On a beautiful late summer Saturday a group of us were supposed to make our annual “round the hook” trip. The hook, that is Sandy Hook, the last spit of land along the Atlantic coastline that the Garden State possesses. The Garden State is of course New Jersey. Sandy Hook is the southern terminus of Gateway National Recreation Area. The other areas of the park are located in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens New York.
This trip is unique because there is no shuttling of cars even though you are paddling on two different bodies of water the same day. A careful study of the tide and current tables will show that it is possible to do this trip with a favorable current the entire day. We begin this trip by meeting at the second parking area in the park. The land is only about a quarter of a mile wide at this point. It is a short carry of boats and gear to a beach located on Sandy Hook Bay. This area is also known as the windsurfer’s beach. From here it is a six-mile paddle down to the end of the hook. After a stop for lunch we then round the hook and paddle out into the Atlantic Ocean for a six miles run down the coast returning to the same parking area where we had started.
I said we were supposed to make the trip but Mother Nature had other ideas. There was a hurricane off in the Atlantic hundreds of miles away to our south but as often the case with these storms the swells produced by the storm pounded the coast for days before the arrival of the storm itself. I listened on the radio in the car to the weather forecaster's predicting eight to twelve foot swells on the ocean and thought that the day should be an interesting one. Boy did that turn out to be an understatement.
My buddy Bruce who was the trip leader for the day stood on the beach next to myself looking out on the huge surf, which was crashing onto the beach. “You know I think even under these conditions this trip could be possible, but not today because of the number of inexperienced surf paddlers we have with us” Bruce said. I looked at him and smiled knowing he was just dying to go out there and play. After the last of the stragglers had made it to the parking lot we started to discuss plan “B” for the day. It was decided that we were to paddle the first leg of the trip as originally planned and after stopping for lunch we would return the way we had come paddling against the tide but with the winds at our back. Need I say more?
For this trip I had chosen to use my trusty Folbot. This is a double folding kayak that has a length of seventeen feet and a beam of thirty-four inches. It had been pre-arranged that a friend of a friend would be my partner for the day. Sally had never paddled before but was a sailor and wanted to try kayaking to see what it was like. The first leg of the trip was un-eventful. It was hard to believe how small the waves in the bay were in contrast to the ocean. We had a leisurely paddle down to the end of the hook and my partner did surprisingly well for a first time paddler. After feasting like only paddler’s can we started to pack the boats for the return leg. It was then that someone came up with the bright idea of rounding the hook just to see what the waves looked like. For some reason it seemed like a swell idea. We rounded the point and the waves looked awesome. Next thing we knew was the current was pushing us right out into them. “This isn’t a problem we can just turn around, can’t we?” Asked my up until that point fearless partner. “No we can’t, the waves are breaking all around us, if we try to turn around here we will surely broach and end up swimming” I replied. The ends of the swells were hitting the point of the beach and were breaking from our right to our left. The only thing we could do was paddle out past the breakers and then turn. The problem with this was the further out we went the larger the swells got. It is a very disconcerting feeling sitting in a kayak when all you can see around you is nothing but water when you are down in the trough of a huge swell. You rise up the face of the next on-coming wave and then it is a roller coasters ride down the other side. “I’m glad that I’m with someone as experienced as you” Sally said as we rode the swells up and down. If she had been able to turn around she would have seen my knees knocking together because I was sure we were going to capsize at any moment. Finally I saw the lull in the swells that I had been hoping for. “Paddle hard right,” I pleaded with my boat mate. We somehow got the boat turned around and the next thing I saw was the pack of twenty odd boats approaching very quickly. “You looked like a freight train barreling down on us coming down what was easily a twelve foot wave” Bruce was to tell me later.
Our little misadventure was not over yet I was soon to find out. I had just popped off my spray skirt in anticipation of landing when I realized that my partner wasn’t making any preparations herself. I had forgotten to tell her that we had to exit the boat just before we hit the beach. She was just sitting there expecting the waves to gently deposit us up on the beach. “Get out of the boat, now!” I screamed. But it was too late. She started to exit one side, changed her mind, and when she tried to get out the other side we dumped in about two feet of water. We quickly got up and dragged the boat onto the beach. The next scene I witnessed looked like something out of a cartoon. Our friend Drew was next into the beach. The waves had been under cutting the beach so there was a small cliff of sand right at the water’s edge. The bow of his boat hit this cliff and before he could get out of the cockpit the next wave picked up the back of the boat and jettisoned him onto the beach. He landed flat on his back looking up to see his boat come crashing down on him. He was unhurt so we were able to laugh about what could have been a disaster.
The rest of the boats made it back to the beach without incident and then we began the paddle back down the bay. Of course the wind had shifted so we fought it and the current back to our cars. “But we didn’t get to paddle past the nude beach,” of which Sandy Hook is famous for, more then one paddle lamented. “There will be other days” our fearless leader reflected.