I'm back from the sea, again, Mom.

The air is a little cooler, and the swells a litle higher today. This makes entry and exit from the sea a more challenging tactical task. If you time it wrong on the way out, your nose gets battered by a mass of green and white water which then falls all over you. This leaves you wet and irritated.

If you time it wrong coming in, you can get picked up on the back of a swell, and loose all your steering traction, with the result that the natural tendency of the hull form to be pushed around results in you broaching and rolling. This ends up with you standing in the waist-deep shallows cursing and recovering your damn boat.

But neither of these happened today, Mom; I cut the surf going out at just the right angle and just the right moment to minimize the collisions, and was outside the surfline before I had to negotiate any high swells. It can be as little as a few yards between getting soaked and just riding a swell gracefully.

I've learned the trick coming in. You don't catch a wave. You time the swells moving in from behind you, and the 10-second large ones are the ones to notice. They lift you up a little higher than the rest, and the trick is to be going just slowly enough that they speed you without capturing you. Let the crash and die on the sands ahead of you, and as they do so, paddle like mad in behind them, letting their backwash lift you as you driver up the sand. That way you are safe ashore, having stepped lively out of the boat, before the next larger swell crashes in behind you.

Just in case you decide to go kayaking without me, Mom.


A