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High winds in Tahiti
ARTICLES, SPEECHES AND OTHER READING
CAVEMAN'S MEDIA
HIGH WINDS IN TAHITI
John "Caveman" Gray
WaveLength Paddling Magazine, February/March 1997 Issue
What's it like to paddle in high winds? Against 30 knots of head wind,
very little progress if any can be made. In 40 knot gusts, the wind picks up
great handfuls of spray. You have to keep the paddle as low as possible,
brace if needed and hope that it will all go away soon.
What's a hurricane like? Well, if you hang on to a horizontal bar in a 100
knot breeze you will be hanging nearly horizontal, probably 20 degrees to
the horizon (try it next time you go sky diving). But sitting up in a kayak,
holding a paddle and trying to keep the boat from blowing off the top of a
wave, that takes real skill and effort.
Let me tell you of the time I got caught in a wild tropical storm in Tahiti,
back in 1987.
It all started when I got a call from Kevin, a US Coast Guard career
officer, to say that he, his wife and sister-in-law wanted to do a trip in
Tahiti. That made four of us, two in a "single" and two with gear (including
two picnic coolers) in a double, all of us stout-hearted and experienced
seapersons.
On the plane en route to Tahiti, a young lady with a free voucher she won in
a rugby tournament grand prize draw joined us (but that's another story). I
did some quick calculations, and decided that with mild tropical weather,
this extra body was OK. She was petite and wouldn't take up much room in the
boat. Also, the paddle plan was all inside reef protected waters, except for
a gap of three miles at the extreme end of the Presquille, the farthest end
of Tahiti Island from Papeete.
All went well until we camped on a sand spit, or "motu", out on the edge of
the reef. For a week, it had been calm, but this night the increasing wind
kept blowing our tents over. At dawn, Kevin and I were both up, watching a
wall of black clouds swirling around like a scene from a Biblical movie. The
vertical face was several miles high, and stretched from horizon to horizon.
I've been through two hurricanes, but this was the most sharply delineated
ominous weather I've ever seen.
I asked Kevin what he thought. I was prepared to tie ourselves to the palms,
but he shook his head. "I think this little two foot island is going to be
underwater, and I really like these boats. Let's go for it."
Kayaks were packed in a flash, and off we went-Kevin and sister-in-law in
the "single" and his wife, the young woman and myself in the double with two
picnic coolers.
For the first mile, the downwind paddle was between Tahiti's cliffs and the
reef, then there was that three mile break, and another three miles inside
the reef. An extended coral reef perpendicular to the cliffs reached
straight out to sea at the end of this reef basin. I knew it would have
meatgrinder surf if we drove up upon it. There was a 400 meter channel
looking straight out to sea at the end of the reef. I had once negotiated
this channel in a 15 foot swell, with shifting breaks, and knew that if we
hit it right, the reef's break would be navigable because there wasn't a
significant swell this day.
We got about a mile before the storm caught us. Kevin suggested we turn into
the wind, which we tried for a few seconds, but the inflatables quickly blew
around. The wind was already about 40 knots, but the gusts before the storm
wall really picked up. Kevin claimed it was over 60 knots (and who am I to
doubt a 30 year Search & Rescue Coast Guard officer). I will never forget
those gusts. I still feel the only thing that saved us was our "overloaded"
inflatables, sitting low in the water. Before the rain hit, with the storm
pushing intense winds before it, the chop was incredible. Fortunately, that
blow lasted only a minute or two. Somehow, we didn't capsize. Then the wall
hit.
Fortunately, it was solid rain that literally blew the white caps off. It
may be difficult to imagine, but it was raining so hard, the seas were
smooth instead of the foam one would normally expect in gale situations.
Visibility was about 10 meters.
Even with rudders, we couldn't keep the kayaks headed downwind, so I decided
to go with the elements instead of fighting them. With a stroke that was
half-brace and half forward, we turned sideways and I drew an imaginary
heading for that far away channel, side-slipping all the way, trying to
listen for surf in the howling wind so we wouldn't run onto the fringing
reef.
Somewhere in open sea portion, Kevin got totally disoriented, somehow spun
around and started paddling back towards the island. I was horrified. Most
certainly, there was no take out on the rocky beaches. If I lost sight of
that boat in these conditions we would never reunite, so I turned about and
caught up with the Commander. It wasn't easy.
The conversation went something like "Kevin, where are you going?" The reply
was, "I don't know. You don't have Loran on these kayaks." "Well, just keep
the wind off your left shoulder and side-slip with me."
We ran down wind, carried just inside the next section of reef, and
maintained our course all the way to "One Chance" channel. This was the real
spooky time for me. Judgement was everything. Too far back from the reef and
we would be blown right onto the perpendicular coral reef-with storm surf.
To far forward and we blow over the fringing reef-onto storm surf.
We had 60 knot winds and rain like a shotgun blowing horizontal, but still
no white caps. Once, there was a bit of break and the visibility went to
about 200 meters for a few seconds. I saw six foot surf breaking outside the
fringing reef, and knew we were just about right to hit the channel exactly
where we wanted. I was really tense that last mile because I knew we had but
one chance.
All this time time, my young female passenger was bear-hugging one of the
picnic coolers, screaming that her spontaneous tropical vacation had turned
life-threatening, and we were all going to die. I couldn't argue.
We side-slipped through the channel just right-literally blind luck-and now
my challenge was to get us into the next channel and back inside the Basin.
There were no channels for at least another ten miles, and I didn't want to
stay outside the reef in unprotected seas.
We worked around the reef's head and into the next reef basin just as the
storm blew past. The winds dropped off into swirling yet manageable gusts.
The rain also dropped off, and we had the luxury of two kilometer
visibility. I could actually see the Presquille's cliffs. At that point,
everybody collapsed, and we just drifted in the relatively calm waters
inside the reef. The life-threatening drama was over, and we had to come
down from two hours of physical strain and mental concentration.
I'm not saying that every judgment I made was correct, but we were on the
edge, and we all survived. There was no way to avoid the storm. We were
three days from the last weather report, and after all, this is the tropics.
We didn't have radios-ten years ago they wouldn't have done much good
anyway. This storm came up overnight and in those pre-satellite days, radar
on that end of the island wouldn't have done much good anyway.
John "Caveman" Gray runs SeaCanoe Thailand and is Visiting Professor of
Ecotourism at Srinakarinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand.
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