History of the Tsunami Rangers Sea Kayak Race – Part 8

Editor’s Note: This is the story of the 1995 race, written by Kent Barber who was introduced to the event by Tom Cromwell, a kayaker from Washington State who had raced before. This was Kent’s first time participating in the event, and he did it justice in his article, which appeared in Bay Currents, the BASK newsletter. Thanks, Kent, wherever you are! We appreciate your contribution to this series.

TSUNAMI RANGERS SEA GYPSY RACE
by Kent Barber
Bay Currents – May 1995 Volume 10, Number 7
A Publication of BASK – The San Francisco Bay Area Sea Kayakers

The Sea Gypsy Race is hosted each year by California’s infamous Tsunami Rangers. Due to its technical (risky) nature, this race has no actual sponsor and there’s definitely no race insurance. Tom Cromwell and I journeyed to California for the 1995 race. Tom has participated in this event twice before and he assured me that the race required skill and valor. I decided to give it a try anyway.

We arrived at Half Moon Bay a few days before the race in order to explore the area a little. As we neared the campground, I happened to look at a map and notice that Half Moon Bay is pretty close to the Ano Nuevo and Farallon Island marine reserves. “Yikes,” I said to Tom, “aren’t there supposed to be lots of sharks at those places?”

After we grabbed a campsite, we hit the surf. The waves weren’t bad but I seemed to have a tough time catching them so I asked Tom to watch from shore and critique. I was just inside the break zone when I saw a huge fin knifing through the water, weaving its way toward me: I knew it wasn’t an Orca’s dorsal fin and I could only think of one other option. My mind went numb, my heart pounded against my rib cage, and I paddled for my life. “Tom’s gonna be pissed,” I thought, “but I’m not going back in the water anywhere near this place. Look at him safe on the beach. He doesn’t seem alarmed. Can’t he see the shark?”

Tom greeted me on the beach as I landed. “No wonder you can’t catch any waves. You just paddle hell-bent for the beach with no regard for the timing of the waves.” I could barely steady my hand enough to point at the fin as it menacingly zigzagged through the waves in search of prey. “Can’t you see that?” “Yeah, pretty neat.” “What?” I screamed. “Surfing with the whales,” Tom calmly replied. I looked carefully as the blinding fear subsided. “Yyyeah. And it’s also… uh, the first time I’ve ever seen a Gray Whale loafing around on its side like that. Sheesh… the way that pectoral fin sticks up like that… I mean… well… it kinda even looks… a little like a shark… Don’t you think??!”

The day before the race, Eric Soares of the Tsunami Rangers was scheduled to lead a reconnaissance trip along the more demanding portion of the race course. The previous two days winds (northwest, 25-35 kts. gusts to 45 kts.) had rendered the seas off Pillar Point chaotic and big.  “Too hairy,” declared Soares. “No point going out there and getting hurt today. The race is tomorrow.” I guess he meant “No point going out and getting hurt. Oh, and by the way, don’t forget the race is tomorrow.” Don’t you think??? Instead of paddling the race course, we surfed just inside the reef where I demonstrated to some of the wash-deck loving Californians, an advantage of a closed cockpit kayak. “Wow!” one of them said. “Don’t think I could stay on my wash-deck boat through a double backwards pitch pole followed by a triple window shade spin.”

Well that day made quite an impression on me. So on the morning of the race instead of having to wake me up as he usually does, Tom had to pry me out of the fetal position. At first I declared myself a spectator, but when we went to the bluffs overlooking the race course I couldn’t believe how much the sea had mellowed overnight.

The swell was still pretty big and there were some fairly good-sized breaking waves in places, and the seas were pretty chaotic in places, and you had to surf through some rocks. But I’d handily dealt with something similar to everything I could see down there. Since I hadn’t been able to paddle the course before, Tom generously offered to paddle with me through the first half. Since the course follows roughly the same route out and back, this would allow us to scope the course and conditions together. If things felt right we’d paddle back in at our own paces, choosing our return routes at Pillar Point individually.

The race was challenging and lots of fun. Eighteen boats entered; almost all locals, mostly in doubles and triples, many of which were Tsunami boats. We threaded through waves as they broke over submerged reefs. We paddled through steep, confused seas. And we surfed through rocks and across a reef that was sometimes completely above water between wave sets. Seventeen boats finished and there were five capsizes. Mitch Powers placed first in his Arluk I, in spite of following Cromwell’s directions into the wrong cove for the required mid-race landing.

Tom surfed his Max through the dreaded inside slot on the return past Pillar Point to finish eighth (he’ll claim he came in somewhere around third, because he only recognizes closed-cockpit singles as kayaks, and this was supposed to be a kayak race, by God). I whimpered my way along the safer route, around the outside of the Pillar Point reef, to a tenth place finish in my Coaster. We obviously didn’t win any valuable prizes but we had a great time and all participants received a Tsunami Ranger Certificate of Valor.

Tom and I are grateful for the generous hospitality extended to us by the paddlers of the San Mateo coast, including the Tsunami Rangers (especially Michael Powers and his wife Nani, who actually host this revelry at their home). In Rangerspeak, they showed us a groovy time.

Wonderful write-up, Kent! Thanks for joining us in 1995, and for writing about your experience. Hope you’re still paddling and having a groovy time. Well, folks, this is the fourth and final article on the History of the Tsunami Sea Kayak Race for this month’s series. We hope you enjoyed it. If you missed any of the previous articles in this series, or you’d like to read about other races over the years, please check out our most recent posts in the sidebar on the right or type Tsunami Sea Kayak Race into the search box. Thanks and happy paddling!  

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