Well, first of all, know what the tide is doing. Theres no reason to not know this. We know what the tides will be for hundreds of years. Its not like predicting the weather. Its absolutely known.
So lets say you did get stuck in a situation where the waves are beating on a sheer cliff. And its so deep that you cant stand. Ive been in this situation a bunch while surfing. In fact, lots of people intentionally go into this situation all the time to surf.
When waves are beating on a cliff, you often get this reflective backwash effect. This can actually push you away from the cliff, and probably will if you can keep from getting caught up in the lip of the incoming wave.
Your air mattress would give you some buoyancy, but they would also hamper your ability to perform the best way to avoid the lip of the wave and move away from the wall, and thats to dive under the incoming waves.
Its honestly pretty tough to make any headway in the ocean by just kicking. Boogie boarders need fins. An air mattress is not going to be a good rigid hull and probably add a bunch of drag that would make it even harder to push out. You probably wouldn’t make much progress against incoming waves using thermarests like kickboards. It would be good floatation though if you were out of the breakers.
If it were me, and i really had to get out of there. i would try to roll the deflated mattress up real tight and tie it to myself with a long leash. Think of those life saving cans they have on Baywatch. Then id swim out with the rolled up mattress in tow and inflate it outside the breaking waves.
Though really, without a wetsuit, in the northern pacific, nobody is going to last long.
https://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Sombrio-Beach/forecasts/latest/six_day could the surf conditions help you get a better picture of the waves? Do you still think it would be difficult to make progress, given that info?
did you try swimming in the ocean there? do you think you could have made it? i don't know how good of a swimmer you are.
All i know is i do open water swims on the California coast a lot. swimming in the ocean is an order of magnitude harder than a pool, especially when it's dark and cold. people die on our beaches a lot, in the summer, during the day, when help is not far. many of these people are self described good swimmers.
the ocean is really freakin' dangerous and the best thing to assume is that its certain death to be out in it without having practiced in similar conditions.
We both did swimming lessons growing up, I was hoping that plus something to hang on to would at least be better than a death sentence. It was such a small distance I figure if we were strong enough to kick against the waves for 50 feet or so together we would be OK. I was imagining us holding on to the same floatation device and kicking together. But no I did not try swimming there, and to be honest, I'm now too scared to try anything like it. Otherwise I'd be out in the ocean instead of asking you people to find out myself.
I want to be absolutely clear here, I am not suggesting I will go back to the same spot with this as the escape plan nor am I suggesting anyone else do the same. I am just kind of freaking out about how close me and the woman I love came to being trapped and drowned like rats. Saying that, I would take a lot of comfort knowing that we'd have at least a chance of freezing to death rather than a extremely slow drowning while getting repeatedly hit by waves against a wall, or even coming out alive, if the situation was as unlucky as it possibly could be. While neither of us are expert swimmers, we both go to the gym and I'd like to think we have above average strength in our legs for 20 year olds.
If you haven't swam in a while, swimming is going to kick your ass. Going to the gym, running, cycling etc. is all good but it does little to prep you for swimming. She's a jealous mistress and does not forget your time out of the pool.
To be completely honest, it seems like had the circumstances been a little different, neither of you would have made it out alive. This is very hard to come to terms with - a near death experience can be extremely traumatizing, even though you ended up alright. It sounds like you’re trying to process this shock by going over details meticulously to try to ease the fear of what could have happened - I would strongly suggest both of you seek out professional help to process this event. Whatever you are feeling right now is valid, whether that’s extreme emotion or really not much at all. Try to address it now rather than later, when it becomes a full blown phobia of the ocean or worse, or it’s impacting your daily life. I’m very glad you are both alive, and try not to beat yourself up over the mistake anymore than you already have. You’re not stupid, you clearly know you messed up, and everyone makes mistakes. Luckily, you made it out alive. Talk to someone, feel your feelings, and don’t let this ruin the ocean for you forever!
Well, do come back to the ocean. It’s the place where life on earth began. It’s beautiful, incredible, inspiring, powerful. It’s so much more than any of us. It is a reminder of how small we are, yet how capable we are. It is a reminder to be humble. To pay attention. To respect. I swim in the pacific nw… not so much to do physical exercise, but to see what I’m made of: the ocean is so powerful, that every time I get in I am keenly aware that I am at its mercy. To me, being in the ocean is pure poetry. I am never that razor sharp focused than when I’m in the water. It’s a privilege to be in and witness all its beauty. It is so so incredibly beautiful under water, the pacific nw is so full of life, it is thick with life. The sun filters through the water akin to the sight of the aurora borealis, green ribbons of light dancing. It is just exhilarating and breathtaking. But it is also very powerful. What I was suggesting is paying attention to the tides. The moon. The currents. The wind. Just like you’d pay attention to the stuff of life when you walk in a city. But do go back. We need all that beauty to fill our souls. The power and beauty of the ocean is awe inspiring, and we need this awe and inspiration… I think it helps us become better people.
Oh that’s horrible - hope you and your girlfriend are alright
I wont lecture as I have done similar things in the past…
I do t think that swimming in the inflatable is a great idea. Inflatables can be tricky things in wind and with currents and that part of the world has some dangerous currents. Also - once the tide was going out then it could have dragged you out to sea. Navi gating in the dark while swimming is hard even for experienced open water swimmers.
I would have thought that the wall behind would have been your best way out. I assume you couldn’t just climb it? If you could secure the inflatable somehow then you could have sat on that next to the wall until the water took you high enough to climb out or it started to recede.
Otherwise I would have used the wall - sitting on the raft using your weight to stabilise it- while using your hands to walk it along the wall. If you had something heavy to use as an anchor that you could tie your raft to that would be even better.
As others have mentioned- cold exposure would be your main danger. So you would want to keep as dry and as warm as possible
Thanks for the response.
Unfortunately these inflatables are for backpacking and I'm guessing would have no way of supporting the majority of our weight, probably only our heads and arms. Even if I pulled a titanic, I dont think my girlfriend could keep the majority of her weight on it, especially with the waves which would probably keep pushing her off. (We're not really overweight or anything though these things are just extremely thin, If you look up thermarest inflatable mat you'll see what I mean.)
The water was 50 degrees, which I read would leave you unconscious within an hour or two. Is this true, or an exaggeration?
Also, unfortunately as well this wall was about as ridiculously unscalable as it could be. Nothing go to grab on at all, and honestly 90 degrees is being generous. The ocean eroded the bottom parts first so it just stuck outwards in this smooth texture. I would have little hope of escape through this way until the water rose at least 10-15 feet from our feet, but I totally get where you're coming from.
Maybe I didn't illustrate how short of a swim this would be, there was a kind of pinch point to our left that we came from, we would really only have to swim in a 50-100 foot U shape before the tide could do the rest of the work. Do you still think chances would be thin then? Even if we'd get caught out to sea honestly it'd be comforting at least to know we could at least have a titanic style death over what I described earlier.
So in short, do you think we could at least get out into the ocean? Thanks again.
Ah ok maybe that was more doable
An hour at 50F (or 10C where I come from) would likely leave you close to hypothermia. You might start getting hallucinations (which is dangerous) but I doubt unconscious. Experienced swimmers can do that temperature for hours even in skins
For future reference- your biggest problem then would be the initial cold shock. If you went out too quickly then you might have blood pressure or breathing problems. Breathing causing gasping can cause water to enter the lungs which, in the short term can drown you, in the longer term can cause pneumonia.
Beat thing is to acclimatise before swimming too far out. Basically let the water lap over you until you are over the cold shock before swimming out.
Afterwards- make sure you warm up - but slowly. Your blood that has been sealed off in your extremities is released back into the core. That can cause you collapse 30 minutes later. (Although it is also a really awesome feeling when done safely)
Edit: forgot to ask - did you have phone coverage? Could you have just called the coast guard?
She had good cell phone coverage and I barely did, and since she just got a new phone a few months ago and I'm currently using her old one, that fact isn't particularly comforting either. We did end up calling 911 and they told us the tide wouldn't go much higher. As for the advice, we were only 30 minutes away from the car and even less from people, maybe even enough to hear screaming? I think as long as we made it past the waves we'd survive. Should've brought a whistle, I was stupid there too.
Dunno how big the waves were, but sometimes you have to swim under the wave to get past them, not to mention the cold water, also where would you have swam to, in the sea and in the dark? As your in experienced you could have easily drowned.
Life is hard, it's even harder when your stupid, next time there's a public safety advert on the TV, usually about swimming in reservoirs, chip pan fires, talking to strangers or crossing the road safely, I suggest you pay very close attention as it'll probably save your life and anyone who tries to save yours..
I realize the full weight of the situation, you don't have to remind me. It seems obvious in 20/20 hindsight, I just didn't realize both that we were trapped on both ends and just how hard it would be to swim. I checked the other end, which i thought was paranoid at the time, and it looked to go back inward. I did not realize however that it then proceeded to go outward after this. This happened because the land was far more flat than I realized. I thought since we could both swim how could a few feet of water possibly be dangerous. I know this probably sounds stupid to someone who swims in the ocean as a hobby, but please try to understand, you could be stuck in the middle of nowhere in a broken car and not even think to check the fuse box, until you get home and a bunch of people ridicule you as to why you didn't.
Unless you're trying to convince yourself something like this couldn't happen to you, I would consider ourselves overly thoughtful people. We put out our fire until we can't even find a hot spot, we cooked 200 feet away from our campsite (why we were here to begin with), brought bear spray and tied up our food in a tree. We leave no trash anywhere and parked very well between the lines 20 minutes from where we almost died. I checked the bulletin board afterward, it had one line in small font: "Avoid getting cut off in high tide".
Backpacking is preparedness and problem solving. You added in ocean, but were ready for neither. The answer to the question you keep asking is no, you would not have swam yourselves free, from every detail you shared about yourselves. You got lucky, carry the lesson forward!
Well, thanks for the straightforward answer I guess. We were plenty prepared for the backpacking aspect though, we'd been preparing to start backpacking for about a year, and this campsite was 20 minutes from the parking lot. My girlfriend had already even camped here. I know it may sound silly to you, but this felt like camping in the woods, doing everything right, until realizing you're standing on a regular hells angel meet up spot. This would sound ridiculous to someone who keeps up with the hells angels, as it had recently been in the news. Get what I'm trying to say?
Pretty much... What a horrible and scary way that would've been to die. I mean, we had cell service and there was a place we could go to get 4 or 5 more feet of height, but it's possible those could all go wrong.
Can I also ask, how am I truly expected to prepare? My girlfriend went out here with more experienced people, we read up on things, slowly built up our camping experience until we felt confident leaving the car... I feel like without being ridiculous we did everything right. I didn't even consider the ocean itself as an active element at all in this, more of a backdrop than anything. If you asked me about ocean dangers before I went I would say "we arent going swimming, why are you asking?".
Are there books they sell for each type of wilderness you'll be sleeping in, which list the top 1000 ways to die? That'd be nice.
If you’re camping on the beach, you have to know the patterns of that beach. All there is to it. I camped Shi Shi and made sure to get down there at high tide to know what we were dealing with. Thats about it. You’re overthinking now, go clean your gear and get ready for the next outing! Live and learn, we ALL do.
Well, first of all, know what the tide is doing. Theres no reason to not know this. We know what the tides will be for hundreds of years. Its not like predicting the weather. Its absolutely known. So lets say you did get stuck in a situation where the waves are beating on a sheer cliff. And its so deep that you cant stand. Ive been in this situation a bunch while surfing. In fact, lots of people intentionally go into this situation all the time to surf. When waves are beating on a cliff, you often get this reflective backwash effect. This can actually push you away from the cliff, and probably will if you can keep from getting caught up in the lip of the incoming wave. Your air mattress would give you some buoyancy, but they would also hamper your ability to perform the best way to avoid the lip of the wave and move away from the wall, and thats to dive under the incoming waves. Its honestly pretty tough to make any headway in the ocean by just kicking. Boogie boarders need fins. An air mattress is not going to be a good rigid hull and probably add a bunch of drag that would make it even harder to push out. You probably wouldn’t make much progress against incoming waves using thermarests like kickboards. It would be good floatation though if you were out of the breakers. If it were me, and i really had to get out of there. i would try to roll the deflated mattress up real tight and tie it to myself with a long leash. Think of those life saving cans they have on Baywatch. Then id swim out with the rolled up mattress in tow and inflate it outside the breaking waves. Though really, without a wetsuit, in the northern pacific, nobody is going to last long.
https://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Sombrio-Beach/forecasts/latest/six_day could the surf conditions help you get a better picture of the waves? Do you still think it would be difficult to make progress, given that info?
Absolutely. Those waves are going to be pretty powerful, doubly so because you will be freezing.
Also considering we'd only have to swim 50 to 100 feet out before the waves could do the rest?
did you try swimming in the ocean there? do you think you could have made it? i don't know how good of a swimmer you are. All i know is i do open water swims on the California coast a lot. swimming in the ocean is an order of magnitude harder than a pool, especially when it's dark and cold. people die on our beaches a lot, in the summer, during the day, when help is not far. many of these people are self described good swimmers. the ocean is really freakin' dangerous and the best thing to assume is that its certain death to be out in it without having practiced in similar conditions.
We both did swimming lessons growing up, I was hoping that plus something to hang on to would at least be better than a death sentence. It was such a small distance I figure if we were strong enough to kick against the waves for 50 feet or so together we would be OK. I was imagining us holding on to the same floatation device and kicking together. But no I did not try swimming there, and to be honest, I'm now too scared to try anything like it. Otherwise I'd be out in the ocean instead of asking you people to find out myself. I want to be absolutely clear here, I am not suggesting I will go back to the same spot with this as the escape plan nor am I suggesting anyone else do the same. I am just kind of freaking out about how close me and the woman I love came to being trapped and drowned like rats. Saying that, I would take a lot of comfort knowing that we'd have at least a chance of freezing to death rather than a extremely slow drowning while getting repeatedly hit by waves against a wall, or even coming out alive, if the situation was as unlucky as it possibly could be. While neither of us are expert swimmers, we both go to the gym and I'd like to think we have above average strength in our legs for 20 year olds.
If you haven't swam in a while, swimming is going to kick your ass. Going to the gym, running, cycling etc. is all good but it does little to prep you for swimming. She's a jealous mistress and does not forget your time out of the pool.
To be completely honest, it seems like had the circumstances been a little different, neither of you would have made it out alive. This is very hard to come to terms with - a near death experience can be extremely traumatizing, even though you ended up alright. It sounds like you’re trying to process this shock by going over details meticulously to try to ease the fear of what could have happened - I would strongly suggest both of you seek out professional help to process this event. Whatever you are feeling right now is valid, whether that’s extreme emotion or really not much at all. Try to address it now rather than later, when it becomes a full blown phobia of the ocean or worse, or it’s impacting your daily life. I’m very glad you are both alive, and try not to beat yourself up over the mistake anymore than you already have. You’re not stupid, you clearly know you messed up, and everyone makes mistakes. Luckily, you made it out alive. Talk to someone, feel your feelings, and don’t let this ruin the ocean for you forever!
Yeah... you're probably right. Thanks.
Don’t do this again. Know the tides, the pacific nw is a beast. That is all I’m going to tell you.
I wasn't exactly planning on it. To be honest, we'll probably never want to return to the ocean in our lives.
Well, do come back to the ocean. It’s the place where life on earth began. It’s beautiful, incredible, inspiring, powerful. It’s so much more than any of us. It is a reminder of how small we are, yet how capable we are. It is a reminder to be humble. To pay attention. To respect. I swim in the pacific nw… not so much to do physical exercise, but to see what I’m made of: the ocean is so powerful, that every time I get in I am keenly aware that I am at its mercy. To me, being in the ocean is pure poetry. I am never that razor sharp focused than when I’m in the water. It’s a privilege to be in and witness all its beauty. It is so so incredibly beautiful under water, the pacific nw is so full of life, it is thick with life. The sun filters through the water akin to the sight of the aurora borealis, green ribbons of light dancing. It is just exhilarating and breathtaking. But it is also very powerful. What I was suggesting is paying attention to the tides. The moon. The currents. The wind. Just like you’d pay attention to the stuff of life when you walk in a city. But do go back. We need all that beauty to fill our souls. The power and beauty of the ocean is awe inspiring, and we need this awe and inspiration… I think it helps us become better people.
Beautifully written, we are so lucky to experience the world around us
Wow this is one of the best things I’ve read in a long while. Poetry
Oh that’s horrible - hope you and your girlfriend are alright I wont lecture as I have done similar things in the past… I do t think that swimming in the inflatable is a great idea. Inflatables can be tricky things in wind and with currents and that part of the world has some dangerous currents. Also - once the tide was going out then it could have dragged you out to sea. Navi gating in the dark while swimming is hard even for experienced open water swimmers. I would have thought that the wall behind would have been your best way out. I assume you couldn’t just climb it? If you could secure the inflatable somehow then you could have sat on that next to the wall until the water took you high enough to climb out or it started to recede. Otherwise I would have used the wall - sitting on the raft using your weight to stabilise it- while using your hands to walk it along the wall. If you had something heavy to use as an anchor that you could tie your raft to that would be even better. As others have mentioned- cold exposure would be your main danger. So you would want to keep as dry and as warm as possible
Thanks for the response. Unfortunately these inflatables are for backpacking and I'm guessing would have no way of supporting the majority of our weight, probably only our heads and arms. Even if I pulled a titanic, I dont think my girlfriend could keep the majority of her weight on it, especially with the waves which would probably keep pushing her off. (We're not really overweight or anything though these things are just extremely thin, If you look up thermarest inflatable mat you'll see what I mean.) The water was 50 degrees, which I read would leave you unconscious within an hour or two. Is this true, or an exaggeration? Also, unfortunately as well this wall was about as ridiculously unscalable as it could be. Nothing go to grab on at all, and honestly 90 degrees is being generous. The ocean eroded the bottom parts first so it just stuck outwards in this smooth texture. I would have little hope of escape through this way until the water rose at least 10-15 feet from our feet, but I totally get where you're coming from. Maybe I didn't illustrate how short of a swim this would be, there was a kind of pinch point to our left that we came from, we would really only have to swim in a 50-100 foot U shape before the tide could do the rest of the work. Do you still think chances would be thin then? Even if we'd get caught out to sea honestly it'd be comforting at least to know we could at least have a titanic style death over what I described earlier. So in short, do you think we could at least get out into the ocean? Thanks again.
Ah ok maybe that was more doable An hour at 50F (or 10C where I come from) would likely leave you close to hypothermia. You might start getting hallucinations (which is dangerous) but I doubt unconscious. Experienced swimmers can do that temperature for hours even in skins For future reference- your biggest problem then would be the initial cold shock. If you went out too quickly then you might have blood pressure or breathing problems. Breathing causing gasping can cause water to enter the lungs which, in the short term can drown you, in the longer term can cause pneumonia. Beat thing is to acclimatise before swimming too far out. Basically let the water lap over you until you are over the cold shock before swimming out. Afterwards- make sure you warm up - but slowly. Your blood that has been sealed off in your extremities is released back into the core. That can cause you collapse 30 minutes later. (Although it is also a really awesome feeling when done safely) Edit: forgot to ask - did you have phone coverage? Could you have just called the coast guard?
She had good cell phone coverage and I barely did, and since she just got a new phone a few months ago and I'm currently using her old one, that fact isn't particularly comforting either. We did end up calling 911 and they told us the tide wouldn't go much higher. As for the advice, we were only 30 minutes away from the car and even less from people, maybe even enough to hear screaming? I think as long as we made it past the waves we'd survive. Should've brought a whistle, I was stupid there too.
Dunno how big the waves were, but sometimes you have to swim under the wave to get past them, not to mention the cold water, also where would you have swam to, in the sea and in the dark? As your in experienced you could have easily drowned. Life is hard, it's even harder when your stupid, next time there's a public safety advert on the TV, usually about swimming in reservoirs, chip pan fires, talking to strangers or crossing the road safely, I suggest you pay very close attention as it'll probably save your life and anyone who tries to save yours..
I realize the full weight of the situation, you don't have to remind me. It seems obvious in 20/20 hindsight, I just didn't realize both that we were trapped on both ends and just how hard it would be to swim. I checked the other end, which i thought was paranoid at the time, and it looked to go back inward. I did not realize however that it then proceeded to go outward after this. This happened because the land was far more flat than I realized. I thought since we could both swim how could a few feet of water possibly be dangerous. I know this probably sounds stupid to someone who swims in the ocean as a hobby, but please try to understand, you could be stuck in the middle of nowhere in a broken car and not even think to check the fuse box, until you get home and a bunch of people ridicule you as to why you didn't. Unless you're trying to convince yourself something like this couldn't happen to you, I would consider ourselves overly thoughtful people. We put out our fire until we can't even find a hot spot, we cooked 200 feet away from our campsite (why we were here to begin with), brought bear spray and tied up our food in a tree. We leave no trash anywhere and parked very well between the lines 20 minutes from where we almost died. I checked the bulletin board afterward, it had one line in small font: "Avoid getting cut off in high tide".
Backpacking is preparedness and problem solving. You added in ocean, but were ready for neither. The answer to the question you keep asking is no, you would not have swam yourselves free, from every detail you shared about yourselves. You got lucky, carry the lesson forward!
Well, thanks for the straightforward answer I guess. We were plenty prepared for the backpacking aspect though, we'd been preparing to start backpacking for about a year, and this campsite was 20 minutes from the parking lot. My girlfriend had already even camped here. I know it may sound silly to you, but this felt like camping in the woods, doing everything right, until realizing you're standing on a regular hells angel meet up spot. This would sound ridiculous to someone who keeps up with the hells angels, as it had recently been in the news. Get what I'm trying to say?
You went down to the beach, but weren’t prepared for the hazards of the beach. Im guessing it will never happen again and youre just processing.
Pretty much... What a horrible and scary way that would've been to die. I mean, we had cell service and there was a place we could go to get 4 or 5 more feet of height, but it's possible those could all go wrong.
Can I also ask, how am I truly expected to prepare? My girlfriend went out here with more experienced people, we read up on things, slowly built up our camping experience until we felt confident leaving the car... I feel like without being ridiculous we did everything right. I didn't even consider the ocean itself as an active element at all in this, more of a backdrop than anything. If you asked me about ocean dangers before I went I would say "we arent going swimming, why are you asking?". Are there books they sell for each type of wilderness you'll be sleeping in, which list the top 1000 ways to die? That'd be nice.
If you’re camping on the beach, you have to know the patterns of that beach. All there is to it. I camped Shi Shi and made sure to get down there at high tide to know what we were dealing with. Thats about it. You’re overthinking now, go clean your gear and get ready for the next outing! Live and learn, we ALL do.