Hayley Shephard off to South Georgia

I said a difficult farewell to Hayley Shephard and Beth-Anne Masselink at Victoria International last Friday. Hayley is off to attempt a solo circumnavigation of South Georgia Island. Beth-Anne is her backup rescue kayaker who will launch from the support vessel and come to Hayley's aid should it be needed.

The circumnavigation of South Georgia is perhaps the most difficult paddle in the world. Although it's not long by many expedition standards there are no days when you are not at extreme risk. It's 400 miles of deadly risk.

Saying good bye to someone who you may never see again is troubling. All sorts of conflicting thoughts run through your head. I took some comfort in knowing that well known and trusted west coast quide Beth-Anne Masselink would at least be near by.

The island lies at 54 15 S and 36 45 W. Look it up on a globe and you'll see how one could strike out sailing east from South Georgia and your first land fall would be the west shore of the island you left from. There would be nothing but wind waves and the odd iceberg on your journey. There is an old mariners saying "in the forties there is no law - in the fifties there is no god"

The follow link takes you to a 2009 Christmas Day photo of a sheltered port on the east shore. Nothing landed on Christmas Day.

http://www.sgisland.gs/index.php/Image:13dec09.jpg

The island has twice been circumnavigated by kayakers. Once by British paddlers Nigel Denis, Jeff Allen, Peter Bray and Israeli Hadas Feldman. Just prior to their trip the circumnavigation was completed by Kiwi's Graham Charles, Marcus Waters and Mark Jones.

Jeff Allen wrote: "Fur seals are very aggressive, as is the weather, very unpredictable, went from a force 4 to a force 8 in seconds today, took Pete by surprise and capsized him, water is freezing, after ten minutes hands and feet are freezing. Feet especially lost all feeling, my cockpit leaks and I am sat in 2" of freezing water most of the time.

He concluded that blog entry with a clear sign that he was becoming delusional. "All is well, spirits high, best wishes to everyone following the team."

Nigel Dennis speaking about the trip said, two would beat back the Fur Seals and Sea Lions with paddles while the others pitched tents or ate.

You can follow Hayley's trip at

http://hayleyshephard.blogspot.com/

Dennis, Allen and Bray are giants in the kayaking community. I know little about the Kiwi's. Hayley Shephard is a diminutive Kiwi ex pat living in Alert Bay BC who guides in Churchil Bay in the summer and sometimes works as a school teacher. Oh, and she's one very brave woman.

Force 10 from Victoria?

Click on the headline for a view of Haro Strait during the calm before the storm.


After a weak of laying about dealing with pig flue I had to get out. So I grabbed my binoculars and camera and headed out to do a little storm watching. Locked inside my car who could I inflict with H1N1 except the occasional car jacker.

Down along the shore front I found a Gale blowing. With nothing else to do I followed the shore up past Willows Beach, around to Cattle Point with a quick stop at Cadboro Bay.



My real destination was 10 Mile Point, Cadboro Point and of course Baynes Channel. Along the short drive I worked up mind exercises figuring out how and where to launch, what heading to paddle, how the southeaster would surf the boat and where to pull out.



I have a close friend who once while standing on a beach looking out at a much smaller sea turned to me and said, "I have to get out and practice in that stuff more." I replied. You don't have to get out and do anything. If you were standing here alone would you launch? "No, I wouldn't," he replied. Well if I came along and asked you to launch would you? "No properly not."

There, you see that's good judgement and that's all you ever need to practice. Lets go for coffee.

Alas I was too afraid to walk into a coffee house coughing and sneezing pig virus so instead I slipped into Cadboro Bay and jogged over to see if any yachts had slipped there anchors and blown ashore. One came ashore last week and the thieving wreckers had pulled all the electronics out of it before the owner could secure it.

Sadly there is an small ugly undercurrent to gentile Victoria, composed of people with no morals and clearly no respect for the law. Luckily, at least when I stopped by no boats where on the beach.

Back in the car I made a quick trip to the view point on Prevost Hill and snapped a quick shot of 10 Mile Point 200 metres below.
I was estimating the wind was blowing a steady 40 knots and the sea on the Beaufort scale to be Force 7. But it's hard to estimate such things from the pan of a kayak let alone the seat of a car.

After a brief stop at Cadboro Point and 10 Mile Point headland where I shot the video I headed home. I put some soup on and as I was uploading the photos I noticed the trees were really whipping around. the wind was picking up At 7:30 PM I checked the ocean buoy reports: Kelp Reef in Haro Strait SSE 48-63 knots, Discovery Island SSE 45 gusts 56 Weather forecast Storm Warning Winds SE 48-63. That's Force 10. I made coffee.

BUSTED!

It has been fine fall kayaking here in the Victoria area. Last Wednesday we managed to find standing waves in Baynes Channel right off the reef at the end of 10 Mile Point.


With a fast ebb coming around the head land slamming into a steady 10 knot wind the waves were stacking up into three footers. As usual most of the waves failed to line out which made surfing difficult. Nevertheless Denis, Mike and I managed to get in some good rides.

My advice to anyone entering this tidal race is to do so from the top of the race and slide into the leading wave backward. On this day we slipped by the reef buoy and attempted to enter from the bottom side.

We'd paddled out from Cadboro Bay and as we approached I stopped to switch my ball cap for a neoprene cap. You know the type that holds the cold water close to your head ensuring the freezing water gets deep into your ear canals. Who thinks these things up?

As we approached I thought to call out to my companions to slip through the inshore channel in front of the Williams/Green's house (it's made of glass and brass). Once through the channel we could stay inshore then swing out to drop into the race. For some odd reason I didn't, I guess I secretly wanted to see what would happen.

I was first to enter and the fast ebb quickly sent me too low and past the first wave line. I was in the chaos where surfing becomes secondary to just staying up right. I fought my way out with a major forward stroke effort that foreshadowed the next 20 minutes.

Crawling ever so slowly out against the ebb we finally reached the point were we could surf. Unfortunately I found us a little to close together for comfort and let some good waves go by to avoid potentially coming together. But everyone got in some great rides. I had my bow toggle drumming a tattoo, while Mike and Denis both buried their foredecks.

Eventually we agreed to paddle straight though the race to come out the other side. I took off for one more surf ride with the intent of paddling up above the race to get the maximum ride. This proved impossible as I couldn't make any headway. In fact all I was doing was maintaining position.

When ever I stopped paddling to look around for my companions I would lose any forward headway I had managed to eke out.

The last look about turned up one paddler short. Quickly I scanned 360 but could still see only one other kayaker. I called out where's Mike and set up a ferry glide angle to take me over to the reef to calm waters to have a better look. denis joined me and we soon spotted Mike flying through the race. For moments three quarters of his boat would be out of the water as he exploded through a stack. The black Tahe Greenlander looked beautiful in full flight.

From south of the race we set up a ferry glide over to Strong Tide Islet then clawed our way through the north cut into the lagoon and slipped down to the sluice were we played breaking in and out of the current rip.

At days end I did a quick roll, dragged the boat up reloaded my kit and came home to begin a week long battle against what appears to be the N1H1 virus. So much fun followed by so much misery. The photo is a snap of Hans Heupink's Anas Acuta after a hard surfing day in Holland.

Shephard and the Albatross

The following was written back in July. I've been reluctant to publish it because I consider the trip that is being planned to be extremely dangerous. Is it wise? I do not know, but it'll take guts, knowledge and perhaps good fortune to complete. It scares me just thinking about it.

Hayley Shephard is trying to raise awareness of the plight of the Albatross by solo paddling around South Georgia this coming February. She's an experienced kayak guide who works in the Arctic and on South Georgia Island.

This has never been done before indeed the island has been circumnavigated by kayaks only twice; both of those expeditions consisted of three kayakers. To date Hayley has lined up a publisher for a book, a film editor for a documentary and three magazines to publish accounts her her efforts.

Hayley is raising funds that will go to the Save the Albatross Campaign. "www.savethealbatross.net"

However Hayley is in desperate need of sponsorship funds. The British Government which governs South Georgia has very strict regulations regarding access to the area. Hayley has been in contact with the Royal Geographic Society and has made an application for support.

If you want to help here's the link to her project site. "www.kayakingtosavealbatross.com"

In this day an age many strike out on adventures, that seem only to full fill the persons need for self aggrandizement, it is especially gratifying to see that there are those who will undertake such adventures not solely for there own self fulfillment but for the advancement of important causes.

Nigel Denis is one of three British paddlers to circumnavigate South Georgia. Recently I asked him what's the most critical aspects of a solo paddle around the island.

His response, "develop lots of strength," surprised me but when he explained I understood. He said strength is needed to cope with the high winds. Nigel estimated they paddled in winds between 25 and 45 knots 40% of the time.

Technical skills are secondary to brute strength. I was somewhat surprised to hear that. Nigel also warned about fur seals which like to attack kayaks. When Nigel's team landed they used their paddles to fend off the seals. Do not confuse fur seals with the relatively harmless harbour seal. Fur seals are aggressive.

But most importantly he says taking the time to wait out the weather is key. Freezing cold, high winds, no reasonable back up. Hayley's support vessel well seldom be close enough to provide emergency support.

The following is a quote from Jeff Allen's blog account of the 2005 trip around.

“Fur seals are very aggressive, as is the weather, very unpredictable, went from a force 4 to a force 8 in seconds today, took Pete by surprise and capsized him, water is freezing, after ten minutes hands and feet are freezing.

“The challenge to paddle around South Georgia has been considered by many to be the ultimate challenge to any sea kayaker, comparisons between it and K2 to the climbing world have been bandied about, but South Georgia is truly unique and stands alone in the challenges that it does present, it certainly didn’t disappoint us.

We had the best and the worst that mother nature had to offer, when the going was good we made as much progress as we could, forcing ourselves to extend the limits at times to which you would not normally consider reasonable, over and above the norm.

When the weather was really bad we had no option, paddling wasn’t possible. The hardest thing to judge were those gaps in-between, seeing a weather system form overhead and wind increase from a force 2/3 to a full force 9 in the space of minutes was at times very frightening, especially when you were half way across a five mile open crossing.

All of the usual safety nets kayakers back home take for granted, VHF, Coastguard, RNLI even mobile phones were none existent and we knew that down here we were on our own, a self contained unit having to work as a team and being able to trust collectively in the decision making process meant so much more when making daily goals.

Although we had to have a support vessel to satisfy the license, the only time we saw it was when the weather was sound, if things turned foul they needed to head for cover as much as we did, what a seventy foot yacht considers appropriate shelter is well removed from what a kayaker would consider to be appropriate.”

A yacht such as Pelagic Australis can always head for open water, for us we had to take exceptional care when undertaking crossings, always looking for changes in the clouds, looking at the surface of the sea and reading the flow of water becomes second nature, if it hadn’t we may well have suffered for the mistake and this could have been a different update today.”

Prior to speaking with Nigel I talked with Dr. Fred Roots, a Royal Geographic Society member and gold medalist and an a renowned Antarctic and Arctic Scientist.

He was very cautious which is not surprising. One does not get to be an old Antarctic hand without paying close attention to due diligence. His first concern was with rescue.

In the past when Antarctic adventurers have messed up or been overwhelmed by the environment the only possible response to the Mayday would come from a scientific research project that might have taken years to put together. With limited resources the scientist would be expected to respond. This could mean the end of the research project. Years of work ruined by some adventurer.

Bitterness or resentment in the scientific community is understandable. By and large these pioneering scientist are hard men and women. Their projects in the 1950's and 60's where entirely self reliant. There was no safety net. When Dr. Roots geological partner had to have an eye removed after a shard of rock pieced it, the surgical tools where fashioned from a dinner knife and fork. The operation was done without either a loco or general antithesis.

The instruction were provided via Morse code from a surgeon in London. Think about it. Instructions for eye surgery locked in a series of dots and dashes.

While doing his geological survey Dr. Roots traveled solo via dog sled across the frozen ice , going unsupported from food cache to food cache for over 200 days. He had a compass.

Today The Royal Geographical Society will not allow people to undertake such adventures without means of rescue. She's had to charter a boat. But even that may not be sufficient.

There will be places on the west coast where the boat will not be any closer then three days travel. If disaster befalls her the reality is the rescue may in fact be a recovery.

Regarding the plight of the Albatross Dr. Roots pointed out that while it's an honorable endeavour that Hayley is undertaking. It may be fruitless. He explained that long line fishing practices around South Georgia have already been modified in attempts to ensure Albatrosses are not caught.

Long line fishermen, around South Georgia, to avoid catching these magnificent birds are now setting their lines at night or inboard so that the bait sinks before the Albatross can drop down and take the baited hooks. The save the Albatross project is trying to get all the worlds long line fishermen to do the same.

How easy is it going to be to get a long line fisherman from Port Hardy to voluntarily change the way they fish? Fishermen cannot even agree on a plan to save the salmon fishery.

But as Dr. Roots explains even if the entire world's long line fishing industry adopts these practices the Albatross will likely disappear. Victimized by humans rapacious harvesting of the sea. They'll starve to death. The future seems bleak for the Albatross.

All these factors add up to perhaps one of the most dangerous expeditions to date. Anyway you look at this it cannot be sugar coated. The endeavour is frightening and the goal maybe fruitless, but I hope she's successful.

Lighthouse escape the Bean Counters - For Now

This was a truly stupid move. The amount of money that would be saved by shutting down the manned lighthouses on the west coast did not amount to a hill of beans when compared to the one life that may be saved by anyone of these lighthouse keepers. Yes that's one life because that one life might be your son or daughters.

Would any of us cancel the insurance on our cars to save money. Of course not. The Feds could raise taxes to pay for essential services except that's not what our government does. They take services away to make small minded people happy.

Decisions like this are driven by narrow minded individuals who only want to pay for the services they think they use. You know the type, "I don't have kids in school, so why should I pay school board taxes." Because Canada will become a nation of hamburger flippers if we don't educate the next generation. Hamburger flippers make $12 per year, we'd need 200 zillion of them to match current federal and provincial government revenues. You do the math. On the other hand CEO's apparently make a zillion a year each and are the product of good education systems add a large dollop of greed and you only need three to match government incomes.

I know, "lets cut taxes to the point where we pay nothing for nothing. All my money will be mine, mine mine. I won't have to share it out for dumb things like paved roads, utilities, health care or parks or any other nutty thing that makes a group of people a community, a village, a city, a province or even in this case Canada.

Norway or Denmark, one of those Scandahovian, countries has the highest taxes in the world. What a bunch of saps. So what if they have the highest standard of living in the world. I bet they'd all like to move here where they could get nothing for nothing from the government while all the time working in Norwegian fish farms on our the west coast at $10 per hour. Did I mention those Norwegian corporations cannot operate fish farms in Norway. Apparently it's not good for the Norwegian environment.

Tomorrows garbage day. Ideas like shutting down manned lighthouse should be thrown out with the trash. My garbage is picked up by municipal workers and for my money it's a great service that's paid for out of my municipal taxes. Keep manned light house keepers. If you have to cut back fire MP Gary Lunn. It'd be a sacrifice. I mean anyone could have dropped the isotope ball in Chalk River. Nuclear plants, neutrons, isotopes it's all rocket science to a real estate lawyer.

But, take away Gary and a couple of invisible back bencher's and suddenly there's enough money to pay for manned lighthouses.

Just wait. This stupid plan will come back.

House Sitting

Last week found me house sitting in North Saanich - only five minutes from work. I was able to bike into work in under 15 minutes. (Just try making a five minute ride in the dark)

I'd put the cat out and strike off just before the sun came up. By 12:45 pm was back to water and feed the cat. Next came a nice layback in the hammock under the shade trees with a bucket of cool ones and some reading to finish off the hottest part of the day.

Then a short paddle on Sannich Inlet and back for an early evening super followed by just laying back to watch the sun set over the inlet. What a great location.

It was so restful I found lots of time to compose my departing note to the home owners. The text follows.

I fixed the water heater. Some Tom came by and I'd like one of the kittens. I changed the language preference on your computer to Dutch and bookmarked lots of interesting adult sites.

Drank all your beer but could not find the broom. I wanted to use it to get the ladies thong off the ceiling fan. No matter how fast I ran the fan it just would not come down. Very odd.

I took your new Explorer out for a paddle. I'm not sure if gel coat will fix the hole. Thanks for letting me read the Ocean Paddler Magazines. I cut a few articles out to share with my SISKA friends. What's wrong with your oven?

I answered the phone Wednesday night and you've won the Nigerian lottery. It took a while for me to find your bank account info, but the guy on the line was real patient, especially when I fibbed and told him I was a senior. That gets sympathy every time. The money will be in your account on Monday - it's $4.2 million. Man are you one lucky guy. Would you consider a small gratuity. One percent would be sweet.

Victoria Kayaker

PS. I couldn't remember if you said I could smoke in the house or not. So I kept it down to just a couple of cigars in the evening. Oh yea, you can hardly see the beer stain or cigar burn on the carpet. I'm sure if you don't point them out no one will never know.

Tahe Marine Update

Ocean River Sports had two Marine kayaks on hand at the MEC Paddlefest at Gyro Beach in Victoria. The Tahe Marine was purchased by Mike Jackson. I got to paddle the boat first at the MEC show then again after Mike had bought it. Click on the title to link to ORS.

There was a second slightly different version the Tahe at the MEC show, but I know nothing about it. The good news is the dealer for western Canada and the USA lives right here in Victoria. He's a semi retired gentleman from Oak Bay.

The other bit of good news is that a slightly larger version of the Tahe Marine is being designed and should be available in the fall. I believe it'll have the same hull but an enlarged deck to accommodate the longer legs and bigger feet of larger paddlers.

Check with Brian Henry about what kayaks he has in stock. As this is such a specialty boat I cannot see him or any retailer bringing in a large number of them.

Victoria Kayaker