COLUMBIA RIVER BAR 

Holy moly 😳 Sounds like you're lucky to be alive. I was visually thinking about your story and feeling green 😊

@@Bird1964 I had decades of solo rough water experience including running tidal rapids and whirlpools at night, winter night storm paddling, winter west coast surf (broke a boat in half once), hurricane paddling Haro Strait with rock ballast strapped inside the kayak, and I carry an inflatable compact life raft in my pdf back pocket - plus hours of re-entry and roll practice in every imaginable condition. The narrow British sea kayak, a Nordkapp has a glove tight cockpit opening and padded out like a jet fighter cockpit and has 40 extra pounds of reinforcing in the hull and seams. I also have a person to boat tether with quick release. For the North jetty I placed my VHF radio in the hatch, inaccessible. Being a Canadian, I didn’t want to bother the USCG should trouble arise. My motto is self reliance. I mention all this as I don’t want to imply I bypassed risk aversion as some moronic lughead. I wrote many articles and safety reviews for the now retired Sea Kayaker Magazine out of Seattle. But, I was really surprised seeing that sand in the troughs so far out. It was all insane split second bracing and hard work in the current and wind. I believe the crab fishers who floundered and lost lives were represented by their union subsequently as they took the Army Corps of Engineers to task for unannounced dumping of dredging spoils off the jetties. I was sufficiently disquieted by the quickly changing conditions and crab cage lines in the heavy surf in the foreground of the North Head lighthouse that I did land only to carry my heavy sea kayak over the jetty for my retreat. Them were big rocks. That was hard, slippery work. The next day I played in the surf off Ecola State Park. Much safer! My home waters off Vancouver Island are so different the the Washington Oregon coastline. We have numerous indentations and conditional anchorage spots that small vessels almost always have ready egress as opposed to bars and surf landings. Hats off to you mariners down there. Cheers.

Absolutely incredible. That was very interesting and informative to read. Thanks for sharing this with me. The oceans/bodies of water like this need you cloned! Cheers!

same, waves were so high our 24ft boat would completed vanish at the bottom of the swell, definitely only going with the charters out of westport from now on

So go back to videos about the Atlantic and make comments there. Wtf is wrong with you?