I went out yesterday with my main diving buddy, who is also my housemate and a good friend of mine for over 10 years. We intended to do some urchin culling for the kelp restoration program that's going on at Tanker's Reef in Monterey. He has not yet taken the training course, so we planned to dive near the grey buoy at the NE corner of the site, where untrained divers are welcome to cull urchins. Since the site is so far from shore, we decided to take my sit-on-top kayaks out there. Which was perhaps a questionable idea, since we were both a little rusty on them, and since my buddy had not been diving at all in several months. It was a hot and sunny day for Monterey. We got a late start, but found a parking spot in the gravel lot near Monterey Bay Kayaks.
It took us about an hour to set up our scuba rigs, suit up, and schlep the kayaks and gear out to the waterline. We shoved off around 1:30pm. My buddy opted to wear his drysuit with thick undies that day, so he was kind of overheating by the time we hit the water. He hopped into the water for a spell, which helped to cool him down. It didn't seem like there was a ton of wind, but there was some steadily-increasing chop. We paddled out about a mile, and moored the bow of my boat the buoy, and the bow of his to the stern of mine. It took me awhile to get the boats moored correctly, and during this time, the chop had picked up considerably. Between the overheating, the stress of it all, probably some motion sickness, and just working too hard, my buddy lost his lunch. He didn't look so good, but we decided to push on.
We began donning our gear. As my buddy went to put on his second fin, a good-sized wave came in, he lost his balance and flipped his kayak, dropping his negative fin. He duck-dived for it and managed to grab hold of it. I had my back to him so I didn't immediately notice, until he called for help. I donned my fins and mask, and then went over to lend him a hand. Ends up that the large gear hatch wasn't secured shut all that well, or maybe not at all, it was definitely open while the kayak was upside-down for awhile. We closed the hatch, flipped the boat back over, and for a moment it seemed like we were fine. My buddy had lost his mask, perhaps it was loose in the hatch, I'm not sure. But he had brought a backup mask along, so we decided to go ahead and move forward with the plan to dive, and began once again to don scuba gear.
He climbed back onto the boat, but soon began to overheat, so pulled off the upper part of his drysuit and the top of the 2-piece undies, which was already drenched -- I thought with water, but in hindsight, he hadn't yet flooded the suit, so it was probably sweat. The boat had taken on a lot of water, which made it difficult to remain balanced, so shortly after that, it flipped again. That caused his drysuit to entirely flood with water. I paddled over to steady the boat while he climbed back on top, I could tell from the look in his eyes that the day had just gone from kind of a bummer, to seriously bad and possibly dangerous. We decided to call it a day
Between the water inside the kayak and the water in his suit, it was utterly impossible to get back to a steady state, so we sat and breathed for a moment, and tried to think of what to do. He had the idea for us to switch boats, and I agreed that it would improve the situation. We also had the idea to remove his drysuit, but I was really afraid of the scenario where he would be halfway through doffing the suit, and at that moment lose his balance, with his legs too compromised to swim effectively. So we decided to first get him onto my boat, then deal with the drysuit afterward.
We figured one or both boats would capsize again, and we wanted to make sure he would be OK, even with his completely flooded drysuit. So I hopped off my kayak to steady it for him, and we agreed that if either vessel flipped again, we wouldn't worry about that, and would just focus on keeping his body afloat. He tried to get onto my boat and, as predicted, capsized his kayak once again, but mine stayed up. With his hand on my boat he was able to just relax for awhile and catch his breath. Since we able to kind of relax here, and he was floating, we decided to remove his boots and his suit while in the water. It was kinda hard to get decent leverage, but we were able to pull it off.
Once he was no longer wearing a giant bag of water, getting onto the not-flooded boat was a piece of cake. So we stuffed his drysuit into the hatch of the not-flooded boat, and turned our attention back to the flooded one. With my wetsuit peeled halfway off and no lead, I was super buoyant, floating at chest-level, so it was easy to work with my hands, but my chest kept getting scratched by the serrated kelp. I tried two or three times to get on top of it, but it was too unstable and heavy. My buddy offered to take the scuba rig and put it near his lap -- now that he was in a good place, that was actually a really good idea. So I removed it from the flooded boat, and we were able to grunt it onto the good boat without capsizing it. He didn't have a great way to secure it to the boat, but it was sorta balanced on there between his legs. And with the wing full, we'd be able to easily retrieve it if it got loose.
I figured it would be a lot easier to get back onto the flooded kayak now that it was 40 or 50 pounds lighter, but it was still damn near impossible. I tried it a three times times, and then gave up. I noticed that his weight belt was still secured to the boat by a boltsnap and a bungee, but the belt was in the water. No wonder the boat was so unstable, there was a 16 pound anchor attached to the worst possible place for it to be! So we moved the belt to the not-flooded kayak. Still, I was completely unable to get back ontop of the flooded boat. Between the water inside and the waves rolling through, it just kept on capsizing every time I tried to get on top and seated correctly.
We caught our breaths, and tried to think of what to do. I heard an ambulance or maybe a fire truck going by somewhere on shore, and I joked that maybe they were coming for us. My buddy saw a couple of pelicans hanging out, and joked that maybe they could smell our fear, and were waiting for us to become a meal. We sat there for a few minutes, and came up with a bunch of crappy, unworkable ideas, before a plausible one came to his mind: we could lash the boats together, and he could tow the flooded boat back to shore, while I donned some fins and kicked back in that way. It would suck, but it would work, eventually.
Since my fins were inside the good kayak, buried under his drysuit, we decided that I would wear his fins. So I opened the flooded boat's hatch to grab them. I took a peek inside, and when I saw how much fricking water was in there, my heart sank a little. The water was about 6 inches high, maybe a third or a half the volume of the hull. There was at least 20, perhaps 50 gallons. But at least I got his fins donned, and the hatch secured. I had seen his boots floating around in there, and a lightbulb went off in my head. I re-opened the hatch, and started to use one of his boots to bail water out of the hull. They were squishy neoprene wetsuit-style booties, so not the most effective for bailing, but each scoop did bring some water out, and while wearing the fins, I was plenty stable.
I settled into the work, and committed myself to keep bailing until there was less than an inch of water. My buddy saw what I was doing, and had the genius idea to use a water bottle instead. He was so obviously right that I laughed out loud, the fact that my first thought was to use a goddamned floppy shoe instead, was a real face-palm moment. So he handed me a 1-liter disposable water bottle, and I used my EMT shears to cut the top off of it. I began bailing the water out much more effectively, and kept going for a long time. I'm not sure how long, but I had to switch arms a couple of times, so it was definitely a good while. Once it got to the point where I needed to tip the kayak to one side to get a good scoop's worth, I figured the boat would finally, finally be stable enough to get back on easily, and it was. Yes!
We paddled on for a bit before realizing that my boat was now almost entirely empty, while his boat had 2 entire scuba rigs, both our weight belts, and whatever water his drysuit had brought along with it. So we decided to move the one scuba rig from between his legs back to the tank well in the previously-flooded boat. I steadied the two kayaks while he pushed it into place, we were both surprised that he was able to do it without capsizing either boat. I boltsnapped it to the boat, and we headed for shore. Now that we both had reasonably good setups again, the paddling was dramatically easier, even through 2 foot high chop going diagonal to us, and heading into the wind.
We made it back to shore with no more problems, slowly hauled all of our gear back into the truck, and headed home around 5:30. So we were out there for about 3.5 hours, 3 of which were fighting one problem after the next, while trying to recover from catastrophic failure. After we got home, cleaned and put away the gear, we called in some Thai food, and discussed the day's many issues over dinner. Here's a non-exhaustive list of lessons we came up with:
[post is too long, continuing below]
It took us about an hour to set up our scuba rigs, suit up, and schlep the kayaks and gear out to the waterline. We shoved off around 1:30pm. My buddy opted to wear his drysuit with thick undies that day, so he was kind of overheating by the time we hit the water. He hopped into the water for a spell, which helped to cool him down. It didn't seem like there was a ton of wind, but there was some steadily-increasing chop. We paddled out about a mile, and moored the bow of my boat the buoy, and the bow of his to the stern of mine. It took me awhile to get the boats moored correctly, and during this time, the chop had picked up considerably. Between the overheating, the stress of it all, probably some motion sickness, and just working too hard, my buddy lost his lunch. He didn't look so good, but we decided to push on.
We began donning our gear. As my buddy went to put on his second fin, a good-sized wave came in, he lost his balance and flipped his kayak, dropping his negative fin. He duck-dived for it and managed to grab hold of it. I had my back to him so I didn't immediately notice, until he called for help. I donned my fins and mask, and then went over to lend him a hand. Ends up that the large gear hatch wasn't secured shut all that well, or maybe not at all, it was definitely open while the kayak was upside-down for awhile. We closed the hatch, flipped the boat back over, and for a moment it seemed like we were fine. My buddy had lost his mask, perhaps it was loose in the hatch, I'm not sure. But he had brought a backup mask along, so we decided to go ahead and move forward with the plan to dive, and began once again to don scuba gear.
He climbed back onto the boat, but soon began to overheat, so pulled off the upper part of his drysuit and the top of the 2-piece undies, which was already drenched -- I thought with water, but in hindsight, he hadn't yet flooded the suit, so it was probably sweat. The boat had taken on a lot of water, which made it difficult to remain balanced, so shortly after that, it flipped again. That caused his drysuit to entirely flood with water. I paddled over to steady the boat while he climbed back on top, I could tell from the look in his eyes that the day had just gone from kind of a bummer, to seriously bad and possibly dangerous. We decided to call it a day
Between the water inside the kayak and the water in his suit, it was utterly impossible to get back to a steady state, so we sat and breathed for a moment, and tried to think of what to do. He had the idea for us to switch boats, and I agreed that it would improve the situation. We also had the idea to remove his drysuit, but I was really afraid of the scenario where he would be halfway through doffing the suit, and at that moment lose his balance, with his legs too compromised to swim effectively. So we decided to first get him onto my boat, then deal with the drysuit afterward.
We figured one or both boats would capsize again, and we wanted to make sure he would be OK, even with his completely flooded drysuit. So I hopped off my kayak to steady it for him, and we agreed that if either vessel flipped again, we wouldn't worry about that, and would just focus on keeping his body afloat. He tried to get onto my boat and, as predicted, capsized his kayak once again, but mine stayed up. With his hand on my boat he was able to just relax for awhile and catch his breath. Since we able to kind of relax here, and he was floating, we decided to remove his boots and his suit while in the water. It was kinda hard to get decent leverage, but we were able to pull it off.
Once he was no longer wearing a giant bag of water, getting onto the not-flooded boat was a piece of cake. So we stuffed his drysuit into the hatch of the not-flooded boat, and turned our attention back to the flooded one. With my wetsuit peeled halfway off and no lead, I was super buoyant, floating at chest-level, so it was easy to work with my hands, but my chest kept getting scratched by the serrated kelp. I tried two or three times to get on top of it, but it was too unstable and heavy. My buddy offered to take the scuba rig and put it near his lap -- now that he was in a good place, that was actually a really good idea. So I removed it from the flooded boat, and we were able to grunt it onto the good boat without capsizing it. He didn't have a great way to secure it to the boat, but it was sorta balanced on there between his legs. And with the wing full, we'd be able to easily retrieve it if it got loose.
I figured it would be a lot easier to get back onto the flooded kayak now that it was 40 or 50 pounds lighter, but it was still damn near impossible. I tried it a three times times, and then gave up. I noticed that his weight belt was still secured to the boat by a boltsnap and a bungee, but the belt was in the water. No wonder the boat was so unstable, there was a 16 pound anchor attached to the worst possible place for it to be! So we moved the belt to the not-flooded kayak. Still, I was completely unable to get back ontop of the flooded boat. Between the water inside and the waves rolling through, it just kept on capsizing every time I tried to get on top and seated correctly.
We caught our breaths, and tried to think of what to do. I heard an ambulance or maybe a fire truck going by somewhere on shore, and I joked that maybe they were coming for us. My buddy saw a couple of pelicans hanging out, and joked that maybe they could smell our fear, and were waiting for us to become a meal. We sat there for a few minutes, and came up with a bunch of crappy, unworkable ideas, before a plausible one came to his mind: we could lash the boats together, and he could tow the flooded boat back to shore, while I donned some fins and kicked back in that way. It would suck, but it would work, eventually.
Since my fins were inside the good kayak, buried under his drysuit, we decided that I would wear his fins. So I opened the flooded boat's hatch to grab them. I took a peek inside, and when I saw how much fricking water was in there, my heart sank a little. The water was about 6 inches high, maybe a third or a half the volume of the hull. There was at least 20, perhaps 50 gallons. But at least I got his fins donned, and the hatch secured. I had seen his boots floating around in there, and a lightbulb went off in my head. I re-opened the hatch, and started to use one of his boots to bail water out of the hull. They were squishy neoprene wetsuit-style booties, so not the most effective for bailing, but each scoop did bring some water out, and while wearing the fins, I was plenty stable.
I settled into the work, and committed myself to keep bailing until there was less than an inch of water. My buddy saw what I was doing, and had the genius idea to use a water bottle instead. He was so obviously right that I laughed out loud, the fact that my first thought was to use a goddamned floppy shoe instead, was a real face-palm moment. So he handed me a 1-liter disposable water bottle, and I used my EMT shears to cut the top off of it. I began bailing the water out much more effectively, and kept going for a long time. I'm not sure how long, but I had to switch arms a couple of times, so it was definitely a good while. Once it got to the point where I needed to tip the kayak to one side to get a good scoop's worth, I figured the boat would finally, finally be stable enough to get back on easily, and it was. Yes!
We paddled on for a bit before realizing that my boat was now almost entirely empty, while his boat had 2 entire scuba rigs, both our weight belts, and whatever water his drysuit had brought along with it. So we decided to move the one scuba rig from between his legs back to the tank well in the previously-flooded boat. I steadied the two kayaks while he pushed it into place, we were both surprised that he was able to do it without capsizing either boat. I boltsnapped it to the boat, and we headed for shore. Now that we both had reasonably good setups again, the paddling was dramatically easier, even through 2 foot high chop going diagonal to us, and heading into the wind.
We made it back to shore with no more problems, slowly hauled all of our gear back into the truck, and headed home around 5:30. So we were out there for about 3.5 hours, 3 of which were fighting one problem after the next, while trying to recover from catastrophic failure. After we got home, cleaned and put away the gear, we called in some Thai food, and discussed the day's many issues over dinner. Here's a non-exhaustive list of lessons we came up with:
[post is too long, continuing below]