Beating Back Into Weather

Luke, I and my friend Mike went fishing on the the boat last week. We had a smooth quick run south to the DD buoy off of Keauhou Bay with a slight south wind blowing in our faces. As we circled the buoy hoping to snag a few mahi mahi the air quickly calmed around us. Minutes later there was a distinct rise in the wind blowing from the north.  The wind had switched direction 180 degrees and increased in intensity within a few minutes time. Here you see Luke and I on our dry calm southbound leg.

As we turned north to make our way back to Honokohau we were immediately hit in the face by the strong winds, waves and salt spray blowing over the bow into the cockpit. Fortunately I had the foresight to bring a jacket and Luke to his credit had brought along a 50 year old raincoat my friend Mannix had given him just days before. Mannix had found the jacket amongst the belongings of a U. S. Navy veteran of World War Two friend of his who had recently died.

We spent the next hour beating up into a rising wind and sea. I let Luke take the helm for most of the way so he could experience driving a boat in rough sea's.  It hit me at one point and I asked him "This is probably the worst weather you have ever been in on a small boat isn't it?" "Yeah!" he quickly responded.

In my 57 years on this earth I have spent many, many hours in boats and on surfboards on very rough and dangerous oceans. It doesn't really get my attention till I am getting lost in the trough of twenty foot waves and hoping to rise back out of it and see the horizon again for a few seconds before sliding back down into the deep blue valley between swells. But to Luke this was the roughest water he had ever been upon. Good!  Good for him to see and good for him to experience steering a boat into the wind and waves on the  open ocean.

By the time we rounded the point and made our way to the Ono run off of Pines we were wet, salty and beat up, but it had been a good time for all anyhow. No fish, but that's why it's not called going catching!

Brian