Kayak Fishing Adventures on Big Water’s Edge - Trident 15 w/ KayakSailor FullPower Ahead

Fishing Day May 2, 2014

Cabrillo Sailing Experience Level: 0
Cabrillo Sailing Experience Recommended: Master level

I arrived at Cabrillo Beach. I always feel, like I am finally going to get some sleep the night before of a fishing trip, but I still wake up every 30 mins to say is it TIME TO GO YET! I made arrangements with a fellow kayaker named Ara, to go in search for some fish and some Ghost. We started our morning at 6:30 am and off we went to a clean 2tt surf launch at Cabrillo. I deployed my sail, to try to catch any offshore wind that I could.

We decided to go in search for some rockfish, and loaded up on some small reds at different locations, and then Ara got seasick and decided to go in early. I then decided to go in search for some Ghost and mark new locations on my GPS for future travels. I had looked at the wind reports and saw that winds would pick up to 5-10 knots on NOAA.gov and go from WSW to E in the afternoon, so I decided to paddle and troll to the Sacred Cove(Portuguese Point), which happens to be the border line for MLPA.

On my way there, I encountered myriads of bait, so much that the whole GPS column was filled with fin bait for a good while. The dolphins were gathering the bait up and decided to keep on paddling. After marking a few rocks and GPs points I decided to wait for the wind to pick up, then to try to paddle back.
After about 2 hours of no wind and not catching any fish, the wind finally picked up.

It was nice and steady, I looked at my Gps and I was going 1knot, then 1.5knots. My Trident 15 is huge and I do weight 300lbs I must to be fat I reasoned.

1.5 turned 3knots, WERE FINALLY MOVING I SAID now, the wind shows no signs of letting go of now, I said. I was using my paddle to brace, and at this point I could NOT DO ANYTHING ELSE but brace.

3knots turned to 5 knots, then 5 knots became 8knots! YES I SAID 8 knots of SPEED, and I said OMG I DIDN”T KNOW I COULD GO SO FAST. I was practically flying over the wind waves, holding on for dear life, saying to myself I DON”T WANT TO FALL, I DON”T WANT TO FALL, I DON”T WANT TO FALL. I NEED TO BALANCE, I need to balance, I need to brace, I need to control the sail, I need to brace, I need to balance, I need to not fall down. This was the cycle until I had put down the sail.

This is honestly only my 2nd time sailing in my life, and at this point I was really regretting choosing Cabrillo beach as my second experience for sailing. In my mind all that kept going through it, was how Ryan’s trident Kayak, when he went to the back side of Catalina, could not handle all that rough water. My bow kept digging in the water because of the speed, but I could not bear to let go of my paddle because I was in constant bracing position. I opened up the hatch when I landed, and to my surprise no water inside the kayak.

A few times, I did feel, like I was going to tip over, but somehow managed to keep control. I have to admit I was a little out of my comfort zone, but I did not want to paddle back and wanted to use the sail to gain as much speed as I could. When the wind did pick up,the winds Cabrillo Beach is notorious for, I found that the rudder is really responsive to the sail, and you can turn to any direction you want at the turn of a dime, it was so responsive that you can be out control any given sec.

When I got close to the beach there were a lot of kit surfers, it was safer to make an emergency landing at the farthest point of the beach, then to guide through all those surfers because of my lack of experience.

WHAT an adventure…..I AM EXHAUSTED! now to look for some outriggers.

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