PROTECTION ISLAND – The waves and wind crashing against the Shelmar as he rescued two stranded kayakers weren’t the worst conditions that Capt. Bob Wood had ever seen.
But with 45 mph winds, and waves reaching up to 14 feet, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing as he plucked the kayakers off Protection Island and returned them safely to the mainland on Sunday.
After a rocky crossing of the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Friday Harbor to Sequim, Wood’s colleague Pete Schroeder, urged Wood not to return to his Seattle-area home.
“I tried to buy him dinner to get him to stay,” Schroeder said.
“But he wouldn’t listen.”
The two kayakers – Wood did not get their names and the Coast Guard would not release the names – told him they were grateful that he made that journey.
The Shelmar is a Hinkley 44, a jet-powered 44-foot boat which can more easily steer around the waves than a boat which uses a rudder, Wood said.
It is a research vessel that investigates orcas in the Strait through a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the non-profit organization Global Research and Rescue based in Seattle.
As Wood, 59, went around Paradise Cove at the edge of Discovery Bay, he spotted a sailboat on the beach and called it into the Group/Air Station Port Angeles.
The Coast Guard rescued the family of five from the sailboat, which had lost steering power.
Soon after, Wood heard a request for assistance from the Coast Guard for two kayakers who had been stranded on Protection Island for about 24 hours.
The two had been kayaking near Protection Island, having left from Discovery Bay on Saturday.
Weather conditions deteriorated and prevented them from returning by kayak.
The two set up camp on the island.
“I couldn’t believe he was going to make that trip after the coming across the Strait,” Schroeder said.
“That was a pretty brave thing to do.”
The conditions were certainly bad, Wood said, but he’s been in worse.
“We do research from Seattle and the South Puget Sound all the way to Northern Vancouver Island, so I have been in some pretty hellacious stuff,” he said.
Disabled engines, and high winds and waters are only a couple of the problems he’s faced.
“This trip, if you weren’t extremely careful and prepared, you could have been in big trouble,” he said.
“There were some points coming across the Strait that we would drop 10 feet off the wave.
“Sometimes we would come off the wave, drop 10 feet and go straight into the next one.”
