By the time the 4:30am wake-up call came around, it was still a murky, cloudy dawn. Mick was already up.
“This new tent was giving me grief last night,” he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “It was sagging on my face most of the night.”
Ben, Timbah, and Chris were still snoozing under the tarp.
It was calm in the bay. Further out, the sea had changed direction from yesterday. A small windchop was lapping its way from south to north.
Perhaps the original forecast for strong southeasterlies was still accurate? Certainly at this point, it seemed like we had a southeasterly flow.
The team was soon bustling, eating breakfast and getting packed up for a 6:30am start.
6:30am rolled around, but so did a thick mist. It was clear that a stiff southeasterly breeze had picked up outside of the bay, so we decided to delay departure to keep on the safe side, avoiding having to paddle in fog. We were kept company as we waited by the sudden arrival of a boatload of fishers, clearly on a paid fishing tour. One whom I talked to said they were trying to catch karafutomasu, or pink salmon. It didn’t seem like anyone was having any success.
We finally got away at 7:30am, about four hours after dawn.
By now, the fog was gone, but the southeast wind was howling.
It made for quick progress. Ben, in the shortest kayak of the group, was able to catch waves here and there, surfing momentarily as the windchop hurtled past us.
Mick had reigned in his nerves enough to keep with the group, rather than ploughing ahead. He was still out of his comfort zone though.
“If we can find spots here and there to land, for me to rest my nerves, that would be appreciated,” he said to me over the wind.
I had to be honest. “We’ll see what we find, but don’t get your hopes up!”
Indeed, the entire coast along here was steep, bouldery beaches. As time wore on, the windchop was only getting larger, creating bigger dumping waves on shore.
We were a tantalizing 1.5km from our destination of Nihon-daki when we decided to go ashore for a break, just north of Kuzure-daki Falls cape. The cape provided marginal but manageable shelter from the southeasterly chop.
First, however, we needed to get around the cape.
There was a small opening between some reefs, so we decided to head through there, rather than go around the cape proper, Haidee leading the way. There was plenty of room to paddle through, avoiding the wash on either side of the opening.
Mick, however, misjudged the opening, and paddled too close to the left side. A breaking wave caught him broadside, tipping him over towards the boulders.
The interesting thing about Mick on this trip was even though he professed being out of his comfort zone for much of the lively sea conditions, he was never lacking in paddling skill, per se. As the wave tipped him, he reflexively braced hard. Luck was also on his side – he was close enough to the boulders that, despite his boat now being mostly upside down, his brace landed on a submerged rock, giving him the support he needed to right himself.
He had just avoided a messy wet exit into whitewater next to boulders.
Once round the cape safely, we headed to the beach. The beach was steep and bouldery, with a moderate surf breaking.
I paddled in first between sets in my plastic boat, aiming to guide the rest of the boats in using paddle signals.
It was on shore, paddle in hand, that I realized we had not talked about surf landings. Haidee and I had been drilled on group surf landing management and had used the techniques previously, but at least Mick and Ben hadn’t, and I was now regretting not covering it as a group.
The idea is that the person on shore has a good view of the incoming surf sets, and can guide the incoming paddlers, one by one, to land between sets.
- Paddle perpendicular to water (straight up and down): All clear, forward paddle hard
- Paddle parallel to water: Stop
- Paddle parallel to water, wobble up and down: Back-paddle hard
Timbah came in second, so with him catching boats as they careened into shore, in the end it mostly worked OK. Mick managed to surf a large wave, thankfully keeping straight, hitting the shore hard and fast but in control. Haidee, keeping a keen eye on my signals, glided in gracefully.
Once on shore, we assessed our situation.
“Why didn’t we just paddle down to the fishing huts?” queried Chris.
Indeed, we were only a few hundred meters south of Takinoshita banya, where it looked like there might be a sheltered boat ramp.
I explained that unless it’s a proper emergency, recreational paddlers were not to land at operational fishing huts (private property). There still exists somewhat of a veiled tension, it seems, between commercial and recreational use of the coast of Shiretoko Peninsula (see p. 22-23 of Shinya-san’s guidebook), so I was keen to avoid sullying sea kayaker reputations. In reality, I doubt there would be any issue, but the prohibitive verbiage surrounding fishing infrastructure use had certainly tipped the balance in my mind towards avoiding boat ramps, despite their appeal.
The sea state was building, visibly, as we stood around chatting. The beach we were on was not, in any way, ideal for camping. There was no water source, and the surface was large stones and rocks. Sleeping there would be OK in a pinch though, and we were all carrying at least one day’s worth of water each. We’d survive.
In the end, we decided to pitch the group tarp, have an early lunch, and watch the sea state. Ideally, we’d push on for just those few extra kilometers to Nihon-daki, which was supposed to be a much more amicable camping spot.
Of course, the question of whether it would be a good campsite or not was an open one. None of us had paddled this section of coast before, and were just going on the advice given in Shinya-san’s guidebook. Would it really be better than right here? The uncertainty was real.
The team sprung into action, and the tarp was securely pitched, using the spare paddles as poles. This gave a welcome respite from the strong midday sun.
It was just as I was peeling my smoked eggs when Timbah said something that made my heart stop.
“Heads up, a bear is walking in our direction,” he said calmly.
His poise and calm was in contrast to the hit of adrenaline that suddenly coursed through my veins.
Before the trip began, as a group we talked about what we’d do if we encountered a bear at camp.
“Stay as a group, and make plenty of noise to make it aware that it doesn’t want to approach us,” suggested Timbah.
“Make sure we have our bear spray ready, preferably downwind of the group,” added Mick.
The rest of the group – all Antipodeans from predator-free countries – were happy to defer to Timbah and Mick’s North American sensibilities.
So we all yelled.
The bear looked at us with curiosity.
It did not walk away. It continued to walk towards us.
At this point, it was about 50m away.
“Can someone hit a pot or something?” asked Mick.
I was happy to oblige.
The pot noise didn’t seem to have an effect either. The bear continued to wander towards us, scratching at the kelp washed up on the shore.
We transitioned to throwing stones.
Up to this point in my outdoor life in Hokkaido, my only experience with bears was seeing their backsides as they scampered off, terrified at my presence. The only bears I’d encountered appeared to be thoroughly scared of humans and just wanted to get away from humans as quickly as possible.
This bear was not that.
Its curiosity in us was disconcerting, to say the least. A sort of disconcerting that I’d never experienced before, if the adrenaline, entirely replacing the blood in my body, was anything to go by. As a New Zealander, where the deadliest thing in the outdoors is death-by-cuteness when seeing a harmless, flightless Kiwi bird, this was truly terrifying.
After what seemed like an eternity, the bear finally decided we were too bothersome to entertain getting any closer. It slowly turned around and ambled away.
I confided my terror in Mick, who was standing next to me with bear spray in hand. He was a picture of composure.
“Well that terror you’re feeling right now, that’s what I’ve felt for most of the time on the water since yesterday afternoon,” he said.
Bear drama over, we all returned to the tarp to continue lunch.
All was well until the bear returned, this time appearing from the bushes, a mere 25 meters away.
“There’s that bear again,” Timbah said, this time with more edge to his voice.
We all jumped up, trying to look tall.
I grabbed my bear spray this time around, and in a rookie moment, disarmed it, to be ready to spray should the bear come closer.
I crouched down, grabbed a stone, and hurled it in the bear’s direction.
It was in this process that my rookie mistake of disarming the bear spray, in my left hand, came back to bite me. When I threw the stone, my left hand tightened around the bear spray trigger, letting off half a second of powerful pepper spray. About half of it sprayed directly onto my trouser leg on the outer side of my upper leg.
“Whoa, no one needs to be spraying anything,” Mick yelled. Still as calm as a cucumber, I noted he still had his bear spray safety engaged.
“Sorry, rookie mistake, that was an accident,” I said sheepishly.
With all the commotion, the bear retreated into the bushes again. This was hardly comforting, however. The bear was clearly interested in us, so we made the call to pack up and head back onto the water, to complete the short 1.5km or so to our original intended campsite.
Timbah was in full agreement. “The level of nonchalance that bear is displaying is discomforting,” he said.
Indeed, the bear appeared to be young. Perhaps it was desensitized to humans due to the proximity to the fishing huts.
All of a sudden, the feisty sea conditions looked much more attractive than dry land.
As we were packing up the tarp and our gear, we kept one person on lookout as the rest of us busied ourselves with packing our boats.
Mercifully, the sea conditions had not built any larger than when we got off the water. The conditions hadn’t become flatter, but they were no worse. Mick took a few deep breaths and put his head down to get the distance done to camp.
True to the guidebook’s word, the Nihon-daki beach was a glorious oasis. Two impeccably beautiful waterfalls framed a gorgeous fine-gravel beach. Reefs protected the entry from breakers. It was about as idyllic as one could imagine a remote beach to be.
We all landed safely on the beach, in complete wonder at where we were. It was only 11am, but it had felt like we’d just experienced a full day of excitement. The tarp was quickly set up, and a properly relaxing afternoon ensued.
First on the agenda for me was to try to wash the bear spray out of my pants. My upper thigh was feeling considerably spicy. Haidee also took the opportunity to rinse some of her paddling clothes.
The sea state only got worse as we lounged about at camp. Whitecaps formed as the wind, just off the beach, strengthened.
A couple of skiffs, carrying tourists bundled up in brightly colored PFDs, sped past, sending up great plumes of water as they bashed their way south into the chop.
I called up a premium weather forecast (US$1) on my Garmin inReach. It was not ideal.
This also gave me a chance to fact-check the forecast Chris has received the previous day. According to that free forecast (Garmin inReach has a free and premium service), it should have been calm today. The premium forecast, however, was telling me that currently, where we were right now, there were wind gusts of up to 35km/h. For tomorrow, the forecast was for gusts of up to 40km/h.
“I’d be partial to a dawn start tomorrow,” advised Timbah, “if we do decide we want to attempt rounding Cape Shiretoko.”
I was feeling on the same page.
Cape Shiretoko weighed heavy on my mind. Perhaps overly heavy. Stories of massive breakers close to shore and deadly winds offshore made the Cape a larger-than-life crux in my imagination. An impenetrable cacophony of waves, swell, current, and wind. We only had others’ descriptions of the Cape to go on.
“When the wind and waves are up,” warned Shinya-san in his booklet, “it’s better to wait it out.”
“When the seas and winds are high,” cautioned Ishida-san at Rusa Field House, “both the inside and outside passages can be impossible.”
Of course, none of our group had any concept of what ‘up’ or ‘high’ meant in the context of Shiretoko Peninsula. 40km/h gusts – is that up?!
Once again, the spice of uncertainty added an atmosphere of nervous anticipation in the group.
Over dinner, we chatted about options for tomorrow. One option was to stay put for a whole day, and hope the wind and waves lessened for a more comfortable paddle the day after.
In reality, however, this would have been mainly for Mick’s benefit. We were only 5km from the cape, and I was confident in his ability to handle conditions, at the very least if they weren’t any larger than today. And besides, the foreacast for the following day wasn’t much better either.
Another option was to start early tomorrow. A 1:30am wakeup call to start at dawn, at 3:30am. If the Cape was too intense, we could always just retreat back to Nihon-daki.
I left that for the group to consider as we washed up dishes.
After washing up, the crew reconvened.
“The proposal is a 3:30am start,” I said.
This was met with no resistance. Today’s leisurely start had been a lesson in making the most of the early morning flat water.
“On shore, waiting to leave at 3:30am, folks,” I reiterated. “Even if we have to unpack again and stay put for the day, let’s be ready to push off at 3:30am, regardless.”
I feigned confidence, even as the waves crashing against the reefs beyond our campsite echoed in my ears. Would we paddle towards the cape tomorrow morning, only to be forced back with our tails between our legs at best, or stranded on a remote beach (or with a person in the water) at worst?
————
The next morning, my alarm went off at 1:30am.
The sound of the sea and the reefs gave me the answer.
6 thoughts on “Shiretoko Circumnavigation Day 2 – Moereushi to Nihon-daki”
Some of those pix you can’t SEE the kayak – looks like you are all sitting on water!
So important to have good group dynamics, so options and decision making are smooth – taking abilities and fears into consideration.
I guess with the bear – the last option would be to chop off Rob’s smelly leg and toss it to the bear as a tasty morsel.
Ha! I’m glad to report I finished the trip with all two legs attached.
After yelling, banging pots, and throwing stones, I wondered what else you might have had in your defence arsenal if it hadn’t ambled away—kayaks as jousting sticks? Anyway, looking forward to reading about the rest of the trip.
There were four cans of bear spray ready to go! But overall, upon reflection, I want to imagine that the bear was probably thinking “chill, my dudes, I’m just sniffin’!”
I’d have been shitting bricks if a bear had come that close! Good thing he seemed chill…
We saw six bears in total on the trip, and in the end, I think I started getting a feel for their general chill nature. Encounter-induced adrenaline marginally decreased:-)