Copano Bay: What I learned This Weekend

Want an adventure? It's pretty simple, just charge face first into some thing with out proper preparation or equipment. That was my dumbass idea plan this past weekend in Copano Bay. As example, here is my safety equipment checklist from the voyage:

-Spray skirt (cover) to keep water out of the canoe? Nah. We don't really need that...

-Electric bilge pump, just in case the canoe takes on water? I thought about putting
one together, still not sure if we really need it...

-Manual bilge pump, so that you have SOME way to empty water? Matt was suppose to bring one...SHIT! We'll just bail water with this styrofoam cup I pulled out of the trash...

-Flotation, so the canoe won't sink when it inevitably fills with water? Uh, we planned
on getting that done, but...

-Life jackets? Well, we have that one horse collar PFD we found in the bayou...

Excellent way to start a long, open water paddle, especially when you're dealing with 15-20 knot winds and a sinkable boat. Oh, and I'm also suppose to be working here. Our Copano Bay research starts at the end of April and we need the information from this trip to help with planning. Considering the fact that my thesis will be based on this data, I should probably be a bit more responsible here.

Never the less, there we were at the launch site on the south shore of Copano Bay, with the wrong boat, none of the safety equipment that we should have had, and a windy, choppy bay. Matt was concerned. I was a little concerned...but too stubborn to bail out at this point. So, we pressed on. The first leg of the paddle was out of the canal, then 2 miles east along the shoreline. No major issues here. We spent most of the time paddling on the same side of the canoe to keep from turning into the wind, but the waters are mostly protected this close to shore. When we made it to the site, I hopped out, checked the bottom to see if it was sandy or muddy, then hopped back in.

Now, we needed to paddle roughly north-west for 4.5 miles, with the wind, across Copano Bay to the small pass that connects to Mission Bay. I'm not sure how far we made it before the bay got choppy. It wasn't too bad, maybe 2 feet, but we were already taking on water. The challenge here is to keep the canoe straight in the wind while you surf. As tall as a canoe is, the wind will hit the stern and push the boat around until you're taking waves on your side...which is not good, even with small waves. We weren't doing terrible, but we are really bow heavy, and crashing up and over the waves was splashing water into the canoe. This water adds up quick. Before you know it, there are gallons in there. Water is heavy too, when it sloshes from side to side the canoe loses stability. If some one shifts their weight too much to one side, the water flows to that side and the canoe tries to roll.

With only a styrofoam cup for bailing water I realized it wouldn't be too smart to continue. Sure, you cover distance quickly paddling with the wind and waves, but we don't want to be in the middle of the bay in a rapidly filling canoe. We turned around and muscled our way through the wind, back to the shoreline, and back to the launch.

Windy or not, we weren't going home. Not only had I passed on bringing a power boat, I had also passed on bringing kayaks, which would have very little trouble with these conditions. It was my dumbass idea plan and we would have to make some thing of it. Fortunately, I had scouted around on google earth and found another launch site to the north, on Mission River. We could put in, paddle a few miles south to Mission Bay, then cross Mission Bay, which is shallow and I hoped not as choppy.

Even on that damn river we had to fight the wind. If one person stopped paddling, we slowed to about 2 mph. It's a little odd knowing that your paddling downstream, yet feeling like your paddling upstream fighting a current. We made it to Mission Bay in about an hour, then paddled west along the shore to a site I needed to check. Now, across the bay to the pass. Mission Bay was mostly 2-3 feet deep, with smaller waves than Copano Bay, but paddling into that wind was a bitch.

We were making really slow progress across the bay. Like paddling up river against a swift current, if you stop or even slow down you start going backwards. I'm not sure how long we did this. We were some where around the middle of the bay and had already taken on gallons of water. I bailed some with the cup, but it would have taken forever to get it all. We found a shallow spot to switch seats, hoping that this would lighten the bow and we'd take on less water. It helped with the water, but we were both cramped in this position and still making slow progress. We turned and headed west towards a shoreline to find a beach and empty the water. Along the way, we switched back, ran aground on several shallow oyster reefs, and argued about how much aluminum canoes suck.

Finally on the beach, we emptied the canoe and I checked the gps, convinced that we could follow the shoreline out to the pass (which is what we should have done from the beginning). Matt didn't like the idea of paddling back into that wind, so I tried to convince him that the paddle back from the pass with the wind would be quick. Ultimately though, it was getting too late. We were into the afternoon and I needed enough day light to do some scouting around the bay for private docks. It might take us 2 hours to fight the wind up to that pass. We paddled out into the bay, then turned and cruised back to the river mouth. Surfing along this stretch was fast and easily the most fun we'd had all day. Would have been a really quick paddle back from the pass...

Not exactly the training paddle I had in mind, however, we did learn a few things:

-Yes, we do in fact need a cheap sprayskirt, at the least
-It would be really nice to have that electric bilge pump system
-We still need to get some flotation in the canoe...
-We can most definitely survive the 6 mile bay crossing at the end of the Safari
-Doing stupid shit tends to make for a more entertaining story

Next post, maybe I'll give a rundown of some of our other training highlights, such as: How Matt's Big Ass Broke the Canoe, The Day We Saved an Enraged Brown Pelican, What Happens When Your Canoe Has a Hole In It, and How To Paddle Up a Dry River (Hint: You drag the damn canoe)