic water experience.

So far in my young kayaking life, I’d only ever flipped my kayak maybe twice. And mostly from stupid things not from an unexpected event. This was seriously about to change. Our “playground” were the eddy lines around the a small island, more rock outcropping really, off the tip of Davis Point.

I had a theoretical understanding of eddy lines the concept of crossing them. And we’d practiced a time or two during my classes at the Kayak Academy. And more recently on the journey from MacKaye Harbor to Davis Point. But I seriously got my ass handed to me crossing eddy lines at Davis Point. Time and time again I miss judged the, or basically just didn’t, lean into the turn after crossing the eddy and was instantly flipped.