Deception Pass – Incident Management

Last weekend started a marathon of paddling. It started with Jason “Kiwi” Goldstein and I leaving at daybreak for Deception Pass. The plan was for us to spend Saturday playing in the currents of the passes followed by Kiwi attending a class hosted by Body, Boat & Blade on Sunday. While he was in the class, I’d rig my deck camera and see what footage I could capture.

Our arrival at Bowman Bay coincided with max flood and we drove straight to the boat launch. It didn’t take us long to ride the flood over to Deception Pass and although it wasn’t the strongest max we’ve paddled in at 5.5 knots, it created a playful and fun ride in the eddies all the same. At one point I let out a premature yell of excitement as I got a particular good ride, only to let my guard down and find myself promptly upside down! What do they warn us about hubris?

We ferried over to Canoe Pass and found Leon and Shawna finishing up one of their multi-day classes. We didn’t want to crowd them, so after a quick hello we decided to let the flood carry us over to marina at Cornet Bay for a quick bite and cup of coffee. The rain showed no sign of letting up and we started getting chilled just sitting there, so we didn’t linger long over lunch and headed back to the passes to see what fun we could squeeze out of the ebb. Unfortunately, max ebb wasn’t till much later in the evening, but we did manage to get some useful practice with ferry glides before heading back to set up camp.



I’ll be attending a BCU Couch level II next month, and had to sit this one out, but Kiwi explained some of the techniques and scenarios that BBB had put together for this Incident Management class, and it sounds like another top notch class to attend. Perhaps I can coax Kiwi into writing a summary on his class.

The rain finally stopped it’s pattering on the tent just before daybreak. Kiwi was up early readying his gear for the class, and I followed shortly. As I headed toward Deception Island, I saw the class making their way towards the passes. While exploring the perimeter of the island I heard a particular noise that was somewhere between a boom and a gurgle; turns out the source was the smallest of blow holes just starting to form on the south side of the island. I didn’t have my deck camera rigged at the time, but I did take a quick movie with my Optio. I’ll try to have this posted along with the footage I shot of the pass and bridges on the galleries page soon.

Late in the day, I met up with Kiwi and we headed home. A quick hello to the family, stop in the office, and I was headed to SeaTac to pickup Corky Canaday then straight to the coast for the next round…to be continued