Decisions, decisions, decisions …..
Keeping alive on a sea kayaking expedition like this in my mind is probably only about 10% paddling skills, but I reckon 90% decision making…. Maybe you’ll disagree but that’s kinda what I feel about kayaking north island right now…
sometimes me and james make the right calls, sometimes we don’t, sometimes we don’t know if it was right or wrong, we are often kicking ourselves for making the wrong calls, but always learning, maybe in 50years time I will have enough experience to always make the right decisions but for now we are still learning. For every right decision made we improve our understanding, for every wrong decision made we also learn.
Heres a couple of stories, not about exciting narly paddling days, but about the true crux of this expedition: an insight of a standard day pulling our hair out trying to make the right decision.
Story 1 – thinking things through on land
Story 2 – intuitive in the heat of the moment on the sea decision making
Story 1:
A few weeks back we were stuck by cape pallisser, right on the south eastern tip of the island, being battered by constant changing and unpredictable weathers, having being stuck in a terrible place with big swells battering rocky reefs, and gale force winds from each direction, we woke up on morning to see the swell was now manageable and the wind was light. The clouds were dark, mixed and all over the place, we had no idea what they were telling us about the weather! From our spot it was a 5km walk from any radio signal, our last forecast yesterday had told us a 40knot southerly was due to come todays evening. The forecasts have been unreliable and changing. A 50knot southerly forecast 2 days before never arrived. We had been kicking ourselves for missing gaps in the weather and not escaping this exposed beech when we had breaks. We had started to think maybe we had been whimps and have been playing things too safe. It seemed lots of time recently we’ve called a decision to stay and play safe, the e hadn’t come in like iit said it would! It was 6am in the morning. We were dressed in paddling gear, stood by the sea about to launch. It just started raining, A 15knot southerly wind had just formed. There was a huge line of black clouds as we looked south out to sea. It felt very ominous. Something felt wrong. We knew later the swell was going to get huge, 6 meters, and stay big for a while, meaning we might be stuck here unable to leave the rocky, reefy exposed beech, despite good paddling winds coming. We really really wanted to get off this beech. Everything was packed, we were dressed, ready to go. All we had to do was paddle 9km to get round cape Palliser, and then 5km down to get to a sheltered landing. We knew there was a chance there was a massive southerly going to blow any time soon…. We also knew maybe no big southerly coming, the forecasts had been so wrong recently. We also knew we would be kicking ourselves if we miss this gap and end up been stuck for 3 more days due to the massive swell. If we got round the cape to the next bay we would be in a place we could then leave from when the winds eased. We really wanted to just gap it and go, like really wanted to. But our instincts and a feeling in our gut was telling us no. Cape Palliser isn’t a friendly place to be. It would be a horrendous place to be in a 40knot southerly wind. Reefs a long detour out to sea, with messy confused water even in good conditions. These southerlies can come in a blink of an eye out here. We have seen and experienced the force and signs of the southerlies before. We knew it would be horrific it the southerly came in when we were on the sea …… but we knew we would regret it if not like we have the last times.
We decided not to get on. We both thought this was a force not to be reckoned with. The risks were too high.
We got unchanged and went on a walk to find some signal for weather update. As we walked the 15knot southerly wind comtinued to blow, it wasn’t strong yet, still really just a breeze. The sky was now black and visibility reduced to 200m. We were feeling super happy we had made the right decision, it definitely looked like a roaring southerly was building. We picked up some signal and got a local updated weather forecast, which said the morning would be windless and the 40knot southerly with big 6meter swell was coming late afternoon. A mixed forecast, not adding up to what we could see!? According to the forecast we still had time to run back and gap it! We discussed, we both knew if we didn’t get round the cape we would be swell bound with the 6meter swell for a few days.(6meters is huge! The surf where we were would be 20foot plus!!!! No chance!!!!) But it really didn’t feel right. It felt stupid gapping it like this with the weather looking as it did and the massive southerly storm forecast. Our instincts told us no. We gave up discussion, and decided to spend the day productively trying to stock some food which was now running very low. We spent a mission of a day walking 11km to a road, and somehow hitching 60km to the nearest shop! As the day went on the weather got nicer and nicer and nicer. It turned into a blue sky and not a breath of wind, as we hitched in the back of a strangers car we looked longingly out at a glass like sea. It was perfect for paddling. It was now 4pm and still a flat sea, no swell and no wind, total blue sky as well. We were feeling anooyed. We were kicking ourselves for our ‘stupid decision making’. As we were walking back to our tents a fisherman stopped and offered to give us a lift the last way back to our kayaks. Obviously we got chatting to him about our kayaking mission.
I love fishermen, especially new Zealand fisherman, they are hardy hardy people, but some of the most loveliest people I have met! They have an amazing intuitive knowledge about their local sea/winds unlike anyone else, built up from 40years real experience of learning the patterns/signs. I always ask the fisherman I meet on the sea what he reckons the weathers doing, they normally point at a tiny cloud formation somewhere, and explain exactly what the wind is gunna do … they are 99% of the time right! Amazing!!!
Anyway, back to the story ….
I kinda feared he would raise his eyebrows why we weren’t on the sea getting off this beech we were stuck on, on this perfect day. But he didn’t. He explained how annoyed all the fisherman have been at how unsettle the weather has been recently. He explained how every morning (just like us) him and all the other fishing boats in the nearby village have got ready for a days fishing, got boats down to the seas edge, and made a last minute decision not to go fishing for the day as they feared the wweather was changing. This made us feel a lot better. We both realized these fishermen, with probably 40years or more experience fishing on these local seas every day had made the same decisions we had based on their fisherman expert instincts, and they have speedy motors on their boats for quick escapes. I didn’t feel so stupid and ridiculous anymore. I felt happy we had made safe deicions. We got back to our tent, sat down with a cup of tea and looked out at a huge ominous black cloud in the south, exactly what this mornings cloud looked like. The wind was still light. 30 minutes later in an instant the weather suddenly changed. The black cloud was above us, torrential rain was hamering from the sky, the wind was roaring off the sea at about 40 knots, and the sea was white with whitecaps. Wow!! In ten monutes that had changed drastically!! We would not want to be rounding cape pallisser in that we said to each other laughing!!! We were annoyed we had wasted a needed paddle day, but we were now very happy we had the sense to played it safe for a reason……. If that wind had come in early whilst we were rounding the cape it would have been bad news.
3 months paddling together around the south island taught us heaps about the weather, swells, consequences of getting it wrongs, distances we could paddle in what conditions, what our limits were and much more…
We learnt our lessons through doing it, often we learnt lessons the hard/dangerous/glad we are still alive way.
When we listen to the forecast it spurts out things like: ‘20knots rising to 35knots, moderate swell becoming heavy, 2meter swell rising to 4meters, sea becoming rough’
2 years ago when we commenced our south island expedition, we had an understanding of what these terms meant, but hadn’t always had the frist hand physical experience in all these conditions to back it up.
We did learn quickly in the south island.
We quickly learnt 30knot + winds with big swell is terrifying. More knots becomes unmanageable. We learnt a 8m swell on a coastline littered with reefs is also terrifying. We learnt the serious dangers of instant roaring offshore winds. We learnt how unreliable the weather forecasts can be and quick to change. We learnt what it feels like to have made a bad decision and have no option but to land through monstor surf.
Now, all of these lessons about weather, swell, winds I already understood, and anybody I guess could learn and understand from probably picking up a simple book and reading.
But we have been unlucky enough to have now experienced a lot of these dangers first hand for ourselves in our kayaks. But on the other hand, I guess we were lucky enough to have survived, and now know never to make the same mistakes ….. I guess how else would we really know what these radio jargon terms FEEL like out there, we would always be thinking ‘what if … maybe it will be ok ??’
Anyway, through gaining experience on the south islands wild and unforgiving coast we’ve noticed on the north island we are able to translate these radio jargon numbers and words into a visual picture of what we will experience on the sea on the maps in front of us, much more successfully than on the south island.
I am glad of this.
The north island has been bombarded by horrendous weather over the last month, much more wild than we had in the south island. We are being told by everybody this is the worst summer they can ever remember …. And is standard winter storm weather!
I believe it is mostly through successful decision making rather than kayaking skill that we have got this far alive and intact!
STORY 2:
Getting heated, disagreements, and an ominous feeling appearing ….
Same place … oh yeah my favourite place in the world ….cape Palliser! It was new years eve and we had woke to a great windless day. Yesterdays forecast had told us gale force nor’westerlies were coming in afternoon (bad offshore winds!). We studied the map, made a plan to hug the shore and bay hop and we should be alright to get a decent distance done before the winds. We decided at this point looking at the map and picturing it, it would be stupid to round cape pallier into pallierbay, as we would be maybe 6km offshore with no landings. We know from horrendous experience the speed offshore winds come in, how they can easily be twice as fast as forecast. Importantly we have learnt how seriously dangerous it is to be on the sea in a kayak more than 100 meters of shore! Never again.
VHF was playing up today, couldn’t get a signal which made us uneasy knowing gale winds were coming. Anyway we found a lovely fisherman out at sea, paddled out to him, had a chat and he told us the forecast he heard this morning told us these nor’westers weren’t gunna hit till the morning and today was gunna be a cracker of a day!
I was excited, and keen to push on for a mega big day get as much distance as we could before we got storm bound … james was a little hesitant about the vauge fisghermans weather forecast, but agreed to paddling on, but still I could tell he was a bit uneasy …
We paddled on for another 6 good hours. The wind was light from varying directions, nothing seemed ominous, standard winds in a high pressure. We got to the last definite landing before a stretch of rocks and reefs to round cape Palliser. There was a beech and a river. It looked like a nice landing. James let me know he thought we should land. He had sensible reasons. His reasons being: gale force offshore winds are dangerous we know this they come in quick, theres no more definite landings for a long time, there is a river here, we need to be somewhere good for a few days storm bound. Sensible reasons. But I disagreed. I told him my view of wanting to push on. I also had reasons: the fisherman told us the weather is fine, here is very exposed and any sizeable southery swell is going to be bad for launching, if we push on anouther 3-4 hours we will be round the cape in a much better spot and why not the forecast is fine??
We disagreed for a while, getting a bit heated on the sea actually, and our reasons bartered back and forth, anyway this couldn’t happen forever, eventually I won the argument and james agreed to push on. We paddled on heads down for another hour and a half. We then found a small landable 10 meter break onto pebbles between the reefs/rocks, there was a massive beautiful waterfall cascading off the cliffs, and a large forest to shelter and camp in from the storms. It was the prefect place to camp and be stuck from storms…. Again, james piped up he wanted to land here. Again he told me a wealth of legitimate sensible reasons. Again, I disagreed with him. I was focussed on pushing on and getting round the cape as I knew in the long run it would be heaps better to be out the exposed swell, we would be stuck for much less longer in the long run if we pushed on.
We were both a bit tired, getting a bit snappy at each other now … we had another slightly more heated disagreement than before … I sometimes find the more you disagree the stronger your belief in your own argument point becomes. Interesting.
Anyway, again I argued stronger and pulled through the winner of this one. The winds were still light, as they had been all day light from varying directions. Heads down we kept paddling, now commited, we would be rounding the cape in an hour or so, going a way offshore ….
A small gust, probably only 3knots more than the random 10knot gusts we’d been getting all day, whipped in from a few varying angles. Only been completely tuned into the winds could you notice it was slightly stronger… an absolutely tiny puff of a white cloud had appeared on top of one mountain, again something you normally wouldn’t even see.
I started to have a weird, unexplainable ominous feeling …. Something was giving me a bad feeling …. In my head I decided we needed to land, against all my previous reasoning!
James was ahead of me head down paddling. I wanted to tell him. After getting into such a heated argument and sticking so solidly to my views I felt like a bit of an idiot changing my mindset. But I knew I needed to…and importatntly I knew we would just laugh about this later. I think the psychs call this cognitive dissonance or something!
‘James!’ I shouted over: ‘I think you were right and we should back paddle to that break and land! Don’t ask … I’m sorry … but ive changed my mind and lets just land back there!’
James raised his eyes … he then laughed : ‘oh my god fi!!!!! After all that!!!!! Ok cool lets land’
A calm cool response. we make a good team really, luckily we’ve been through so much together, we can disagree and shout at each other in the heat, I think that’s probably natural for any pair on a stressful long term expedition! but weve learnt to understand it means nothing personal, cool down and laugh about it quickly!
Back we paddled, a relatively easy landing through some medium dumping surf and we were on land. We carried our boats up, had a quick swim in the river, made a cup of tea and sat down. As we sat down a huge gust of northwesterly wind, about 50knots or more whipped off the mountains. Huge body sized pieces of dried hardened kelp were spirally around the beech in mini tornadoes! It was wild!!! Gusts continued to blow everywhere, the forest looked like it was gunna fall down it was epic! Walking on te beach, it knowcked us off our feet as it gusted. The sea was now a mess of whitecaps …. Being more than 100meters offshore you would struggle to get back …. Being way offshore rounding the cape, you would have no chance.
Somehow, maybe from previous experience, I had maybe subconsciously recognized some tiny tell-tale signs of this wind and trusted a weird intuitive feeling. Luckily I had the sense to trust it and go against my strong reasoning. Luckily we are a good team I had no worry about changing my reasoning…..
Learining about stuff every day here in new Zealand …. But there is so much more to learn!!!!
