For our 5th kayak tour on Vancouver Island, Ellen and I left our familiar waters of the west coast between Nootka Island and the Brooks Peninsula for the north end. We drove north until the road ends at Port Hardy and spent 17 days leisurely exploring God’s Pocket and the north coast around Cape Scott to San Josef Bay.
Track of our 17-day paddle, starting in Port Hardy and ending in San Josef Bay
I gave a talk on this trip to our local kayak club, Bay Area Sea Kayakers, at their monthly meeting in April, 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting was conducted virtually on Zoom, so a video of the talk is available on YouTube. An album of photos of the trip is available on my Adobe Lightroom site.
I loaded a previous track into my GPS to show the circuitous route through Rubis Creek into the lush hidden valley I love to visit. The little creek heading up the valley looks like any other branch off the main channel, so following a previous track prevents embarrassments when you’re leading a group, in this case a BASK paddle on our annual January Monterey Weekend.
As we headed up the slough past Seal Bight, there was only one problem. Where was the marsh? Where was Rubis Creek?
We enter the cove with no need to follow the creek
What lay before us was not a marsh with creeks winding through pickleweed, but an expansive glassy lake. The marsh and creeks were completely submerged by the highest tide of 2019. The scene below on the return paddle is more what we’re used to seeing.
I’m excited to hear of a full new class of 14 embarking on this intense, hilarious, delicious 5+ weekends of training in the arts of sea kayaking. I’ve already paddled with some of you and wish I could join you as a volunteer this year as I love to do. While on medical leave from paddling, I’ll be following your progress and cheering on my future paddling partners.
On my last BASK paddle, June 29, we had a little adventure and I had the chance to photograph an episode that might reveal what fun is in store for you, and perhaps motivate you to take your skills a bit higher than you dream. On this classic summer paddle around Angel Island, the wind came up stronger than predicted, and one new paddler had an out-of-boat experience in the central bay. I wrote it up in the trip report and recently posted it on my blog below with a link to photos. You might want to review the trip report so you understand the context of the event. I’ll be referring to some of the photos I posted to a Lightroom album, so you may want to open it and go to photos 6 and 7 on Angel Island’s Pallet Beach.
Franca, Ellen, and Margot
I’d like to focus on one skill that is documented here, a rafted in-line tow. You will learn it sometime in the next month or so and have a good time playing with it. It is our bread-and-butter tow to assist a paddler who is unstable or otherwise incapacitated. One helper pulls up next to the paddler in difficulty, who can lean over on the helper’s boat or vice versa to create a very stable raft. Another paddler attaches a tow line to one or both of the rafted boats and starts towing. The next tower attaches their tow line to the bow of the initial tower, and takes the lead. Repeat until you have enough power to do the job. (On one famous in-line tow a few years ago 7 BASK members linked to tow a disabled fishing boat off Kirby Cove Beach before the Coast Guard could answer their distress call:-) The mechanics of this technique are pretty straightforward and you’ll find it an easy skill to learn.
What better way to savor my last paddle before entering CAR T-cell cancer therapy and the ensuing 6 months of non-paddling recovery. Two rounds of chemotherapy had not dampened my energy much and my enthusiasm at all, so I posted a last-minute BASK club paddle for Saturday, June 29. 13 showed up for what turned out to be an adventure. The vivid memories are still fun to relive 2 weeks later from my hospital bed and I’ll share them with you. (I wrote this a few weeks ago just as the fevers were starting and never got around to posting.) What follows is the announcement of the trip that went to the club email list and calendar, and the trip report I sent to the email list after. Comments in brackets added to help my non-kayaking friends.
After several miles of paddling through winding salt marsh creeks, we reached the broad Napa River. In the clear, late-November light, we soon spied our destination across the river. Rusting into the muddy bank lies the largest remaining wreck of a class of US naval destroyers known as the flush deckers.
Paddling through the hull
The USS Corry was built right here in San Francisco in 1921 when the US forgot to turn off the warship-building spigot at the end of World War I. Following a short peacetime career, the ship was decommissioned and partially scrapped at the Mare Island shipyard in 1930. After removing most of the superstructure and machinery, the remaining hulk was sold and the private owner chose to abandon it a few miles up the Napa River. Now, nearly 90 years later, the river flows through sections of the eroded hull and marsh plants colonize the interior. Continue reading →
“I want to dance.” We cue some waltzes. Melba struggles up from the couch gripping her walker. She transfers one hand to my shoulder and we begin to sway to the music. I recall dancing with Melba 36 years ago when Ellen and I wed, a string band playing contras and waltzes in a log building. She danced squares with Willis after the kids left home. She danced at the Senior Center when Willis was gone. Now she is 90 and remembers neither the year nor the day, and not all her sentences come out whole or sensible. She wants to dance. Happy birthday Melba.
If we had paddled this stretch of coast 200 years ago, we might well have encountered Alutiiq hunters in skin-on-frame baidarkas seeking sea otters, or in larger baidaras carrying people and cargo between Fort Ross and the Russian settlement at Rumiantsev Bay (now Bodega Bay).
3-hole baidarka similar to what the Russians brought down in the early 1800s
One of the highlights of my year is our kayak club’s annual gathering at Van Damm State Park to paddle the coast and rivers between Elk and Fort Bragg, California. This year I was really not psyched for this, as Ellen could not come because of work and was feeling pretty down. I headed up Thursday afternoon and spent 3 days paddling the coast in the best conditions I can recall in the 8 years I’ve participated.
Johan Niklasson’s photo of me doing a pour-over in my short boat.
Johan’s photo of me in the “tunnel of love”
For those not familiar with the Mendocino Coast, it is a wonderland of caves, arches, tunnels, and beautiful cliffs and rock formations. It takes pretty mild swell and wind conditions to really get into some of the features, and this year we had them. Our club rents the entire upper loop of the Van Damm campground for a whole week, and people come for as much of it as they can, with the biggest crowd over the weekend of 80 to 110 paddlers. Each day groups form to launch at various points along the coast to tour either the outer coast or one of the 3 rivers that are tidal for several miles. No matter what the conditions, there is something for everyone. Back at camp, we have formal or informal parties to share stories and plans. Continue reading →
Kayakers converged from all over the Bay to celebrate the ribbon cutting for the new campsite at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area on Thursday, September 20. I launched alone at dawn from Berkeley to paddle 12 nm to the park. Not long after, a pod of 4 kayaks from Islais Creek led by Bo Barnes showed up, followed by others throughout the morning.
Bo Barnes’ pod joins the celebration
What exactly is it that we’re celebrating? California State Parks, with several partners, has developed a new 6-unit boat/bike/hike-in campsite at Sunrise Point. This means that starting October 1, I can paddle down from Berkeley, spend a night or two under the stars, and explore the south bay by kayak. This is one of just a very few options for kayak camping on San Francisco Bay.
View of the park from the water
As you can see, the point has some hills with nice views and groves of trees to shelter from the famous winds of Candlestick Park
I can’t wait to spend my first night at this campsite!
