Solo Bay Crossing

-For Complete story and pics hit “continue reading” link below-

This morning a bay crossing was planned from the Levee to Bolivar Penisula in Galveston bay.  We had 4-5 guys who were going to do it.  The wind was forecasted to be perfect out of the North East, giving us a nice fast tack there and back.  The plan was to leave the Levee in Texas City at 9am and head past the end of the dike through the shipping channel and around the bolivar ferry port to the cut in the Bolivar side jetty.  This would get us into the butter-smooth Bolivar flats.  Then do the opposite ride back to the Levee hitting tanker waves on the way…it would have been a 20mi ride round trip.  Long story short I ended up doing 17mi of the ride solo, details below:

I made my way to the Levee through the cold driving rain, the wind was definitely more than had been forecasted but I wasn’t sure how strong it was.  When I woke up I check the updated forecast for the day, actual readings and the radar so I knew the rain wasn’t going to give me any problems.  I arrived at the Levee by about 8:20 and started to rig my kite, I had a choice between the Slingshot Octane 13m or 11m.  The wind was gusting over 35mph at this point so I went with the 11m…hoping it would drop a bitJ  I waited till 9am and no one had showed up yet for the ride.  Instead of scrapping I decided to give it a go solo.  Keep in mind that even with good planning, experience, and steady wind conditions any kind of open water ride can be dangerous solo and should be well thought out decision.  That being said, I still wanted to do it.
 
I took my phone and van keys in a water proof bag, I wore booties and a life jacket just in case I needed to come up on some rocky shore.  I had an idea on the drive down that the other guys may bail so I came up with a contingency plan of attack for a solo ride.  I would ride to the end of the jetty and then switch to a west tack to make sure I could make it back up wind.  At this point I would do a few more passes to get well upwind to give myself drifting room in-case of an emergency and then shoot the gap to the other side of the channels as quickly as possible.  For those of you not familiar with the Dike/Galveston bay area.  If a kiteboarder had to self rescue anywhere southeast of the end of the dike he would end up floating through the Texas City and Houston Shipping channels not to mention washing ashore on Galveston island or Pelican island (a good 35-45 min drive from the Levee riding area).  I was on my 11m Slingshot Octane which was only about 2 months old so I wasn’t worried about a mechanical failure  and already had a plan of where to come in should I have some other problems out there.  

After cutting up wind at the end of the Dike, I started to cross the two shipping lanes.  There were two tankers in the main channel which was a problem for me being on the downwind side of them.  I needed to get upwind to the other side of the channel before they passed or risk being stuck in their wind shadow.  When I say ”tanker”, I mean any huge ship (1000-1500’ long); they could be oil tankers, container ships, or whatever.  All I know is they are all way taller than my kite and moving a little faster than I can on a broad reach.  I quickly crossed the channel well before they passed me giving myself plenty of room should something happen, but my adrenaline was still pumping.  After getting to the other side, I saw a rounded dorsal fin from a dolphin in the channel.  Then I saw another and another, there were like 3-5 dolphins out there with me doing their thing in the Houston Ship channel.

Once I rounded the edge of Bolivar Peninsula where the ferry comes in, the wind sharply dropped (because of the direction and it’s movement over land).  I decided I’d had a good trip so far and turned to head back so not to press my luck.  The channel was now filled with 2-3 different sized ships making their way into the bay (all huge).  Since I was on the upwind side of them and could take an almost parallel ride I kept heading north northwest trying to keep up with their fast pace.  About halfway across from Bolivar back to where the dike is, I started hitting the waves from the boat I was behind.  First I over took them from the rear and then moved across the stern of the boat (I was a really long way behind it) and started to make my way up to where the waves were breaking on the western edge of the channel.  It was hard to find a really clean break this far south in the bay, but I managed to get some fairly good rides in along the way. 

Once I made it back to the safety of the northeast side of the dike, I wanted to do some testing to see how bad the wind shadow was off a large tanker like these.  I made my way to the West side of the channel and into what I thought was the wind shadow of the large ship I had been following and nothing happened.  I figured I was too far away to be affected and started back to the Levee. In about a minute and a half  I started smelling the diesel fumes and the wind completely dropped out (kite falling out of the air).  I had found the wind shadow.  Even though I was probably 6 boat lengths away from that tanker it still had a large enough wind shadow to completely depower my kite.  So I sat in the water safely out of the channel and down-wind of the tanker and waited for the shadow to move.  It only took a 30 seconds or so and I was back in business.  Good to know next time you think about tanker surfing on the downwind side of these ships, eh?   So I played around in the surf for a while until I thought it was safe to head back in. 

Made it back to the Levee beach no problem although the wind had dropped significantly since I started this morning (see wind graph), I was still powered up.  The rain had not stopped since I left and actually felt good on my face after the long ride.  I half expected there to be a bunch of riders at the Levee, but only one guy was there, in town from Iowa just keeping warm in his car and biding his time till he ventured out to get wet in the cold. 

All in all is was a fantastic ride and a great thrill to do solo.  The wind had been gusting to over 35mph when I got to the levee and by the end mid teens.  The whole ride was probably around 17mi (3mi short of the planned trip) and took me about 1hr 20min to complete with no stops (other than the unplanned tanker stop).  The dolphins, tankers, and rain made it memorable  for sure.  If you have a kiteboarding story to share email me at houston@xlkites.com and we’ll post it.

Phil Midler – XLKITES.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Events, Trips/Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.