"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
...
"Calif Bill" wrote in message
...

... and a wave came out of the West
on a semi-calm day and rolled the boat. Also covered a 60' high rock at
Bodega bay.

A friend of mine used to live north of SF. She used to tell me about beach
swimmers getting blindsided by what she called "rogue waves", much bigger
than the 6-footer that sneaks into every 100 4-footers on the South Shore
of
Long Island on an average calm day. I always thought she was exaggerating.
This is for real?



Unfortunately for real. Talked to one of the survivors a couple of years
ago. They were off Bird Rock near Bodega head. Said the swells were about
8', which is pretty normal here. And the sea just rose up and the ship
rolled. Do not remember the number of dead, but the Tides wharf used to be
where all the party boats departed from, was sued and lost. They closed
down the party boats from that wharf. There is a picture of the wave
breaking over the rock from a shore bound photog that just happened to be
shooting. I think the picture is still at the Tides. As to the beach goers
that get it, we have bad rip tides and the people panic. Couple of weeks
ago, we were over to Stern Grove in the City for a concert and went to Ocean
Beach afterwards. There was a surfer rescuing 4 people who got too deep in
the rip. Couple of people had drowned the day before. You also have to
realize the water here is cold. A little offshore, the temps range 48-55
year round. We look for tuna at a temp break of 60 degrees and that is
normally 15-20+ miles offshore. Was in Santa Cruz yesterday fishing a mile
offshore and Monterey bay was only 59 degrees. We have deep canyons close
to shore, so the upwellings cause fog and other nastiness. The ocean is
5000' deep a mile and a half out from Monterey.
Bill