It has been both observed and mentioned that stupid is something I'm fairly familiar with. However even I am aware that the salient condition of night is dark, at least around here. Among it's many, sometimes admirable, features dark has the effect of making seeing more difficult than it is when it is light. And, although I've never actually done the math, seeing I'd guess is directly proportional to paddling without falling over. That is more seeing, less falling, less seeing more falling. So calling for a paddle at night was, according to my math, an entirely inefficient way of calling for a swim. But whatever. I wasn't doing anything, I've got a drysuit (i.e. a cold water swimsuit) and I'm working this year on increasing my stupid just a bit. So I went. Awesome, glad I did.
I have paddled at night before, up in the San Juans as part of a 4 star training. It was, in fact, a night navigation. As you might expect that's when you actually navigate using time and a compass and stuff. It was pretty interesting I guess but there were very few lights and I got a touch of vertigo at one point and I didn't enjoy that at all. The thing Andy was organizing was quite a bit different.
First off, it really was like walking around in your backyard at night. I knew where to expect jobbly bits, roughly how far to be off of the points to avoid rocks, and like that. Navigating with a compass was really not required (but I did have one. I always carry a compass.) Second, this was in the San Francisco bay. A lot of people live in San Francisco and, coincidentally, there's a lot of lights around the bay. A lot of lights. So it was never pitch black. Third, there's rather more traffic in the bay.
We got on the water around 18:10PST, just after sunset. I liked that timing because it gave me (perhaps all of us) a chance to loosen up when we could actually see so that was nice. About half way through the crossing to Angel Island it actually got dark and that's when things got interesting.
"Is that a boat there?", I asked. "Where?", "which direction?", "over there?". Right, first lesson in night paddling, nobody can see you point very well. Also bearings relative to a clock face doesn't work since nobody can see where your boat is pointing. So after some "see the rock at Point Blunt..." stuff we all decide that, yes, it's a boat. Actually a ship. Here's a picture:
First off, it really was like walking around in your backyard at night. I knew where to expect jobbly bits, roughly how far to be off of the points to avoid rocks, and like that. Navigating with a compass was really not required (but I did have one. I always carry a compass.) Second, this was in the San Francisco bay. A lot of people live in San Francisco and, coincidentally, there's a lot of lights around the bay. A lot of lights. So it was never pitch black. Third, there's rather more traffic in the bay.
We got on the water around 18:10PST, just after sunset. I liked that timing because it gave me (perhaps all of us) a chance to loosen up when we could actually see so that was nice. About half way through the crossing to Angel Island it actually got dark and that's when things got interesting.
"Is that a boat there?", I asked. "Where?", "which direction?", "over there?". Right, first lesson in night paddling, nobody can see you point very well. Also bearings relative to a clock face doesn't work since nobody can see where your boat is pointing. So after some "see the rock at Point Blunt..." stuff we all decide that, yes, it's a boat. Actually a ship. Here's a picture:
That of course lead to all of the "where's it going?", "what's it doing?" that generally begins the process of mild panic one sometimes get's when encountering large vessels behaving in unexpected ways. In this case the ship was closer to Angel Island than any of us had experienced before. During the day.
Second lesson of paddling at night. Lots of lights on shore are a serious pain in the ass. It was really difficult to discern exactly where the vessel was heading. Was that red light on the ship or shore? Is that a mast light? The many lights, which helped make it easy to discern the rocks at Point Blunt and the texture of the water, made it hard to discern the lights of other vessels. This was the case all night and I think it's a fundamental issue. Radar would be handy.
Anyway we finally figured out which light was the ships port light, and which two were mast lights. We ended up taking the ship to our left. I've never had that happen before on this crossing. Despite the successful outcome of our encounter it was fairly nerve racking and, I think, ample demonstration of the utility of day.
After that it was an entirely pleasant paddle. Forecasted winds of 7-13 kts never appeared which lead to, for the area, quite calm conditions all the way around. Here's a picture someone paddling a well glo-sticked boat in the tranquil conditions:
Total time on the water was about 3 hours. We saw several seals and disturbed, unfortunately, a couple birds who were floating on the water and we didn't see until it was too late. Here's a couple nature shots:
All in all it was an enjoyable experience. I don't think paddling a night is something I'll do regularly. It's a little uninteresting, not being able to see very much. It's a little disconcerting when you get bobbled by some unexpected wave or wake. And it's just a little stupid.
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