Paul McHugh Home | North Coast Series | Why I Write | Bio
Photo:  The tile icon (above) is of my wife, Dawn Garcia, saying goodbye to me on the banks of the Winchuck River in Oregon on the morning of September 6, 2005. I’ve just plopped the hat I was wearing on top of her hat, and am about to jump in my kayak to launch the voyage.

Prologue  (first published here on this site) For The North Coast Series, an account of a 40-day, 400-mile sea kayak voyage from the Oregon border to San Francisco Bay, undertaken in the fall of 2005 for the San Francisco Chronicle, with accounts published both in the paper and online. by Paul McHugh The whole series can be found at: www.sfgate.com/northcoast

“Never turn your back on the sea.”

Lots of folks have heard this time-hallowed advice. Good lore for casual beachcombers and playful sand castle builders to keep in mind. And especially useful for those who like to fancy themselves perfectly safe, since they only wade out in the shallow wave wash, barely ankle-deep.

But a lightning strike can smite a bald mountain peak on a clear summer day. And a rogue wave – or a set or series of them - can suddenly pop up and deliver tremendous force to the seashore in one thunderous, powerful surge, sweeping all loose objects before it.

Anyone who saw a photo of startled, panicked, hopeless faces on people striving to flee the Indonesian tidal waves in the year 2004 should not forget it.

Certainly, I bear it in mind. But as regards that primary, marine maxim, I like to flip it over, and retain it in a mirror form: “Always keep your face to the sea.”

It’s been my modality ever since I was an ardent skin-diver, sailor, angler, growing up on the balmy waters of South Florida. And it’s remained my mental mode after I swapped that tropical, Atlantic bath for the cooler, more bracing  temps of the northern Pacific off California.

Here’s a personal experience that underscores why that’s important.

In April of 1992, I surfed in the late morning with a few friends at a location off Half Moon Bay, to the south of San Francisco. We began by trying to use the break at Mushroom Rock, just to the end of the visible part of an awash reef that shapes the notorious Maverick’s wave.

But no world-class swells lumped the surface of the ocean on that day. Barely any surfable waves appeared at all.

Mushroom Rock’s break, by the way, is nowhere near as formidable as the nearby  Maverick’s wave, even when there is a swell. Mushroom is a point break. It’s located further south and a bit inshore from the famed Maverick’s spot. As our morning wore on with few rides won, our crew noted some curls shaping up on Blackhand Reef, just to the south. So we paddled down there, and managed to take a couple of drops. We all rode surf kayaks of various makes. My boat was a Phoenix Arc squirt boat that I’d used in the surf zone for about four years.

After a long, eventless morning, my bored friends paddled away, heading back north to Pillar Point Harbor. However, I decided to remain out  bymyself and see if I could score at least one more ride.

Did I ever.

As I gazed out to sea, scanning the horizon line for any smooth hump of an incoming swell, I suddenly noticed a distant line of foam that stretched, north-to-south, across the entire horizon. But at first, I didn’t recognize that white stuff as tumbling sea foam. I thought it was a bank of fog, hovering offshore. Any sense that it seemed to be gaining in size as it rushed toward me I rationalized as some sort of optical illusion.

Yet after just a few seconds, I reluctantly gained a sobering realization. It was no illusion at all. I realized that I stared, google-eyed, at an impossibly long and tall, foamy comber. It was zooming right at me with the speed of a locomotive.

The phrase, “Oh shit,” would summarize my feelings at that moment quite nicely.

The question of how a wave that size could spring up on such a flat day was certainly relevant. But I had no time for it. I shoved it firmly aside for later consideration.

 In my many decades out on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, I’d never seen a phenomenon like this. Yet, immediately I knew what I should do:  get my skinny white ass the heck away from Blackhand Reef. However much power this monster had - and it seemed like quite a bunch - I knew most of it would unload in the shallower water over the reef. If I was on that spot at that time, I’d take that punch.

Maybe, a smart move would have been to paddle right at it, to joust with the beast in deep water on the ocean side of Blackhand. But I couldn’t bring myself to try it. In fact, I barely even entertained the thought.

Alternatively, I knew, inshore of the reef lay a buoy-marked channel of water that was also deeper, a commercial fishing boat route running northward toward Pillar Point Harbor. If I got knocked out of my kayak here, at least it would be a shorter swim to the beach. Also, I thought, maybe smacking into the reef would subtract at least some of the height and power from that incoming wave. So I pointed my bow at the channel, and began to stroke furiously, rotating my paddle shaft at a racer’s pace.

However, I felt like I was mired in one of those nightmares where you seek to run from some slavering demon but your feet start to slip, then keep slipping, on a Teflon floor. You gain zero traction, and seemingly make no headway.

 As I sought to move away from it, that giant wave gained on me at unbelievable speed. I kept snapping glances back over my shoulder, and saw it would soon sweep me up. An ocean surfer and sea cave explorer for more than a dozen years prior, I’d been swallowed up by many big waves before. Just none on this outsize scale.

 As I fled from it, trying to increase my time before impact, I consciously hyperventilated, seeking to charge my lungs and blood with as much oxygen as they could bear — figuring I’d need every drop of it, and that pretty darnn soon. In my final glance over my shoulder, I observed the wave hit the reef. In that instant, the wave transformed itself into an immense, roiling foam pile.

A heartbeat later, that hurtling mass churned all around me, scooping me into its maw. My boat was violently flung about in a series of random jolts. I countered with an array of frantic brace strokes, seeking to stay upright. Fortunately, I kept  the hull under me and remained in the cockpit - although my notions of “up” and “down” had gone fairly vague.

Since I stayed completely buried in foam, I had to keep my lips compressed. This wild wave ride was like tumbling into a fall as you ski in deep powder. In that kind of snow, try to breathe before you quit moving, and you’ll only choke on the cloud of billowing ice crystals that encompasses you. If I had tried to breathe in the wave, I would have only choked in the foam.

The wave reached the center of the boat channel. I could feel its chaotic grip slacken, felt the wave’s surface firm up once more below my hull. I cranked out a few forward strokes. My blade bit into solid water I blasted out of the foam pile into open air. I found myself shooting down a broad, tall, rideable face.

Finally, I could gasp in some breath. But I had some extremely pressing business. I knew I had to eject somehow, before this thing hit shallow water again. That would be at Miramar’s sloping beach, just ahead.

No time to worry about the move. Just do it. So I aimed straight down into the deep trough ahead of the wave, to build up maximum speed. Then I cranked the hardest bottom turn I could. I shot straight back up to pierce the roiling foam pile, and – luckily – plunged through it, and emerged onto the broad back side of the big wave.

There, I rocked, bobbed and panted, as the monster thundered onward to shore without me. Reflexively I looked back out to sea, scrutinizing the horizon. Nope, nothing else out there. I had been battling a true rogue wave, a rare singularity of some type. Wow.

But just in case something else happened to roll in, I remained in that deep water channel as I paddled all the way back to the harbor.

For a dozen years, I puzzled over that experience. It was only in 2004, as I engaged in extensive research for a planned sea kayak voyage down the Northern California coast, from the Oregon border to San Francisco Bay, that I began to suspect what that weird wave must have been. The phenomenon that had generated it.

I discovered that at 11:04 a.m. on Saturday, April 25, 1992, an earthquake of 7.1 Richter magnitude had struck the Triple Junction earthquake fault near Cape Mendocino. The sea floor there had buckled and lurched upward about a meter, seven miles or so off the coast. That created a “small” tsunami or tidal wave that had been measured in Crescent City 49 minutes later and at Point Reyes in 69 minutes, then subsequently been recorded even in Hawaii.

But, although that pulse had been recorded and measured, I had not heard any news of a tsunami visibly striking or doing damage anywhere along the Northern California coast, either back in 1992 when the ‘quake happened, or much later, during my 2004 research. The only thing I could think was that the unique bathymetry (ocean floor topography) that shapes the legendary Maverick’s wave and channels it onto the reef at Pillar Point had somehow captured this pulse and channeled it into Half Moon Bay in a way that allowed me to have my seconds-long adventure.

For me, the timing had been perfect.

Probably few other surfers had been out, floating about at a surf break with the proper angle to receive that pulse, or maybe none had been, for the plain and simple reason that there had been no other surf that day to attract them. Other than the tsunami, the ocean had remained pretty flat.

It had been a true rogue.

(It’s also possible, of course, that the same geologic forces releasing the temblor at Cape Mendocino had also caused a jolt at some other seaward fault.)

Keep your face to the sea.

Later, as I laid plans for my 2005, 400-mile, open ocean, sea kayak voyage down to the Golden Gate, this 1992 event became something to ponder. It wasn’t just the prospect of facing another tsunami – perhaps in a less fortunate location - generated either by the Triple Junction, or some other fault.

Any ‘quake, even a tiny shudder, could dislodge earth and boulders from a shoreline cliff and send them crashing down onto a beach camp. My friend John Lull, camped at a cove on the North Coast, had left his tent for a morning cup of coffee by the campfire, heard a noise, and turned to see a Volkswagen-sized rock bounce down to crush his tent, and the musical instrument he had stashed inside. (He keeps the flattened saxophone hanging on his living room wall now, as a kind of macabre souvenir.)

Research into the likelihood of tsunamis and ‘quakes gave me pause, but that’s all. Hell, there was also a chance of nibbles from great white sharks or bull elephant seals, injury in surf landings on remote beaches, hypothermia, or runaway dysentery with no medical facilities nearby (which had happened to me during a sea kayak expedition off the coast of Chile). You name it.

But it is in the nature of adventure to manage such risks as seem manageable, then wing all the rest. You hope to rise to any occasions that crop up. Assess, prepare and plan all you like. Sooner or later, you’ll have to say, I want to do this, so I’m going for it.

On the other side of the ledger, there was my long love affair with the wild zones of California’s North Coast. That had begun way back, in 1973, when I rode my motorcycle across the U.S. after graduating from Florida State, and eventually picked the West Coast as the place I wanted to live. That sense of attachment deepened when I moved to the town of Mendocino to launch my freelance writing career. In my work there, I emphasized themes of environmental awareness, resource issues, outdoor sports and public access. Naturally, the assignments took me into some fabulous places along the North Coast . Yet always, I was left wanting more. Better insight into the critters and their habitats, a better look at that mysterious cove around the point, a longer sojourn in one wilderness or another.

Signing on as the outdoors feature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle was a remarkable move in God’s chess game: I had found myself in the right place, at the right time, with the right background in 1985, when the paper launched its (then) new Outdoors Section.

And so, for the year 2005 and the 20th anniversary of my hiring, I decided to try to give both the newspaper, and myself something special: a series based on a sea kayak tour to San Francisco, exploring my beloved North Coast in depth and writing about it every step of the way. The Chronicle’s  new executives, Steve Proctor and Robert Rosenthal approved, and I was off to the races.

I tell you all this, to point out that adventure is not just about taking risks. In fact, to be meaningful, adventure must have worthy goals, such as exploration, discovery and appreciation of the wild world. The risk-taking aspect, as such, exists beside that point. Risk is something that must be embraced, then gotten through, purely to get you where you want to go.

Extreme risk-taking for its own sake, in my opinion, is mostly foolishness, posturing and bravado. Life is far too precious a gift to be gambled for some slight thrill, in and of itself.

That said, one other key aspect to ponder is that some risks that humans discover when they’re out in the wild, of necessity, spring from their own mistakes and  ignorance. I’ve often found that true in my case. So, besides discovery of the wild world, adventure promotes self-discovery.

I’m aware that my anecdote about riding the tsunami makes me sound rather skilled, possibly bold, and blah-blah-blah. Well, that’s just because my decision-making worked out on that particular occasion. Such skills as I had on tap were adequate to the situation. I assure one and all, it’s not invariably been so.

I think I’ll finish off this prologue with an anecdote where I don’t look quite so smooth. Believe me, I’ve got lots of rough episodes to choose from.

For instance, recently, in March of 2007, I met up with some friends at Davenport Landing, a surf break north of Santa Cruz. They were warming up for the Santa Cruz Kayak Surf Festival. This event has prospered at the famed Steamer Lane break for more than 20 years. It was a contest I had joined others in helping to launch and organize, “back in the day,” as they say. I’d been on the U.S. Team in 1988, and helped win kayak heats of an international competition in Ireland. But my competitive phase is well past me now – and I was fixing to amply prove it.

There was an eight-foot, short-period (not many seconds between the crests), westerly swell piling into the rocky coves at the north end of Davenport Landing. It was high tide, so those waves were breaking right against the cliffs. I picked out a few of the lower swells, to warm up. I made sure, as I charged the “rights” (a ride to the ride side, away from the folding peak), to exit off the wave before I got into trouble on the rocks.

After a few warm-ups, I dropped in deep on a larger size swell, bit my right rail into the face, and enjoyed a high-speed charge across the wave’s green face, roller-coastering up and down as I changed the angle of my cut. Then, as the crest began to steepen and feather, I popped over the top and glided down the back side. Piece of cake.

Please note: Out on the sea, the distance between a piece of cake and piece of caca is about one nanometer.

On my very next ride, I took off on a similar wave at approximately the same spot. But this wave was about a foot taller. And before I could develop the speed to get ahead of the peak, it folded over right in front of me. Uh-oh.  As soon as that happened, the crest to the left of it and above me folded over as well, smashing down into my face, body and the boat. I instantly leaned into it on a brace, and just like that, instead of zooming along on a right cut, I was back-surfing (stern first) on a “left.”

Not good. Now, instead of riding away from the cliffs, I was hurtling straight for them – and heading for a part of the cove where every new, incoming wave would try to shove me further into the rocks.

A board surfer enjoys a distinct advantage in a situation like this. He can dive into the wave, his body acts like a sea anchor and stops, his elastic leash stretches and snaps the board back to him, he can climb on and paddle out, and la-de-dah.

A kayak surfer, on the other hand, has no way to perform a similar trick. He remains buoyant, and if gripped by a big, roiling foam pile, basically gets scooted along by it. He has three options. He can attempt to straighten his boat out and take the drop afresh, then do a bottom turn and power out over the crest (as I did with the tsunami) or steer his way off the wave or at least away from the worst rocks. He can roll over and hope the drag of his body underwater pulls the kayak over the top and off the wave. Or he can scull and lever with his paddle, pulling it higher on the foam pile until he can break free of it.

Which option is best, largely depends on the shape and character of that particular wave.

In this case, since the wave had no green face to accelerate down, I opted to try to jack myself further up its foam pile. I succeeded pretty well, but those cliffs  still approached plenty fast. Finally, I was able to rise enough to pop loose and wash over the back, about 20 feet short of the vertical rock. Whew!

But in this turbulent zone, there was a bunch of backwash and reverberation waves ricocheting around every which-a-way, smacking into my boat from odd angles. I felt some unexpected force grip my back rail, threw a brace stroke too late, and flipped over. My situation still would not have been so dire, if I had been able to roll up immediately. (The Eskimo roll, a move that uses a sweep of the paddle and snap of the hips to right an overturned kayak, is an essential maneuver in expert kayaking.) But the first time I sought to roll, the reverberation waves tilted my boat in such a manner that the paddle dove underwater instead of sweeping across the surface, and I did not come up. Still holding my breath, I set up again for a roll, this time very much aware that I faced a deadline.

Waves come in sets. I was only 20 feet from the cliff. If another big wave swept in while I was upside down or otherwise unprepared, it could hurl me right into the rocks. That prospect made me nervous. Again, the roll did not work. Mad about that, and desperate not to go into the cliff, I decided to bail out. Yes, I’d be loose and swimming in a bad spot. But at least if the kayak was driven into the cliff, it could go without me.

My head broke the surface, I could see another big wave churning in, I tried to grab the boat and turn the bow toward the wave so I could have a hope of clinging to it and keeping it off the rocks. However, I was still gripping it by the cockpit rim when the wave hit, and I knew if I hung on while it was broadside, I would go with it. So I opened my hands and just let the boat go.

Then I turned to dive my body down toward the bottom, arching below the roiling pile of the next wave, then the next, and the next. Each time I popped back up to the surface for a fresh breath of air, I could hear a “bang” and “crunch” of the kayak bashing into the cliff behind me. Finally, the set subsided.

With lower waves now rinsing in, I could think about making some other move to extricate myself – and possibly the kayak – from this situation. I saw a lateral current shoving the boat along the base of the cliff, and swam over to it. What I did not see was any safe place where I could stabilize the boat, empty it out, climb in, and re-launch.

Then, I did. I spotted a small cave in the north end of the cliff, with a tiny triangle of sand forming its floor. Despite the air bags inside the hull, fore and aft, the kayak was still full of water, and now weighed hundreds of pounds. But I was able to wrestle it over to the cave and align it with the triangle of sand.

One measure I commonly take – and I’m the only kayak surfer I know who does this – is that I strap a small, emergency sea kayak pump into the cockpit of my boat. I don’t use it very often, but in a situation like this, it’s an indispensable tool. Since the boat was too heavy to tip over and drain that way, I began to pump it out.

But another big set of waves came in, filling the cave and sloshing over into the boat. I hung onto it as I, somewhat protected by my life jacket, wetsuit and helmet, bounced off the cave’s rocky walls. After that set subsided, I started over again from scratch, pumping it out.

After all this mild marine mayhem, my dives under the waves, my wrestle with the boat, I was feeling pretty pooped and awfully cold. Now, it looked like I faced a Sisyphean task, exerting a lot more energy to empty the kayak, only to see it refill on the next big set. Then I had to pump it out all over again. How many times was I willing to try this? I set my jaw and went at it.

I’m reminded of a famous saying of the mountaineer Warren Harding, a pioneer of big wall climbing in Yosemite. He was the one who labored all night with a star drill and hammer, setting bolts for the last blank section that would complete the Nose route on El Capitan. “I can’t do much,” Harding said, “but I can do it forever.”

For the third time, I got the boat empty. Then I looked to sea. Waves were still coming in, but they didn’t look very big just then. Finally, a low set. Hastily, I jumped in the cockpit, snapped the sprayskirt down, launched and began to paddle out. A roiling pile swept toward me, I paddled as hard as I could right for it, made it over the top, and then I was back outside, beyond the break.

The good news was, as bad of a beating as the kayak had gotten against the cliff, it still wasn’t leaking. This was a custom surf kayak that I designed in 2000, that had been built by Dick Wold of Wold Waveski Custom, and was “hella stout,” as they say. Later that afternoon, I would smear epoxy on a half-dozen shattered spots in the fiberglass.

But right then, I was good to go for a few more wave rides, and I took them… making sure I stayed well to the right this time!

So, there you have it. One marine episode full of pure surprise and drama, another episode that’s almost entirely a comedy of errors. But both underscore the power of the sea, and what it takes sometimes for an average human being to rise to the occasion. And neither of these events, nor any other thing, has ever kept me out of the water.

And it was with full awareness that vast forces are at play, and that things can and will go right and wrong on any voyage,  that I and two companions launched our boats at the Winchuck River in Oregon with the goal of paddling 400 miles down to San Francisco.

On that cool, overcast morning, at about 10 a.m. on September 6, 2005, we ran down the chute of the Winchuck River, and turned our faces to the sea.

See the series at: www.sfgate.com/northcoast