A Little Rock Gardening at Fort Wetherill - June 16, 2018

West Cove at Fort Wetherill

I have often thought it was silly that I live a half-hour from the ocean, but I usually drive two or three hours to paddle at some far off river. Don’t get me wrong; I love river paddling (especially whitewater), but it seems like I am missing out on some great paddling close to home. 

With that in mind, I spoke to Tony at one of our planning meetings about going out with him on one of the RICKA Sea Kayak trips in his tandem Tsunami sea kayak. I love tandem canoeing, so why would tandem kayaking be any different. I knew I wanted to do something with a little action, so we decided to do the trip at Fort Wetherill on the rocky Jamestown coast.

Heading out

Fort Wetherill is a former coastal defense battery and training camp located on 100-foot high granite cliffs across the East Passage from Newport and Fort Adams State Park. Shortly after the Revolutionary War, Fort Dumpling was built on this site to protect this strategic access to Newport and Narragansett Bay. The site would eventually become Fort Wetherill - part of an extensive coastal defense battery that included Camp Cronin on Point Judith, Fort Greble on Dutch Island, Fort Hamilton on Rose Island, and Fort Adams in Newport that protected Narragansett Bay during World War II.

I met Tony early so we could get our gear together and set up the boat. Fort Wetherill is a popular spot for scuba diving and fishing, and the divers and fisherman were out early as well. Eventually the rest of our crew arrived – 14 paddlers in 13 boats. The day was beautiful with sunny skies and light winds. We put in just after high tide with easy 1 to 2 foot waves.

Around the rocks

The trip was led by the two Tims (Tim 1 and Tim 3), and was intended to be an introductory rock gardening trip to give newer paddlers experience around rocks in mild conditions. I strapped on my helmet and we headed out.

Rock gardening is the “whitewater” paddling of the sea kayak world. In rock gardening, you ride ocean swells over and around the rocky coast. Timing is everything as you ride the swells over rocks, and efficient paddling helps to keep you from getting bashed by waves. 

Over the waves

We paddled out of West Cove and headed west under the huge granite cliffs. The Tims provided coaching as we paddled in and around the rocks, and practiced running pour-overs. When we weren’t playing, it was great just to sit back and enjoy the scenery. We paddled around Southwest Point and into Mackerel Cove for lunch.

After lunch, we headed back to West Cove. Tony and I tried to run a gap at the end of Southwest Point against the waves. Unfortunately, our timing was slightly off, and the water receded before we could get our 20-foot boat completely over the rock. We were stuck high and dry, and there was nothing to do but wait for the next wave.

Running the gap at Horsehead

That wave came, and pushed us back into a hole with a cross current that made it difficult to paddle back up and out through the shoot.  We got bounced around by a couple of waves, but eventually got ourselves lined up and powered out over the rock – it was cool.

We paddled in and around the rocks and enjoyed the views on the paddle back to Fort Wetherill. Hopefully Tony will paddle with me again, or I may need to find myself a sea kayak.

Fort Wetherill from Erik Eckilson on Vimeo.

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