06/01/2025
Yesterday's offshore run at the Cove rang familiar on several levels:
- the forecast went from looking good six days out to a gale warning about 48 hours before the trip;
- my guests committed to flights, a long drive and a non-refundable rental unit with no guarantee that we'd be able to paddle and fish; and
- first-time kayak anglers would find themselves facing significant challenges.
Even the lead up to these adventures is exciting!
Aaron called me last summer, looking for a unique adventure to take a buddy on to celebrate his 50th birthday. I was painting a house at the time, so I put him on speaker and we chatted for quite a while as I cleaned and scraped mildewy eaves in the hot sun of McKinleyville! Having a chance to woo a potential client with descriptions of a novel ocean escapade was very appealing, as I toiled away at one of my other 'vocations' - one that's surely valued but obviously not nearly as desired as guiding offshore kayak fishing.
As I set out the details of how a trip could go, Aaron was enthusiastically embracing the format that I was laying out: he and his buddy would travel north, stay at Shelter Cove, get fully outfitted and fish offshore, and enjoy checking out a few other attractions in the area - like hiking up to King's Peak and doing a few miles on the Paradise Royale. I was stoked to hear his energy over the phone, as Aaron put together his own plan to execute and engage for a trip. When he asked if we could implement a catch-and-cook scenario into our day, I was all about it.
We went on to discuss some of the requirements of pulling off a successful outing, and the subject of seasickness was at the top of my list of advisories not to be downplayed. I always make sure to clearly warn my potential guests of how important it is to be sure about their status when it comes to motion sickness, as it can flat out ruin the trip if someone is ailing. Being seasick has been compared to wanting to die - by me! I can't do powerboats - not even on flat ocean days, but I'm fine on my kayaks even in the s**ttiest conditions while tying all the knots. That's how unique seasickness can be to each individual.
When we ended our conversation, Aaron's intention was to pitch the plan to his soon-to-be fifty year old friend, who he was confident had no issues being on the ocean. A week later or so, Aaron got back to me sounding disappointed and a little surprised. His pal had given him an honest assessment, and fishing offshore on kayaks wasn't in the cards. I was disappointed too, but every time that scenario plays out, I'm glad that I had emphasized the importance of being confident when it comes to 'sea legs'.
Aaron had caught the bug though - he was intent on doing this trip, even if it had to be the following season. Early last winter I heard from my guy again. He'd enlisted another buddy, Ian, and they'd craft a trip around their family and work schedules as well as my recommendation for the best time of year to find success. I advised that July/August was a good bet to be on calm seas, but I told him that you never really know with the ocean - any time of year could provide ideal conditions as easily as we could be shut out by hazardous wind and waves. In the end they had to accommodate their higher priority life obligations and couldn't do the mid summer date. We inked in May 31st as our day, and, as is my practice, I told him that I'd be in touch one week prior to our date to review the forecast and confirm the trip.
Somewhere around mid to late April, Aaron emailed asking about whether I might have any inkling about the conditions for our trip, as he was facing the prospect of booking flights and accommodations that would obligate he and Ian financially. It wasn't a naive or uninformed enquiry - we've all been there, where our hopes and desires are squared up against the potential pitfalls of rolling the dice regarding travel, weather, emergent situations... The stress of taking a chance on having a unique experience at a new-to-you destination can be a heavy burden - for the guide too! The best I could do was to assure Aaron that one of my strengths as a professional outdoorsman is that I am constantly evaluating the options - both internal to a trip as well as external - like, what do we do if we cannot launch?! I told my man that if we couldn't fish offshore on our day, I'd be ready with alternative activities that would get them on a beautiful setting having fun - like kayaking down the South Fork of the Eel or discovering an oldgrowth stream and its ecosystem. Aaron appreciated the reassurance, and I was genuinely committed to being ready to pivot if necessary and to give it my all, but having to cancel the focus of their trip would definitely be a bummer.
That stress I just referred to - where uncertainty about conditions brings on extended calculations - it's actually a gift. Over the years, in everything from abalone diving to stream survey to kayaking on the ocean, I have grown my ability to clearly evaluate and respond to changing conditions just as much as I've expanded my repertoire of places and pursuits. The 'pivot', it turns out, can be the key to success.
Aaron and Ian were set: VRBO unit on Lower Pacific Drive, Whitethorn, California - that's AT Shelter Cove, right by the ocean, for those not familiar with how funky addresses in the Cove come through; flights and rental car booked; guide ready to get them on an adventure!
As we got to one week out from our date, I saw on Windy.com that maybe there'd be light winds, and the prevailing north/NW swell wasn't a concern - our forecast looked good! As promised, I got ahold of the guys and told them it looks good now, could change, and looking forward to it!
That "maybe", is a strong one - Windy.com is a good general forecast page, but accuracy is inversely proportional to the remaining time before the event. That is to say - as the event draws nearer, accuracy increases. One week out is often too far for Windy.com or any other page to provide a consistently accurate forecast, IMO. No worries, as long as they weren't calling for a storm from the south, I was confident that we'd get fishable conditions. It's the Cove.
The week went on, and the vision of nice conditions started eroding away. By Thursday it was time to advise my guys to purchase fishing licenses if they hadn't already, and I included in that message that the forecast had gotten downgraded, but things looked plenty fishable. They trusted me and were oozing enthusiasm and ready to hit the road on Friday morning, confirming with me that they had their licensing, and they told me they'd check in once they drove from SFO to the Cove.
The forecast then worsened.
That stress that I talked about - it was here, and for all the mental gymnastics, contingency planning, double, triple and quadruple checking each forecast page, I was feeling it. I did have a plan, and I knew that I could put on my entertainer hat and pull off a great time for my guys if we couldn't fish... As much as I was content with having that plan ready though, it still felt like failure to think that we may have to scrub the main mission.
Here's where I renew, reiterate and reinforce my endorsement of another page: Stormsurf. Sometimes it's wrong, and for Point Delgada, California, hardly any pages are consistently right, when it comes to the wind right around our beloved point. I've always liked Stormsurf for its 6 hour Eastern Pacific views over the next week, for wind and swell as well as some other data that are nowhere near as important to the offshore-obsessed. There's also a "Point Delgado" tab on there though - we won't fault them for butchering the name. That tab has a general swell and period chart, and the second one shows winds in two hour increments. That wind chart within the Point Delgado tab is one of my best tools - even though it's often not reflective of reality either!
So I kept seeing that Stormsurf's Point Delgado wind chart had four to six hours of winds below 10 knots - even though the NWS had blown things up to a gale warning starting at 1PM and a general forecast of 15 to 25 knots with gusts to 40 for the nearshore waters! NWS is a general forecast for a large area, but even within 24 hours of the trip, Windy had called for 13 knots by 9AM right at the point.
There are days when you show up to the Cove with a strong north wind forecast, and it literally never happens - most likely in the summer for sure. There are also days when you think it won't blow until the afternoon, but it ends up being the case that the north wind has come right over Telegraph Ridge first thing in the morning and is blowing you straight to the Bell Buoy to start the day - those days sometimes work out, but it's never a good sign to have the wind blowing first thing.
As I prepped for my trip on Friday, alternating between assembling gear and checking forecasts, I was content with my readiness - both for the physical aspects of outfitting my guys and for the mental aspects of potentially having to pivot if conditions weren't acceptable.
Saturday came. I was awake just after 3AM and got up 30 minutes later, right before my alarm would've got me going. I went through my familiar routine - load ice, food, bait, grab a couple more outfitting items that I'd thought of during the night, quietly move the loaded truck out through the gate, and roll toward the Cove. Once I was in cruise control on 101, I called up the NWS forecast - still s**tty. I didn't want to pull Stormsurf up on my phone to see my favorite wind tab - not for fear of bad news, but because I was already committed, ready and eager.
Coming over Paradise Ridge I anticipated seeing some fir boughs on the road, but it was clean. And coasting down the west side I saw a few branches moving in the breeze, but not many. The flag at the Shelter Cove FD wasn't hanging limp, but it wasn't being whipped by wind either. Once down in the Cove, there wasn't any wind, and this was great news if it held. I had 30 minutes to get the kayaks and gear laid out before my guests were scheduled to arrive at launch. In that time the air stayed pretty still - just a little unsettled - and as it got light enough I could see that the waters off of Delgada were about like I'd expected: wind slop coming in from the outside, but no whitecaps, and the swell was light. I knew we'd be able to get on the water, so now my focus turned to maximizing our ability to safely paddle in the slop while finding some fishing success. Multi-level stress is a thing, but I'm up for the challenge!
My guys arrived and after warm introductions I set to work doling out their immersion gear and going over the kayaks and fishing setups. Aaron and Ian do fish and they're active in the outdoors, but all of the gear and the accompanying experiences would be new to them. I love this aspect of guiding kayak fishing, where I get to help someone who's got all the aptitude and attitude but no time in the game yet. I do my best to usher my guests through this time of discovery with my own attitudes of openness, patience and positive reinforcement, and, on a practical level, I try to get them to duplicate exactly what I'm doing, as much as possible.
With everyone suited up, sonars firing on all three kayaks, and plenty of bait and tackle, we pushed off from the launch as the only boats on the water right around 6:45AM. Just achieving that felt great, but the day had just begun. The guys took to the paddling very well, and soon I had them learning the ins and outs of presentation and gear management, as we worked our way out to the point.
Wind slop is a result of heavy wind offshore, whereas swell is a result of consistent winds from far away. Slop is way less organized and consistent, so it can multiply at times... Where swell can very often be both forecasted and observed as something like "5 feet at 10 seconds", wind slop is more volatile - possibly being short-lived but nasty, and it can sometimes combine with tide and current to form an inhospitable sea surface - even though the wind that formed it happened the previous afternoon and many miles away.
The slop out at the point wasn't pretty, but it was manageable. That's a huge consideration for me in my position as guide and the guy responsible for the safety of my clients. For their first time on the ocean on kayaks, I was in a position to basically put my guys through their paces regarding not just fitness and balance but also confidence and courage in a daunting situation. This is something that I never take lightly, and I highly value the trust that my guests place in me when I lead them into what might feel like a potentially dangerous situation.
We'd been fishing for a good 45 minutes, and between the slop moving our gear up and down 4 to 6 feet on a pretty short period and the fact that the tide was working on bottoming out at a 1 foot minus at 930AM, the fish were ignoring what we were offering. I can't control it, but the Cove is the only place that I do guarantee that we'll catch fish... Boom! Ian hooked up a black rockfish, and we were on the board.
As we continued to try to scratch out another bite I had us working a few pinnacles near the point, and right as the tide was finishing running out the steepness of the wind swells escalated just a bit. I was behind Aaron, with Ian off to one side, when an especially steep trough and swell developed right off Aaron's bow. I watched as one of those "multiplied" wind slop features doubled up and pushed under Aaron looking more like a surfing wave than anything that a fisherman should ever be around. It didn't break, but it was a thrill ride for sure. I told Aaron that just watching him going over the face of that anomaly had me in a state of pucker, and even though he rode it well and was unscathed, I think it got him a little more clinched up too. We moved off the point a bit, and the water mellowed as the tide changed. Soon we had a legal lingcod on the stringer, so group success, a good trend and the fulfillment of my guarantee were secure.
As we worked a bit to the south in search of hungry rockfish, things were still slow. The wind hadn't started yet and the guys made no protests regarding the conditions or the ease of use in the gearing, so it looked like we'd get more hours in on the hunt as the tide came in. I was enjoying chatting with Ian when I noticed that Aaron had gotten a bit quiet. It was the motion sickness. He was feeling it, and he'd never had it before. I thanked him for letting me know, and I warned that it can be very hard to shake once it starts in. We kept fishing, and I asked him to keep me posted. As I checked in with him on it, he was still feeling off, so we moved toward the inshore waters. The great news here was that the water has gone from 48.5 degrees two weeks ago to now 57 degrees! The Cali's should be due.
We got in to the moorings and set out on a tack along the beach, hoping to find a halibut but also really wanting more rockfish and lingcod to show up. This was a good move for us - especially since the bite was tough out at the point. Over the next few hours we enjoyed mellower water, osprey hunting around us and flying off with their own catches, a few seals, and, thankfully, a little pile of black rockfish, a short lingcod, and a big red tail perch that got to be Sexy Fins of the Day. Aaron felt better, the weather and water were beautiful, and the three of us shared prolific conversation as we got to know each other and commiserated over world events of the day. By just after midday we were ready to head for the beach, where the tide was still pretty low and the locals were starting to fill in for a sunshiny Saturday of play.
In my trip prep on Friday, I'd devoted extra time and energy to being ready for the catch and cook scene that Aaron had requested as part of the trip, and after putting the boats and gear back on the truck and enjoying a cold beer at the Tailgate Fillet Station, we were ready to go into Bonus Time!
In the midst of what was now a big weekend crowd of beach-goers and a rising tide at the ramp, I fired up the Coleman stove, got the oil up past 350, executed a pre-readied egg/milk/worcestershire dip and panko/Italian bread crumb coating, and soon we were eating the freshest fried lingcod on the planet. I was really glad that Aaron had asked for this aspect of the trip, as the rough outside waters, minor motion sickness and slow bite had pushed the trip a bit toward the more challenging side in the morning. Here we were, mid afternoon in paradise, basically; happily eating our catch hot from the oil and earned through trials that turned out to be as rewarding as they were unexpected.
Being ready with the pivot, whenever it may be needed, is key, but in the end it's all about the attitude that you bring.
As we wrapped up our session, having eaten the entire 24" lingcod between the three of us, my guests had a glow about them. They were done with the main event, but they're in town until Monday and will be enjoying themselves while checking out some of the other attractions in the area. My guys expressed their enjoyment of and gratitude for the trip and moved on, ready for whatever additional intrigue and adventure they could find around Point Delgada during their stay. I was left there in the midst of the beach goers with my own glow going - ready to clean up the fryer and feast mess, load the last of the gear in the truck and make my way, and I had strong assurance that a generous Venmo was heading to my daughter's account once they got some connectivity.
What had started as a vibrant conversation about the possibilities available to some middle-aged dudes who were looking for an adventure with a little bit older middle-aged dude who guides unique trips at an offshore wilderness was now another completed chapter in what has become a story of fulfillment and joy. As I drove up out of the Cove I reminisced about how many times over the years that I've achieved such a contented feeling through this portal that I made available to myself over many years of focus and dedication - where that stress of how it might go and what pivots may be necessary ends up being its own reward.
Keep your eyes on the prize, folks, and thanks for taking the time to feel it with me.
