Kayak Hooping Adventure

[zrbite]

I thought I would share my own experience hooping for lobsters, since this was my first year to do so.

I went out with a buddy on a 2-person inflatable kayak Sea Eagle. We parked at Mission Point Bay by Mission Bay jetties (San Diego). Instead of paddling 30 feet by launching from the beach, my buddy thought it would be quicker if we just picked up the kayak and go down the jetty rocks.

Everything went fine and we hooped around and caught one short. After throwing it back, we decided to go closer to the middle of the channel where it is deeper. I used a pocket knife to cut the zip-tie that kept the extra line tied to the buoy. The cut slipped due to water and 'poof', I hear air screaming that they are free. My buddy starts paddling like crazy back while I search for the hole leak and block it with my hand. Good thing we weren't far.

We made it back to the side where we launched from and we're wondering how we're going to get off and get back up. The swell comes up, we float up close to the rocks, and we sat there. The swell then went back down, and we landed on rocks halfway and everything flipped, including us onto half rock, half water. I managed to recover all the hoops and my friend asks me, 'Wheres your paddle?'

The paddle was gone in pitch black darkness. The only light I have is a clip-on that shows a distance of 2 feet. He tells me to jump and search around blind. So I jump in (not smart) and swim around looking for it. I see something and slowly went up to it thinking it could be a sea lion, so I was a bit scared. It turned out to be a buoy so I gave up and started swimming back. The black paddle happened to be right in front of me floating on water.

Overall, we lived, I recovered my paddle, and we didn't catch any lobsters, but it was still quite an adventure. Hopefully once I get a real kayak, things will turn out differently.