The swell calmed down at the end of the week giving me hope that there would be calm ocean water to paddle over the weekend. Roger Lamb was going to join me Saturday but had to cancel at the last minute. Sami Iwata was interested as long as we didn't have to drive very far, so we agreed to meet at Muir Beach in Marin around noon on Saturday. The sky was threatening to storm but had patches of blue sky and the ocean was calm (under 4 foot swell). We launched over the mild waves and headed south.
With the cold air and water I felt a little conservative as we started out and Sami set the pace by taking chances behind the rocks close to shore. We went into a few caves and soon found a large arch. The arch was a little shallow with a rocky ledge blocking passage at the lowest troughs of the waves. It didn't look like we could go through. I paddled closer and closer, watching the waves coming in over my shoulder. A large wave came and I made a sudden decision to ride this wave through the arch anyway. Sami followed close behind.
Paddling in rock gardens with someone else has a few special worries. Timing can be so important that a place that was safe to go through a few seconds ago will knock you over if you are late. But watching someone else successfully go through in front of you can give you a false sense of security. Fortunately the wave I rode through was large enough to provide water for both of us to easily make it through the arch. I relaxed and continued around the next rock. But when I looked over my shoulder, Sami had disappeared. Apparently the arch had been so much fun she had decided to turn around and go back through it again. We talked about the advisability of this later, and my opinion is that the waves made going through this arch in one direction easier than the reverse. Sami says that her timing was just bad on the reverse direction and the waves left her high and dry and stuck on the ledge. Then the next wave came in and hit her with enough force to roll the boat over.
By this time I had come back and saw her and her boat (separately) being tugged back and forth in the rough water under the arch. I knew that Sami is a good kayaker with lots of experience at self rescues and very comfortable in the water, so I stopped and took the time to try and take a picture of her in the arch. Later she chided me: "You were supposed to be coming to help, not documenting my humiliation"! Unfortunately (or fortunately for Sami) I was using a new splash-proof reusable camera and I think the film was not advancing correctly.
I considered going through the arch to help, but feared I would get surfed through out of control and would run into Sami. So I zoomed the long way around the arch and came at it from the back again. I got there just as Sami discovered that her paddle float was torn open and would not stay on the paddle or hold any air. She could not do her usual paddle float rescue and required my help getting back in her sit- inside boat. Under her direction I first towed her and the boat a little farther away from the rough water in the arch. Then I held the cockpit of her boat while she slithered up onto the stern face down, slid her feet into the cockpit, then flipped over right-side up as she sat down. Without a working paddle-float Sami says that she felt exposed and dependent for the rest of the trip. There are paddle-floats made out of closed cell foam that cannot tear or burst like Sami's did, and that sounds like a good idea to me.
We stopped for lunch at the little pocket beach where Jamie, John, and I stopped once to apply duck tape to broken kayaks. Then after lunch we went past Rodeo Beach and through the caves and arches at Bird Rock. There was one arch that lead back towards Rodeo Beach but had a thin dike of rock blocking passage through. At low tide this dike was only a meter above the average water line. Large waves would just break over it making me think at higher tide a kayak could go through. I could tell that this dike was thin because just below the waterline there was a hole through it. In the troughs of the waves, this hole would be above the water line on my side and a beautiful smooth stream of green water would pour out the hole from the other side.
Sami found a neoprene bootie floating in the water here. A very nice one with thick soles and just my size. I hypothesize that some other kayaker had a very bad time in one of these caves or arches recently and lost one of his booties. I'm going to hold onto this one for the time that I loose one of mine.
We continued south towards the Point Bonita Lighthouse and found one of the caves in which Jamie had been knocked over. I went into it this time. This cave has a large entrance then turns south and has a very small exit. I watched the exit for a while wondering if I could time it right to get through. Even at low tide the waves occasionally almost closed out this exit, so I was just about to give up when a REALLY large wave came in. Sami shouted "WAVE" to warn me but I didn't hear her. This is what must have happened to Jamie. The cave was large enough that the wave went through without breaking, rolled under me and didn't push me too close to the ceiling. But as the wave hit the small opening, it met with itself coming in from the other side. This caused the wave to break violently as it reflected from the back of the cave and the breaking wave came back at me. It grabbed my boat and surfed me sideways clear back across the cave out of control. The water was so rough I had trouble deciding which side to brace on and barely managed to keep myself upright. The breaker calmed down and decided to let go of the boat without smashing me into the wall on the other side of the cave entrance. Then I quickly paddled out!
We paddled around the Point Bonita Lighthouse and looked at our planned turn-around spot: A large arch practically underneath the lighthouse. I have paddled past this arch a few times and have never had calm enough conditions or courage enough to try going through it. This time I was determined to try it. I paddled close and saw that there were submerged rocks nearby that created steep waves just near the entrance. A few reasonably large waves came by and threatened to push me in anyway, so I volunteered to go through ahead of one of them when I'd be in control. It worked and I zoomed through with no problems. Sami had seen the steep waves and told me she was not going to do this one. But after my passage she saw a calmer series of waves coming and decided to go for it. Her timing was correct and she went through with no problems as well. I looped around and through again behind her and then we headed back towards Muir Beach.
We went straight back from point to point and made much faster progress than the trip out. We did slow down at Bird Rock to ride the waves behind the rock and out in front of Rodeo Beach. We also stopped at "Sami's Arch of Doom" to see if we wanted to try and go through it again in the rising tide. Nope.
Working hard to get back to our cars, I actually got a little overheated. So when we got to the beach I decided to do a little surfing in the waves while Sami made her first trip back to the parking lot. We had pushed the weather on this trip, the waves were rising, the sky was darkening, and we had risked the afternoon wind (from the north) or the storm winds (from the south). Occasionally a few drops of rain sprinkled down on us. Overheated and close to my car and a dry towel, I had no fears of getting cold and wet and was confident in the waves. As a result I plowed out to sea successfully several times and had some great rides back to shore. And never fell out of my boat once!
We stopped at the nearby Pelican Cafe for a hot drink before heading home. When we came out of the restaurant only a half hour later, the sun had set, the sky was dark, a strong wind had come up, and it was starting to rain hard. The bad weather had arrived at last and we were happy to have timed everything so well. Sami and I have tried several times in the last few months to go on a rock garden paddle and the weather had never co-operated until today. We had finally succeeded, snatching a great day on the ocean from between the storms.