Lesson Learned!
Well I was pretty excited about fishing today because I heard from 2 reliable sources that the Albies were going nuts off of Watch Hill yesterday. So I launched before dawn from the Barn and headed for what I thought was Napatree. I was halfway across the bay before I realized that my heading was for the high section of Sandy point,about the middle of the island. (gotta get a GPS!) So I changed my course and finally got to the vicinity of the pilings in a roundabout way. The tide had changed over an hour ago so it took me quite awhile to get there in my little trolling motor-powered yak. When I did get there the situation was just what I feared. When they say seas of one foot or less,it is almost never that at Napatree. More like steady 3 to 4 footers with 6 to 8 foot rollers breaking on the rocks and pilings. So I dilly-dallied around a little,drifting southwest of the point,trying to stay out of the big waves,hoping it will lay down,watching the birds,waiting for them to tell me something,biding my time as I talk myself into a bigger set of balls. Finally I said screw it and went for it. I made my heading for the red can,gotta take that turn around the point wide to stay out of the breakers. So I'm making head-way,getting the hang of gunning the motor up to the crest of the waves and throttling down the backsides. Not too bad. Sure I'm taking quite a few big ones over the bow that completely fill the cockpit with water but it's draining quickly so I'm fine. I'm trudging along and I look up and what do I see? Birds. LOTS OF BIRDS! They're going in the water and covering an area the size of a football field a little over a quarter mile southeast of the can. That's it,that's what I've been waiting for! So I gun the motor,no more throttling back on the downslope! I'm getting there,making good headway,about to over-take the can when something goes wrong. The tide was really ripping now and all of a sudden I'm getting sucked into the eddy behind the can. REAL FAST. All I see is this really big piece of steel getting way too close for comfort. I try to power out of it but nothing is happening. In a panic I pick up my paddle and get the hell out of there. In all honesty I was scared there for a minute. When I started paddling I even had my doubts that I was going to be able to get out of that and had a vision of the situation ending really badly. It wasn't until I was well clear of the hazard that my mind turned to trying to figure out what went wrong. There is ALOT of wood in the water,tree-sized wood. In my haste to get to the action I whacked something and broke the shear-pin in the prop. I had another pin with me but I would have to hit the beach to change it out. Basically by that point I had had enough and resolved to prepare myself for the roughly 3 mile paddle in. When I got to the launch and got ready to put the yak on the car I discovered that there was aleast 5 gallons of water in the hull too. Also not good. So that's the morning I had. No Albies for me. If anyone knows of a closer place to watch hill to launch a yak other than the Barn I'd love to hear about it. Maybe in R.I.?
