Pacific Journey Ed Gillet's account of his paddle
from California to Hawaii (stock Tofino kayak from Necky Kayaks)
When I said that I was planning to paddle across 2200 miles of open
ocean in a twenty foot kayak, people looked at me as though I had
told them I was going to commit suicide. My listeners projected
their deepest fears on my trip. Wasn't I afraid of losing
my way on the trackless ocean, starvation, thirst, going mad from
lack of human contact, or being eaten by sharks? They were
seldom reassured when I told them of my thirty thousand miles of sailing
experience and ten thousand miles of kayaking along the most formidable
coastlines in the world.
But I was confident that my kayak and I would arrive safely
in Hawaii. Most people think large vessels are the most seaworthy
ones. But this is not always true.
Survival at sea depends on preparation, experience, and
prudence - not on boat size. I turned my kayak into one of
the most seaworthy little boats in the world. I did not need
to carry a life raft - I paddled a life raft. Inside my kayak,
I crammed 60 days food and 25 gallons of fresh water. With
my reverse osmosis pumps, I could make unlimited amounts of additional
drinking water from sea water. I carried fishing gear, tools,
and spare parts. In a waterproof bag I had, a compact VHF
radio to contact passing ships, and an emergency radio beacon to alert
aircraft flying overhead in case I needed to be rescued. Flares,
signal mirrors, a strobe light, and a radar reflector ensured that I
would be seen.
My kayak was as stoutly built as any fiberglass sailboat. I
wanted to paddle a true kayak across the ocean - not a specialized sailboat
masquerading as a kayak. I used a stock Tofino (Necky Kayaks)
double kayak with no mast, sail, centerboard, or keel. My
boat had a foot operated rudder and a wooden floor inside so that I
could sleep a few inches above the water sloshing back and forth in
the bottom of the boat. To stabilize my kayak while I slept,
I inflated pontoons which I lashed to both sides of the boat. When
the pontoons were deployed I could move around in my kayak without fear
of capsize. A sailor's safety harness fastened me securely
to my boat.
To find my way at sea I used a sextant and a small calculator
programmed to work out navigation sights. I could figure
my position to within a few miles - when I could see the sun. I
chose the crossing to Hawaii because the summer weather patterns are
stable and the winds and currents are almost always favorable. The
trip seemed to me to be the kayaking equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. It
was the most difficult trip I could conceive of surviving.
On a cold, foggy morning three kayaks glided out of the
harbor at Monterey. My wife Katie paddled one of the boats. At
the one mile buoy off Lover's point, we said goodbye, embracing from
the kayaks. Pointing my kayak west and heading out to sea
was the hardest thing I have ever done. Tears rolled down
my face and I could hear Katie crying. I looked back from
fifty yards away and I knew that we were thinking the same thought:
that we might never see each other again.
I felt foolish attempting to paddle to Hawail. Who
did I think I was to attempt such an improbable feat?
Despite extensive preparation, my confidence was soon
shattered by the relentless pounding swell of the Pacific Ocean. I
had underestimated the abuse my body - especially my hands -would take
on the 63 day crossing. After only a few days at sea, my
butt was covered with saltwater sores and I could find no comfortable
positions for sitting or sleeping. Within a week, the skin
on the backs of my hands was so cracked and chapped that I took painkillers
to make paddling bearable.
Running downwind off California, I wore several layers
of synthetic pile and polypropylene clothing - the type of clothing
which is touted to be warm when it is wet. I stayed warm
as long as I wore everything I had, but I was certainly wet.
I was miserable but I spurred myself on with the thought
that when I reached the southern trade wind latitudes, warm, sunny weather
awaited...
Sailors can have two distinct waking nightmares: too much
wind and too little wind. Heading south from Monterey, California,
I lived through the first bad dream. The howling grey northwesterlies
nearly devoured me For two weeks I headed southwest before
thirty knot winds, surfing down fifteen foot high breaking swells. The
seas snapped my half-inch thick rudder blades as easily as you might
break a saltine cracker. I needed every bit of skill and
strength just to stay upright.
The nights were unspeakably grim. I set out
two sea anchors and stretched out on the floor of my kayak. Tortured
by salt water sores, I snatched a few moments of sleep while green waves
crashed over my kayak, forcing themselves into the cockpit. As
the ocean slowly filled my boat, I tried to ignore the cold water soaking
through my sleeping bag until the rising tide forced me to sit up and
pump out the kayak. Then I settled into the bilge and the
miserable cycle repeated.
The cold wind was relentless. When I poked
my head out in the mornings I screamed into the wind, "I don't
want to die!" I felt as exposed and as stressed as I
had on long rock climbs. I relied on my skill and equipment
for survival - even a small mistake could prove fatal.
"This can't be!" I shouted at the empty
blue sky. For about the fiftieth time, I looked at my pilot
chart. Sitting motionless in my kayak in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean, a thousand miles from land, I cursed the winds that had
abandoned me. There was no swell, no wind - no sound. Without
the boisterous trade winds and the westward current they spawn, it would
take me two more months to reach the Hawaiian Islands. I
did not think that I could survive that long. I had been
at sea in my twenty foot kayak for thirty days.
A thousand miles southwest of my starting point I found
the flip side of the nightmare - calm weather. In the calm
conditions, I dried my sleeping bag and clothing and my skin lesions
healed, but my progress slowed dramatically.
As night overtook me, I snapped a lightstick and placed
it over my compass. However slowly, I had to keep my kayak
moving towards Hawaii. Where were the trade winds? The
night was so still that the bowl of bright stars over my head shimmered
and danced in the calm sea. I felt as though I was paddling
off the edge of the earth and into space.
For two weeks I pushed my kayak westward, until I reached
longitude 140 west. Nine hundred miles from my goal, the
trade winds blew strongly enough to launch my parafoil kite. This
colorful flying sail did not replace paddling, but the kite's pull doubled
my speed, and I averaged fifty miles a day.
A school of blue and gold mahi-mahi fish played about
my boat, frolicking and jumping in my bow wave. Catching
them was easy since they always seemed voraciously hungry - fighting
each other to be first to bite the lures which I trailed behind on a
hand line. I even trained them to gather close to my boat
when I knocked on my hull by feeding them cut up pieces of bait. Once
a day I slipped a fish hook into a piece of bait and another mahi-mahi
became sashimi.
Those days were the best of the trip. The strong
trade winds were ideal for paddling. The royal blue surging
swells were no more than six feet high and my yellow bow skipped over
the waves as if my kayak knew the way to the islands.
Three hundred miles from the islands, I was caught up
in a northerly current. The wind shifted from northeast to
southeast, and the strong current set me north at the rate of thirty
miles a day. If that current had not changed, I would have
landed in Japan, missing the islands by hundreds of miles.
I thought that if I was soon to become a life raft, I
ought to prepare my life raft equipment. I rummaged through
my storage compartments, collecting my emergency radio beacon, flares,
and signal mirrors. If I were going to miss the islands,
my best chance for rescue would come when I crossed the shipping lanes
fifty miles north of me.
On my sixtieth day at sea, I ran out of food. My
school of mahi-mahi had left me a week before. I had eaten
my toothpaste two days earlier. There was nothing edible
left in the boat, and no fish were biting my lures. Looking
up, I watched a line of jet airplanes heading for Hawaii. I
thought about the passengers eating from their plastic trays. My
food fantasies were so real and so complete that I could recreate every
detail of every restaurant I had ever visited. I could remember
the taste, texture and smell of meals I had eaten several years ago. I
thought about how I should have gone to a grocery store in Monterey
and bought fifty cans of Spam, or chili, and stuffed the cans into my
boat.
I had nearly completed the world's longest open ocean
crossing, but I did not feel any closer to land. I had been
scribbling different latitude and longitude numbers on the side of my
boat, but I had no sense of progress. My kayak trip seemed
as though it would last forever. In my 63rd day at sea, I
was taking my usual noon latitude sight. When I swung my
sextant to look at the southern horizon, I was annoyed by the mountain
filling my sextant viewfinder and fouling up my view of the horizon
line. "That damned mountain..." I thought. Seconds
later, I realized I was looking at land! That dark mountain
had to be Mauna Kea, 80 miles away on the 'big island' of Hawaii. The
island of Maui 40 miles ahead was hidden under a blanket of squally
clouds. As the clouds cleared, Haleakala reared its head
and I knew I was almost home.
I whooped for joy when I saw land. I had only
been pretending to be a sea creature. I was a land creature
traveling through a hostile environment. My survival depended
on the life support system I carried in my kayak, and my support system
was exhausted. Nearing land, I felt as though a weight was
being lifted from my shoulders.
After paddling and kite sailing all night, I brought my
kayak into the calm lee of Maui outside Kahului harbor. The
scents of rainwashed soils and lush tropical plants washed over me like
waves of perfume. No one greeted me when my bow dug a furrow
into the sandy beach. Stepping onto the beach for the first
time in more than two months, I could not make my legs obey me. They
crumpled underneath me and I sat down heavily in the shallow water. A
local character staggering down the beach asked me where I had come
from. When I told him that I had paddled my kayak from California,
he whistled.
"That's a long way," he said. "Must've
taken you two or three days, huh?"
"Yeah," I said.
I talked him into helping me drag my kayak up the beach,
then he wandered off. Reeling like a drunken Popeye, I lurched
off in search of a junk food breakfast.
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By Ed Gillet
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