Well, I learned a few things about a 22 ft. Hewescraft Sea Runner last Saturday that I never needed to know. My friend Jake, his wife Meg, and I decided to run across a large bay to look for moose. The ride over was fine, a little sloppy but manageable, mostly 2-4 ft. seas. The bay opens up to a larger body of water so some of the swell was rolling in. We made it over to a small cove and searched for a place to anchor up. There were a few small waves in the cove but it looked good so we nosed into the beach. Next thing I knew a wave caught the stern and pushed us sideways onto the beach. I jumped off the bow and got the boat turned around and Jake motored off shore to find a better place to anchor up.
After walking the beach for 10 minutes I looked out at the water we had just crossed and was horrified, in minutes the water had turned white. I knew it was building and we needed to get back across pronto! I waved Jake closer to shore and said "We gotta go, now!!!" I jumped on the bow and we headed out. It was about a 10 mile run back across but I knew the other side of the bay would be much calmer.
As we motored towards the opening of the cove we made sure that the VHF radio was set to channel 16 in case a Mayday to the Coast Gaurd was required. We left the mouth of the cove knowing thing were going to be bad. We started to get to the nasty section and were rolling through 4-6 ft. seas, but that was just the beginning. All of a sudden we saw huge waves towering over the 6 ft. seas. They would crest and start rolling towards us, completely burying the bow and ending up against the windshield. We had no choice but to keep going forward, turning around would have been fatal. At one point we had water flowing through the closed cabin. To say I was scared is an understatement. Each set of large waves that would come crashing towards us would bring a new exclamation from my mouth that Meg determined, "Were not helpful." Going over the large steep waves would lift the motor out of the water causing us to momentarily lose control. More than once the waves pushed the bow sideways and our boat would lean dangerously over on its side. Jake masterfully handled the boat, a point I shared with him more than once after we had safely crossed.
Needless to say after 15 of the longest minutes of my life we made it through the bad stuff and we were back into "comfortable" 4-5 ft. seas. We got back to shore and just sat in silence as we all gave a thank you to God for getting us through.
Sorry about the lack of pictures, somehow I didn't think to get out the camera....
DISCLAIMER: The location names have been left out of this posting to protect the moose.
