2009-09-07 49 -123

Mon 7 Sep 2009 in 49,-123: 49.2468975, -123.3119703 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

4km out from Wreck Beach

Participants

• Rhonda
• Robyn
• Xore
• Elbie

Plans

Xore and Rhonda will be at the top of the stairs to Wreck Beach by 1PM. "beach trail 6" on the map.

Elbie is offering freshly home-made pie at her place (a block away from Trail 6) after the hash. Because kayaking has quite the effect on the appetite.

Expedition

Robyn

Robyn drove to UBC and found a parking spot immediately in front of the Wrech Beach access trail. She was very pleased with herself until Xore pointed out that it was a two minute parking zone. Xore helped her unload and then she pulled out in search of better parking. Just then, someone about five cars ahead put on his turn signal and pulled out of a parking space in the "No parking from 11 pm to 6 am" zone. Being certain that our geohash would be over by 11 pm, Robyn parked there, and went back to being pleased with herself.

Rhonda & Xore

After departing North Vancouver and swinging by Xore's place to pick up his kayaking gear, we drove out to UBC, swinging all the way around on Marine drive. The beach trail 6 trailhead was not only well signed but had extensive bike parking. Unfortunately, all the car parking was on the opposite side of the road. Rhonda turned the car around at the next intersection, decided to not park in the 3-minute zone, spotted a gap and then spotted the fire hydrant in the middle of that gap, then took the next parking spot another block down the road.

Xore insisted on carrying both kayaks on the grounds that it's easier to carry something heavy if it's at least balanced, so Rhonda carried all the rest of the awkward bits like pumps and paddles and changes of clothes. Back at the beach trail 6 area, Elbie waved.

Elbie

Elbie departed last of the participants, leaving her nearby apartment around 12:50. Getting there first, she made herself with a book (Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut) until geohashers and kayak paddles were spotted in her peripheral vision.

Down the Stairs to the Launching Area

As Elbie had an injury, she was not planning to paddle and thus did not have her kayak with her. She carried Robyn's paddle and life jacket while Robyn lugged her own kayak down the trail. Xore was a man and carried both his and Rhonda's kayaks. There have been considerable improvements on the trail: it's now good level stairs the whole way down instead of a gnarly slippery trail like it was years ago.

At the bottom of the stairs we all followed Elbie's directions to a launching spot behind the breakwater and assembled the kayaks. This was to be the maiden voyage of Xore's Sevylor, which he had travelled all the way to Kamloops to get, now that Canadian Tire no longer sells them.

All three kayaks were inflated in short order, and then partially deflated because we had all forgotten to install the plastic deck support, then re-inflated. Everybody prepared their kayaks and themselves for the trip; Rhonda and Xore in swim suits and Robyn initially topless, which she reconsidered due to the probability of chafing over an 8km round trip.

Preparing for launch

As Rhonda was preparing to install the cargo hatch cover on her kayak, she heard a sound that every inflatable water craft operator hates to hear: a hiss. NOOOO! She stuck her head inside the cargo hatch and noted that it was definitely coming from the very point of the stern. She partially deflated each of the three air bladders in turn until one of them caused the hiss to stop: the starboard side bladder. Pulling only the end of the bladder out wasn't enough to find the leak, so Rhonda untied all six attachment points and pulled the entire air bladder out of the kayak, then inflated it to search for the hole. As expected, it was in one of the most inconvenient places possible: right beside a seam, which stood a bit over 1mm out from the wall of the bladder. Fortunately, like all decent inflatable items, the Sevylor comes with a patch kit. Rhonda patched the hole, butting the patch right up against the seam and applying a seemingly generous amount of patch glue. As usual, it wasn't enough glue and she had to squirt more under the corners of the patch to make them stay down. Fortunately this isn't superglue and comes off of skin easily.

A test inflation showed that the bladder wasn't hissing, so it was reinstalled, partially inflated to check for twists, all six attachment points tied, and fully inflated. When Rhonda put her head in the cargo hatch to check again, it was hissing again. NOOOOOOO!

"You two go on," Rhonda said to Robyn and Xore, who had been waiting patiently until this point. "If I get it fixed in the next half hour, I'll follow." Rhonda handed her GPS to Xore, who had forgotten his at home, and started untying all six attachment points again.

Elbie helped carry the kayaks across the mucky low tide mud flats, leaving the barefooted kayakers to squelch the rest of the way dragging their kayaks when she ended up ankle deep in sucking mud that threatened to steal her boots.

Rhonda tried to resign herself to a transportation failure consolation prize, but continued to work on patching the air bladder because even if she didn't go kayaking today, she wasn't going to have a leaky kayak at the end of the day.

Towards the Geohash

Xore and Robyn set out as the advance party towards the geohash. Around two breakwaters and out into the sea, still quite calm because winds were low and the airport breakwater was still sheltering us.

The Wimp-Out

After about forty or fifty minutes the duo had reached the halfway point and Robyn decided that Wade shouldn't be kept waiting that long. She kept Xore in sight until Rhonda came on the scene and then paddled back, coming ashore on the main part of Wreck Beach, not the mucky part where we had launched from.

One of the great benefits of kayaking off a clothing optional beach is that no one cares how much of your wet and muddy clothing you remove when you reach shore. The disadvantage is of this particular beach is that you have to lug the wet, sandy kayak, back up the stairs. Now Robyn is too tired to do a proper write up. Even though an exceptionally chivalrous gentleman from Singapore helped her carry it up.

Rhonda's half-hour patch

On inspecting the starboard bladder and re-inflating it, Rhonda found that, the patch had not made a very good seal with the seam, and air was hissing out through a small hole in the glue. After some consideration, she came up with an ingenious scheme: add a small patch to the sound fabric on the other side of the seam to raise the surface, then put a long patch over top of both smaller patches to cover that hole once and for all!

This meant two patch-drying waits, of course. After the second small patch was installed and Rhonda had refrained from fidgeting with it long enough for the corners to stay down when flexed, an extra-long strip that would attach to the two small patches as well as directly to the bladder on either end was cut. Lots and lots and lots of patch glue was smeared all over the place to an estimated extra half centimetre all around, then the patch was pressed into place and squished flat until it seemed to be staying on. Rhonda then attempted to refrain from fidgeting with this patch by picking glue off her fingers and chatting with Elbie.

A test inflation showed that it was holding, and this time the bladder was test-inflated closer to full pressure. On installation, it was still holding, so Rhonda got the rest of her stuff ready, sticking her head in the cargo hatch periodically to check that there was still no hissing. All kayak bags were stuffed with their owners' things and tucked between two rocks on the breakwater, above the high tide line. Elbie phoned Xore to let him and Robyn know that Rhonda would be following them, then Elbie helped Rhonda across the sucking mud to a launch.

Photos

Elbie's photos are available at: [1]. Feel free to upload them to the wiki for ribbons, etc.