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Dun Briste and capsizing over the Rising Serpent

September 25th, Day 104

The start was fine anyway, I knew I had a weather window in the morning to afternoon time so Paul drove me early back to Easky. The swell was still crashing on the shore in a way that was colliding off of the pier and then mixing and churning as it dumped on the seaweed next to it. After watching it for some time and packing, I decided to get Paul’s help in launching and I positioned the boat on a big pile of seaweed on the rocks, and on 3 jumped in, put my spray deck on and Paul pushed me into the wave that we timed perfectly. I paddled out into the chop and confused water in that area and when I was out of the thick of it, we cheered at eachother. It was a very cool moment, that launch. Made my way across to the corner just before the exposed cliffs of north Mayo for a pee break in a little harbor and that’s when the wind started to pick up. The sea was big alright, probably the biggest I have been in on this trip. There was definitely a sense of “hell yeah” and pride that I was out there doing it and about to paddle around my favorite bit of coast line out of it all. As I came around the corner Dun Briste came into view and I got even more excited. I saw Donal up on the cliff, he came to take photos and drone footage of me which I was so thankful for. I came into the small bay like area where the sea stack was and the swell was pounding quite intensely against the cliffs and shooting out of the caves. I wish I could have gone into the caves that go so far back there but I would have been surfed into the cave and smashed against a wall. The size of the sea should have been an indicator but I was so confident I had it and could push on after.

I lingered around looking up in awe at the sea stack. It was a total dream come true. The first time I saw this sea stack I couldn’t believe the perfect layers like a slice of geologic cake. Millions of years of condensed marine sediment and rock all standing tall in the Atlantic. There are even remnants of two houses on it from when people lived on it which is incredible to think about. There used to be land connecting the two and I think it collapsed in 1393, leaving this 150 foot tall sea stack. When I was on the other side of it and after taking it all in, I was ready to move on. I was so amazed and emotional that this was one of those days that the tears came easily as I paddled away, not out of sadness but out of pride for myself. That this long term goal of me paddling around was coming true. I looked at the forecast again and was thinking for a while do I keep going for the next 8 miles or do I end here after doing a full days paddle already. After deliberating and being high off adrenaline from the sea stack, I decided I could totally carry on and that the weather wasn’t to increase much at all. Well that didn’t prove to be true because after paddling about half an hour the wind picked up again and I quickly got that 6th sense that I get sometimes when I realize I shouldn’t be out there. I decided to abort, texted Donal I was going back and turned around. The white caps were often and the wind was fierce and it was a struggle to paddle into the wind and get back to the bay where the pier was, all the while I could feel myself being pushed closer to the cliffs. As always, I was watching the boomers intently to make sure that I wouldn’t drift too close to them and get caught in them.


It was then that the most impossible wave started to form to the left of me. I quickly realized with horror that I was caught in between the boomers on shore and a massive set of off shore “freak wave” boomers on a different reef with no where to go. I’ll never forget the sight and immediate fear of the biggest wave I’ve seen while paddling. Before I realized what was about to happen, and barely able to act, a boomer wave sucked me down and under and bending over and down, scooped me into the trough and crashed into the side of my head and body. The whole barrel of the wave, trough to crest rose to about 15 feet before hitting me. I was pushed fast in the circulation of the wave, tumbled under in the surf like a washing machine and was ripped out of my boat, no chance to roll. I was a couple hundred feet to a 1/4 mile out when the first one hit and they just kept coming, pounding down as I held my breath to go under. On the third wave, the boat was ripped from my hands and I worked to swim after it, coughing up water, holding onto my paddle and using it to swim closer.

After a minute or two, by the time I caught up to the boat, I was pushed into the regular reef waves and thought I could get myself back in at that point, but already being under and after many attempts I was getting tired. I don’t even remember pressing record on my GoPro, but now that I think about it, I was hoping for a success story out of a self rescue, or that someone would find the footage and see what happened to me... Another wave sent the boat over my head and I spent the next 5 minutes swimming after it as it got closer and closer to the rock shelfs close to shore, finally hitting against them. 5 minutes is a long time trying to swim after your whole life at the moment and the intense fear that it would shatter against the rocks and I was loose all of my stuff.

I caught up with it again and was able to touch the ground between sets to drag it closer to flat rocks where we were surfed up onto. I watched some of my things that were in the cockpit in the surf and eventually got everything back. I couldn’t believe that Donal was around the corner. I messaged him briefly saying what happened and a pin to where I was. By the time he got to me I was crying and pumping the water out of my boat. We got it on wheels and had to transfer it over a crevasse in the rocks where I stood in the chest deep water pushing and pulling me and holding up the back from underneath as we brought it over. Finally back to his van and got everything in, the boat on top and changed to go to the pub for hot food. I am so happy he was there to rescue me.

I keep thinking about all of the things I could have done better and the whole concept of me being out there as a solo paddler. Even if someone was with me, they would either be in the same position or unable to help anyway to not create another victim. I should have been farther out but I am always so vigilant when watching boomer waves on the shore and am constantly reading the sea. These were some of those freak surges that weren’t there for the hour before and the hour after and somehow, it felt impossible watching them rise over me and thinking to myself “this is not supposed to happen”. I’m now a living case study I guess. I’ve now since found out that the reef that those waves can appear over is called the Rising Serpent, and it’s appropriately named.

My self rescue was poor because I was tired and scared and I should have clipped myself to my short tow. Why didn’t I do that? We've all practiced rescues with tow lines and short tows, and the thought of my wrist getting wrapped in it and the boat being surfed forward was enough to keep it off. You think you have all of your emergency procedures down, I’ve rehearsed them in my head a hundred times. And when it comes down to it, your brain is thinking in rapid fire of every possible way out. Do I call the RNLI, do I get my radio out, do I try and re entry and roll in between sets, there’s no way we will make it being sent into the rocks. The adrenaline is something I’ve never felt. And incredible embarrassment and failure too. How could I let this happen? I think about it all over and over and it just feels like a miracle that I had no wrists injuries, no holes in the boat, coughed up all the water, made it to a flat place on shore near a road, got all my stuff back, and that Donal was there. It turned out as the best case scenario really.

Of course I’m nervous to get back in the boat and I think if this happened at the beginning of my trip, I would feel very differently. Because it turned out the way it did, I can think about what I’m learning from it and try not to imagine all of the terrifying “what ifs”. The autumn weather is back and I just need a couple more weather windows to finish my circumnavigation and there’s no way this is the thing that breaks me.






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