The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

		Surf Kayaking–Sept 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Once again this year, my friend Paul and I went out to the area in Washington called Neah Bay, but specifically to the beach called Makah Bay.
 

The great thing about this beach is that it is mostly a surfer community that comes together on the weekends. Everyone’s friendly to talk when you approach them and they’re more than willing to walk over and introduce themselves, including the whales.

Yes, even the MASSIVE whales want to say hi.

We were taking a break from riding the surf in our kayaks and were out near the entrance of the bay watching some whale spouts off in the distance. We even saw the back of one come out of the water as it swam by parallel to us, but about 200 yards away. Then very quickly, it came out of the water again, but was about 150 yards away and heading straight towards us. It was wider than a bus and looked longer than one too – and that’s just the small part that was out of the water. I immediately put the camera down and headed towards the beach while Paul paddled backwards towards the beach, since he didn’t want to take the time to turn his kayak around.

Thankfully the whale didn’t come up again since it certainly traveled faster than us and would have had to only bump us to send us flying. From what I can find, it was either a humpback whale or a fin whale. Whichever it was, it was huge. I have a short video of my thoughts after having “escaped” the whale.

The kayak surfing was a blast, the short hike up to Cape Flattery was nice, and we had sunshine all weekend long except a bit of fog in the morning. I tried to get a video of me crashing through some waves as I paddle out to sea, but it’s tough to do when both hands need to be on the paddle.

The last night, we pooled our resources of firewood and dessert with our neighboring campers who spend every weekend of the year at the beach. They are avid surfers, got married at the beach last month, drive from Seattle every weekend and sleep in their new Ford cargo van. They are surfers to the core, and made great company for an evening around the campfire.