There are a lot of photos and videos from Skook out there. They always seem to have nice light, and everyone is happy and smiling. Often you see people in shorty drytops. With these images in mind, Dave Stentiford and I began planning a fall trip to Skook. After all, it was far too late in the season for any summer runs to be in, but still too early for the winter rains to have hit. Sure, it was near the end of October, but come on, Skook is in the ocean. And the ocean never gets all that cold. We surf year round here in Arcata. No problem.
As with most kayak trips, we called Ghetto Man. He was highly interested, and said that he would go with us. And as with most kayak trips, when it came time to leave, we called Ghetto Man again only to find that actually he would not be coming with us. Once again, Ghetto Man sucks.
The week that we planned to be there was a morning flood. Early morning peak, moving a little later each day, and getting a little weaker each day until it died out around thursday. We drove hard and arrived in British Canadia late at night. As we set up camp, we couldn't help but notice that the heavy rain that was falling on us seemed to be freezing to the ground. However, we thought nothing of it. We awoke long before dawn to find bits of ice frozen to the car. Optimistically, we figured these would probably melt off while we surfed, and we drove to the marina. Parking was not a problem half an hour before sunup.
As we had predicted, the ocean was warm (well... it wasn't frozen over). We had a great session, but when it came time to hike back to the car, we noticed that while the water might have been bearable, the air was about as warm as liquid nitrogen. (You know, liquid nitrogen. That's what they used to smash the evil terminator guy in Terminator 2.) On the morning of the second day, there was snow on the hilltops around us.
Our routine became this: we would get up after pretending to have slept through whatever alarm had been set the night before. We would hike to the boats, wishing that we'd thought to bring gloves to use when off the water. We would surf until midday, when the wave would die. We would hike back to camp and freeze our asses off until dark, when we would set an alarm and go huddle in our sleeping bags.
I call it a routine, but after three days we were too cold, and we went home early. Those of you who know me probably realize how extreme this is.
Oh, and the boating was a lot of fun. Mission accomplished.
rock on
-The Famous Leif Anderson
(All photos by Dave Stentiford)
