JohnHuth

Yesterday was windy on Nantucket Sound - 30 knots sustained with gusts up to 40 out of the SSW. Since this is my "home turf", I like to try out things in progressively snottier conditions to build up my skills. I usually stay close to home and practice.

What I found was interesting - the waves tend to shield the kayak from most of the wind. Only on the crests of the waves, did I notice some tremors when the wind was "trying to grab" the boat. Othewise, it was surprisingly calm and manageable.

Rolls weren't much of a problem, although I have to confess to some nervousness in deliberately going over when facing a bunch of whitecaps marching toward me.

The only really tricky bit was landing. At high tide, the spot outside my house is a bit steep, so the waves dump, but I managed to waltz in and then do a quick turn to the side and hop out.

All-in-all, it was interesting. I wouldn't counsel a long trip in those conditions, but if I got caught by surprise, I'm glad I practiced.

I couldn't help but think about Mark Stephen's post about the Muskeget Channel and was trying to imagine what the waves looked like on the ebb with that big SSW wind.

Yes, that portion of the Muskeget Channel probably has the trickiest waters - the channel is deep and the drop off is very pronounced. Not for the faint of heart, I think.

The Micronesian Islanders had to make long crossings between islands (100+miles). To estimate drift, they would sail some distance off the island, and then stop and watch what would happen to the vessel relative to the island under ocean conditions to estimate drift.

I've experimented with this technique and found it works reasonably well. It does take a bit of patience to sit idly in the kayak for 10-15 minutes to let things move around, when there's a temptation to be active and paddle, but it does work.

The story of Micronesian navigation techniques is the subject of a fascinating book called "The Last Navigator".

John

Sounds like a fun trip - I'm itching to do this some time.

What I recall is that about 3% of the wind velocity shows up as current (called Eckman transport). Then there's the force of the wind itself on the kayak. This has a considerable variation. Also, this force scales like the square of the wind velocity, so, you can't really give a number like "5%" of the wind velocity. Different hull shapes give different leeway under wind conditions.

Probably 10% of wind velocity for winds below 20 knots is a good drift to allow for, but there can be a factor of 2 variation in this rule of thumb.

I recall having to make about a 25 degree correction for a 20 knot beam wind on a crossing.

You can pretty much do it on any tide, but high water is best, because it can get a bit shallow on the inside of some of the bends (plus it smells a bit rank at low tide).

You can paddle from Rt. 28 north to the dam at the resevoir comfortably in about an hour in flat water. If you want to do the resevoir, I'd add an extra hour for exploration. If you go against the current, add about 20 minutes, subtract going with.

I did the whole trip in 3 hours from my house at Allen Harbor, including a portage into the resevoir. This included about one nm in Nantucket Sound before hitting the entrance. BTW - on the west side of the entrance of the river, on the Sound, it can get pretty darn choppy with a SW wind - quite shoaly there (or conversly, good for practicing braces).

So, optimally, head north from Rt. 28 about two hours before local high tide (I can dig this up relative to Boston Harbor, if you like -there's a bit of a time delay relative to the entrance of the river because of the volume of water in the marsh) - that'll give you the current both ways, and you won't hang up on the shallows on the inside of the bends.

I'd estimate the max current is about 1 knot - there are some spots where it perhaps hits 2 knots, but there are only about 2 places where that happens - very isolated(I could tell you where, if you like).

If you do go against the current, you can play the game of hugging the inside of the bends "hidden" by the current and then cross the main current rapidly - zig-zagging your way up. Again, a great way to practice your edging.

John

The Herring River is fun! I must've paddled up and down it 15 or 20 times, and still love it. It's a great workout.

Starting from the entrance into Nantucket Sound - after clearing the channel past the jetty, there is a section of about 2 miles where boats are moored. You'll pass under Lower County Road, and then there's a good put-in point on Route 28 - where you can park and head north. I have a house on the Sound, so I just paddle over, but if you want to skip the area where the boats are moored, just got to east side of route 28 and park on the south side, across from the restaurant.

Going north from route 28 - as a general rule, always take the left hand fork in the river. About half a mile north of route 28, you will enter a bird sanctuary.

The river meanders quite a bit and you can get hit unexpectedly by the current when you go against it and turn a corner - no big deal, but it's interesting. There's one hairpin bend that'll catch you by surprise on an ebb, I guarantee.

Going upstream another couple of miles, you go under a foot bridge. The marsh it drains has a large number of birds - I've seen arctic swans, blue herrons, red tailed hawks, and even what I think was a Wilson's snipe - ospreys and kingfishers. Gulls and cormorants, of course.

About a mile past the footbridge, is another bridge - this one is a dirt road that goes over the Herring. A bit further upstream from that road bridge, you get to a dam. Upstream from the dam is a resevoir that's a nice quiet paddle. It's a quick portage over the dam. The only caution I'd make in the resevoir is that there are a lot of dead trees and some barely-submerged stumps that could hang you up - so keep your eyes peeled.

Basically any skill level can do it.

I developed a little game called the "Herring River Slalom" - the rules are that you have to paddle the whole thing with no stern rudder and minimal sweep strokes - just use edging around the bends. When you do this in the modest current (less than a knot), it really pushes the edging skills.

Anyway, I love the sanctuary and highly recommend the paddle north from Rt. 28.

John

Sounds great! (although I know the sand flats can be a slog) I have a prediction - let's see if it comes true - within the next two years south Nauset beach will join up with South Monomoy, and South Monomoy will experience a break in the middle - in that order.

True - but even a very shallow attack angle will produce some yaw - it's unavoidable - and for learners (like me), having that foot to counter-balance the yaw often helps us get to the other parts of the roll, like the hipsnap.

John

I think Jill has a point. Here's something I found in practicing rolls - you can tell something is going wrong when you get a lot of "yaw" (or horizontal rotation) when you come up. Ideally, the roll should have no yaw in it, and the yawing motion bleeds off power from your desired aim of the roll. (I used my compass to measure the amount of yaw - before and after the roll)

The initial sweep, when the blade is planing across the surface of the water can induce some yaw, and I think the foot, being the furthest object from the center of rotation, can create the most counter-torque to fight the yaw. That's why I think the force of the foot at this stage of the roll can help a bunch.

OK, a few questions (I feel like Colombo):

On my chart, I see a red nun, marked "4", but it's only about a mile and a half east of Vineyard, not really halfway. Was that the buoy, or was there another? There's one much further south, marked "2", but you'd have to do a course change, and I think the currents are hairier in that area.

What was the date of your departure from the Vineyard? I was trying to figure out what the relative currents were as a function of the time you were out there, but needed a starting point.

Naively, I would've timed it so that I was approaching Muskeget when it was locally close to slack just before ebb, which would be about an hour after ebb starts at Pollack Rip. The milder flood current on the rest of the crossing would've been going with the wind and pushing you a bit into the sound, and then you would've have mild conditions at Muskeget.

Also, I see in the bathymetric charts that there's a local kind of "funnel" about a mile west of Muskeget that would locally amplify an ebb in that area.(channel looks like about 30 ft. deep, with 4 ft on either side - funneling down from the NE) I might have been tempted, once I actually saw Muskeget visually, to sweep wide and approach Muskeget from the north, giving this channel a kind of wide berth - especially on a healthy ebb with a SW wind - that would've been pretty choppy!

Isn't it spelled "Pisces", not "Picses"?

Finally - you guys seem to have done a few adventurous trips. Have either of you done the Monomoy -> Nantucket crossing or know about it?

Thanks a bunch!

John H.

This is great - I've been contemplating that crossing - perhaps next year, and I've been wondering about the effect of the current there. Thanks for relating it.

Also - I can relate on the bluefish end of things - I always find landing those buggers to be a bit of a challenge. The hardest part is figuring out how to get the hook out of their mouth in a pitching kayak and still keep your fingers!

J

Ceratinly on their websites they say that some things are under development. I'm sure they would welcome volunteers, and NSPN, in my opinion, has a vast amount of collective expertise that would be very welcome.

I do know that there is a three day course, and a three day certification for instructors. Rather than go the BCU route, I'm seriously thinking of going the ACA route on this one. I've been involved in teaching canoeing to boy scouts (merit badge involves rescues in addition to the usual strokes), and my only qualification is that I've canoed since I was 12 - they (Boy Scouts)have to take my word for it.

I believe that the paddler certification lags behind, and this is where some work needs to be done, but I'm not knowledgable enough to even know who to talk to.

OK, a serious question. Rather than americanize BCU ratings, why not bolster the ACA ratings?

They may lag behind, but we do have an ACA affiliation, here. The BCU seems to have this halo around it as a gold standard, but we are in the US. Why not help make the ACA ratings the best we can?

I have heard of legislation that would make an ACA instructor's rating mandatory for guides in some states. Perhaps we might discuss this rather than worry about "dry cags" or leptosporisis?

Two definitions of weir. Generally speaking, it's a manmade structure that is used to divert water flow or fish flow (depending on whether you want the first or second definition).

For kind of weir you find on rivers, it produces higher water flow and a possible obstruction to navigation.

For a fish weir, you have an obstacle you have to go around (also can be a good landmark).

Boy, this discussion is fun!

I took one of my son's friends fishing on the Charles and he fell in - boy was his mom upset!

J

While I agree with Brian completely, I became curious about leptospirosis - basically I'm a nerd, so I can't help it.

According to the CDC website:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo...ospirosis_g.htm

it's a disease you can get from animals in contaminated water. Do, don't practice rolling in hog troughs, I guess. The relation to sea kayaking seems a tad marginal.

"Cag" is a Britishism for a kind of dry suit - here are some pics:

http://www.chillcheater.com/products/shop.asp?cid=8

Wouldn't an ACA rating make more sense?

By short boat, would a white water boat work?

A couple of quick observations - I had a recent surf session with Kevin of Charles River Canoe and Kayak. This was my first introduction to serious surfing. I've surfed before, but not in big ones, nor had I gotten a chance to do combat rolls in surf before. Great fun.

Kevin's wisdom on the etiquette was that the animosity toward kayakers by boarders is two-fold: 1.) we move faster and 2.) many of us present a hazard. If you demonstrate some knowledge of the etiquette and are a bit deferential to the fact that they can't move as fast - e.g. wave a few through, they tend to be a bit kinder.

Because of the clinic, I started looking at the chatter on some surf sites. Boy, these guys can be brutal on each other - accusations of girlie-men when people shy away from 12 ft. breakers (hey, I think I would) etc etc. So, a different way of doing things.

Now there's a whole new vocabulary it looks like I'm going to have to learn. Is there some kind of wave-dictionary for surfer wannabe's out there?

I think I'd vomit if I tried a full 15 rolls in a minute.

I once made the mistake of practicing my rolling after eating a tuna sub. I won't repeat that one.

I hear tell that if you keep them warm for long enough, a miniature chicken crawls out. If that's not enough to get your skin crawling, I don't know what is.

Yeah, it was about as good as it gets.

On the point of the tide and rip current - I was staring at the Eldrige current pictures for over an hour trying to figure it out - flipping from one page to the next.

Here's what I'm guessing: high tide is reported for Stage Harbor and the flats 3 hours after start of ebb in Pollack Rip. If you look at Eldrige's plots,there is still some residual flow from the west on the flood into Stage Harbor and the flats (from the north) as the ebb begins to pick up on the southern tip. You can see the current in the diagrams continuing into the Stage area at slack and an hour or two after the ebb current begins at Pollack. Most of this current into the flats and Stage is coming from a northerly area of Nantucket Sound, and not from the southern tip of Monomoy which seems to be filling the more southerly bit of the Sound.

This change-over happens at different times - e.g. start of ebb is an hour later at Woods Hole than it is at Pollack Rip.

On a good day, with the right atmospheric conditions, I could see S. Monomoy’s western shore off in the distance from my house in Harwich and dreamed of a circumnavigation. I believe that one of the BCU ratings involves making a crossing of some distance where you’re away from land. With a map, I calculated that I could accomplish this by going from roughly the southern tip of Monomoy in a bee-line to my house, but never quite had the gumption to try this.

I’d have done the circumnavigation in a nano-second, but some of the “guide books” to kayaking in Massachusetts made the circumnavigation seem like a true feat of arms, and, frankly, scared me off. Here’s a sampling from one guidebook:

“Strong tide rip off southeast end of South Monomoy. Breaking and dumping waves on east side of Monomoy. Thick fog can roll in rapidly and unexpectedly, especially during the summer. Do not paddle without a compass and solid navigation skills. Note that most marine charts are not accurate as to location of sand bars and breaks that have occurred in the island in the last decade. Poison ivy is abundant on the islands, especially on South Monomoy.”

“The circumnavigation of the Monomoy Islands requires solid ocean skills, great stamina and knowledge of local waters. Even proficient kayakers benefit from paddling with an experienced guide in this confusing and sometimes dangerous area.”

The level of difficulty is listed as “strenuous”. Later in this description, it says “Those looking for challenging conditions can remain on the east side of the islands and continue paddling south, paralleling the east shore of South Monomoy. Swells off the Atlantic hit shoals offshore and generate lines of breaking waves. At the south end of South Monomoy, 7.1 miles from the channel, kayakers reach Pollack Rip. All paddlers must exercise great caution in this area. Strong tidal current can generate large and breaking waves , and fierce current can pull kayakers eastward through the Pollack Rip Channel. The trip to the south end of Monomoy is rewarding but the trip demands excellent ocean skills.”

No wonder it took me years to try this.

Thanks to your website, I managed to hook up with Tom Hennes, a Manhattan-ite who is up visiting Chatham and had an interest in some long-ish trips. My other companion was George Palanasky, who is a geologist at Harvard.

I became the de-facto guide because I had already obsessed over Monomoy long enough. It was time to try it out.

I got a GPS track from Liz Eneumeier, which I figured was about as accurate a tracing of the coast as possible, since she’d gone through there with Walter, Sanjay and Nigel on August 10th. I got some local advice from Adam Bolonsky and a number of other people who’d recently done the trip.

In terms of planning, I figured that a clockwise rotation was optimum: by hitting Pollack Rip at the start of ebb tide (which, counterintuitively, flows west), we’d get a kick around the point, but not have many standing waves because they didn’t have time to build up. High tide on the flats is about three hours past the start of ebb at Pollack Rip. The tides are very complex in this area, and unless you puzzle over the current and tide patterns, the idea that a high tide happens three hours after an ebb current starts seems a bit daft, but there you are – it’s true. In any case, clockwise run around Monomoy at the start of ebb gives you the kick you want around the tip, and the high water over the flats coming back the west side.

The start of ebb was at 9:40 and high tide at Stage Harbor was at 12:40. I tried for a 7 AM put-in, but, with all the fussing with our VHF’s and ton of emergency gear (having had the daylights scared out of me by the above warning), we ended up getting going by 8.

The forecast was for light NW winds in the morning, shifting to SW in the afternoon. West winds had been blowing for three days, which would minimize the swells on the East side.

We left from the Morris Island causeway, and passed some clammers. There was very little boat traffic in the winding passage between N. Monomoy and S. Nauset beach. Sometimes this bit can be like Grand Central station, but this time it was relatively quiet. By the time we got close to the southern end of S. Nauset, we began to see harbor seals in great abundance. Right at the tip of S. Nauset there was a herd of these critters lollygagging in the mild current. Little pups would poke up their heads in curiosity and then duck back down.

George asked about the shore birds that were making the funny noises, and I said that they were piping plovers. George said “oh, that’s why they’re called ‘piping’, huh?” Even though I knew their names and seen them for years, that was the first time I’d realized why they were called piping. That’s one benefit of paddling with companions: they’re seeing things with different eyes and bring a different perspective.

We poked our nose out into the open ocean. We paused briefly to assess the situation, but the swells were very low and modest. George said “I’ve been communing with the seals and they tell me that we should proceed around S. Monomoy.”

The whole passage south was serene. We had a little push from the wind behind us, and the tide was dropping off of flood into slack at this point. At some moment, we could gaze up and down the length of S. Monomoy and it was truly spectacular – a long, untarnished stretch of barrier island with the swells gentle breaking on the sand, and that beautiful diffuse light that baths the island.

As we approached the tip, right on time, the ebb current was kicking in, and we were really hauling the mail around the southern tip. At this point, there was almost nothing in the way of serious waves. You could’ve landed anywhere on the southern tip you chose. There was only a hint of standing waves, but you had to look hard to identify them. At some moment, we arrived at the precise south end – a kind of mystical point where we imagined the Labrador current mixing with the warmer currents from the south. I estimated a 2 kt current at this point.

Periodically, Tom would dip his hands into the water and it would range from very warm to quite cold, depending on the given moment of sampling.

After rounding the southern tip, we pulled up and had lunch, which a number of seals watched from nearby. The weather was clear, with a few clouds floating by lazily. There were almost no green flies to bother us.

We chatted about this and that. Tom is a specialist in Museum building and we discussed the aims of teaching folks about nature. An amusing quip from Tom about the curators of aquariums: “All aquarium curators are great seafood lovers. They get to eat their mistakes.”

After satisfying our palates on various goodies, we shoved off again. We could see the location of my house, 8 miles away across Nantucket Sound, and briefly contemplated the open passage to my house to knock off this BCU requirement, but it would involve a complex car-ferrying arrangement, and, frankly, I thought it would be boring to paddle to a speck that only slowly grows larger and larger over the course of a couple of hours. So, back to Stage Harbor.

We took care to head reasonably far west to avoid the sand flats, even though they were mostly covered up by the high tide. The southwest wind kicked in, and before too long we had enough waves coming from behind that we could actually surf a few.

Soon enough, we hit the Stage Harbor entrance, and went back through the channel up to the Morris Island causeway and hauled out. As I was getting loaded up, a guy I know from a recent trip to Woods Hole pulled up and said that he’s ready to do a crossing to Nantucket. His idea was to go down to the southern tip of Monomoy, poach camp, and then launch on the 20 mile crossing to Nantucket. Now, that’s a challenge!

Tom and George came over to my house for a beer and some of my homemade smoked bluefish pate while we surveyed Monomoy from a distance.

All-in-all, it was about as close to a perfect trip as I could imagine. The wind was favoring us out and back, the swells on the east were minimal. The seals were being very friendly. The current around the tip was very cooperative. In retrospect, I couldn’t recognize the description of the place in my guidebook compared to my experience. Of course, we got lucky with the weather, and a bit of careful planning helped make the rip tide experience very easy. George suggested that I might want to try it again, solo, in a nor’easter.

It looks like Tom Hennes and I are going to do Monomoy this Friday (checking with him about possibly 9/3 - Saturday).

Plan A is to do a clockwise circumnavigation, leaving at 7 AM. High tide is 12:40, beginning of ebb current at Pollack Rip is 9:40. This should put us at the southern tip just as the ebb tide is running.

We'll paddle south and check out the sea conditions at the end of S. Nauset beach, if the ocean looks too bouncy, we'll go through the gap between N. and S. Monomoy and play on the west side. Since high tide is at 12:40, it'll make the flats bearable.

Reminder: the full circumnavigation is 20 nm. Right now, the forecast is reasonable (5-10 kt winds and sunny), but the remnants of Katrina may give some swells on the ocean side.

E-mail me if you have some interest.

Speak of the devil - I am just back this moment from N. Monomoy.

The circumnavigation is about 20 nm, so if you're used to 40, it's easy. The trickiest bits are the breaking waves on the shoals on the ocean side of the south island and the current on the southern tip. You have to take care to make sure the current is going the way you want. The flats are also problematic - best to give them a healthy distance, particularly when the tide is ebbing. Finally, the boat traffic around the north island can be a bear.

My local friend, Julie, says the "best" way of doing it is to start out at the beginning of the ebb from Chatham and go clockwise. There is some current in the gap between N. Monomoy and the beach to the east (having come from there just now, I'm guessing something of order a knot). Of course, the timing of the tide etc. doesn't always work out perfectly, so a counterclockwise trip could be required.

Phones - my cell is 617 594 6549.

I'll be here (Harwich) from Wed through Tuesday, so there's a pretty good chance we can figure something out.

e-mail is huth@physics.harvard.edu

Yup, I'm in HarwichPort - just a stone's throw from Chatham. I'll be around roughly in that period.

I think my e-mail is listed here, but if not -

huth@physics.harvard.edu

Good stuff around here: Monomoy Island, Herring River, Swan River.

Although not as interesting, I regularly do Stage Harbor to the entrance of Swan River along the south coast of the Cape.

Bass River tends to have too much boat traffic.

I'll be around here tomorrow, on and off next week through Labor Day.

I missed the amazing Monomoy circumnavigation. I will, however, be at the Cape on and off until Labor Day.

If anyone is interested in a venture, please contact me or post a response.

I know most of the area from Swan River to Stage Harbor, and the Herring River, which are pretty mild. I'd be interested in trying some of Monomoy - anything from the north island to trying something more ambitious like the south island, if there is a minimum of 3 people.

best,

John Huth

Yup - Charles River Canoe and Kayak, Ocean Skills II.

A guy named Kevin was our instructor - great guy, very knowledgable and also laid back. I'm probably going to do the surfing clinic, which he also teaches.

As far as current estimation is concerned - I can think of two ways:

If you know the distance between two stationary objects (buoys, markers etc), and then see a piece of flotsam going by, you can time the passage from one fixed point to another.

The other option is to get out into the current with your kayak and try the same thing.

I've cheated on this, and used my GPS to estimate speeds. Even if you don't stop paddling, you can look at the differential speed when you are paddling in flat water and when in moving water to get a rough ifea of the current.

The tricky bit, in my opinion, is in areas where there is a significant constriction. There you'll see a lot of turbulence and variation in current from one place to the next. Woods Hole had all these funky little eddies, so as you cross, you'll get all sorts of variations in current. First time out, they took me by surprise, as the changing currents would try to torque around the kayak while crossing. Second time, I was more ready for this (but not for the large fishing vessel suddenly bearing down on me!).

On estuarial rivers, the same thing -the river meanders and there are eddies on the inside of bends, and currents are accentuated around tight bends. There's one place on the Herring river I love to practics - it has a hairpin turn - on one side of the bend, there's a nice fat, lazy eddy. On the other is a firehose of current. The transition is breathtaking - all the more so because you can't really see the eddy line.