Today our club had Kerplunk Day witch is a day that beginners can come down and flip over their kayaks for the first time. This is with ACA Certified instructors and others around to assist. Once people get comfortable doing "wet exits" we move on to getting them back into the boat in at least 1 effective and consistent way. Some people start to learn to roll and others just watch. Today we had the opportunity to play in some surf about a 25 minute paddle away. We were told there were 3-4' waves off the tip of Tigertail Beach caused by the unusually strong ebbing tide and an onshore breeze.
We had a collection of paddlers with us in this group ranging from just starting to play in the waves to instructors and a few in between. 3 out of the 6of us could roll and all of us had an idea of how to self rescue and get assisted with 2 person rescues. After about 5 minutes of surfing we had two guys over with 3 of us capable of doing rescues but only me and another experienced at doing them in the surf. I rafted up with Sam and began to try and do a T rescue but quickly realized it was not going to happen in the surf we had because of the break. I did not have a tow rope on me as this was a impromptu surf session but was a lesson to be learned later.
I called Joseph over to tow us out of the surf zone but his tow was in his hatch and would not of been able to get it out in the waves so I called over Bill who had a quick tow on his vest. During the hooking up to tow, the waves were slamming the boats around while I tried to keep my boat and Sam's as locked up as possible. Originally Sam was on the lee side of the boat and I had to have him duck a few times to avoid the waves smashing his face with the boats. I then had him move to the bow and wrap himself around both boats. This kept us together much better and allowed Bill to begin to hook up again.
Once Bill was ready to tow, I had Sam keep on my bow and begin to use a contact tow method, pushing him as I paddled. Due to the current rushing out from the Big Marco River I could not paddle and make headway and could not use the waves to my advantage to surf down. Trying to let the waves move me I had Sam move to the top of my back deck and finally we started moving a little. Once we were in the shallows and about 50 feet from shore I made sure Sam was good to go and had him swim the rest with two guys on the beach to grab him.
I went back out to help keep Sam's boat in tow upright and finally got all of us to the beach. We quickly went through what we had done wrong, what we should have had with us and what we would have done differently. I realized this entire time I was filming as well so here is a video of the attempted rescue.
Notice just how long it took to do. Granted doing it over it would have gone faster but it's clear that anything in conditions is going to be a completely different ball game from the rescue practice we were doing on flat water half an hour previous to surfing. I lost Sam off the boat a couple times in the waves and had to have Joseph get him back to them once. Certainly a bit tiring but a lot of fun.
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JR
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