Close Encounter in Fog

We’ve finally had a break in the weather here in the Northwest, and after having to endure a weekend at the Outdoor Retailers convention in Salt Lake City, I was anxious to get on the water. Although a high pressure system was dominating the area producing sunny afternoons, there was dense fog in the morning. No matter, I’d use the fog to brush up on my ‘Dead Reckoning.’ For those not familiar with the term, Dead Reckoning, is a where you use velocity, time, and heading to estimate your position. Easy to define, but it’s a bit of a ‘Black Art’ that takes practice to get proficient.

Visibility was approximately a quarter of a mile when I reached my put-in at Chambers Creek; this would be an opportunity to see if I could paddle out to the DTS buoy. I followed a course of 300° magnetic for 25 minutes and was pleased to see that the buoy was dead ahead. What I didn’t notice where the two sea lions using the buoy as a haul out until I was much too close.

The male, who had slipped into the water unnoticed by me, was sky hopping checking me out. I was sitting there a bit indecisive on how to extract myself from the situation, when with a bark and large bow wave the bull started charging my bow. He came straight on, and it wasn’t till later that I realized that I was mentally preparing myself for a capsize, when at the last second and perhaps 20’ off the bow he thankfully submerged and veered off. The adrenaline was pumping and I backed away as calmly as I could, although under the circumstances I’m not sure if it was really calm or not.

I backed off a couple of hundred yards from the buoy and sat there letting the adrenaline flush out when big bad bull made one more hop off my starboard side just to keep me moving. That was all the prompting I needed and I turned tail and headed back to the beach.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with my tail firmly tucked between my legs and practiced rolls and reentries; with a wary eye seaward. The encounter was totally my fault and I’m quite happy to see them from a distance.