Muir Beach does have mild waves, like I noticed on my trip from Rodeo Beach, and getting in the water was easy, especially near some rocks on the north end of the beach where I hoped the water would be deeper. The first point out from the beach going north, I saw the silhouette of a group of people(?) standing on the rocks. I assumed fishermen and wondered what they would think seeing me go by. But when I got there, it was a group of pelicans standing on the point. Well, I was right about the fisher part. I have seen rocks in Sonoma county with over a hundred pelicans on each rock, and unless its the same pelicans follow me up and down the coast, there have to be tens of thousands of them in just these two counties. From Hwy. 1 between Muir and Stinson Beaches, the road rises up to the top of the cliff and looking down, you can see that the cliffs go straight down into the water, and that there are a lot of large rocks just offshore. (Paddling around rocks near the cliffs is much more fun than paddling past a large sandy beach and staying out away from the breakers). Once you get north of Muir Beach, all the land belongs to the GGNRA again, and the houses disappear. There is one small beach with very mild waves that has no access from the shore at all. I'm always sort of looking for nice places to camp on the beach, so I was interested. Normally once I'm in the water, I stay there and don't land anywhere, even at the turnaround beach. But I stopped here to look at the camping possibilities. There was also a large piece of flotsam on the beach: a nicely made 15 foot wooden ladder. No way to get it home. This beach has a very narrow valley, but there are definitely small flat comfortable places above the highest high tide line, and just off of the beach. Unfortunately, Hwy. 1 makes a turn at the top of the cliff to go in around the little valley, and there would be a lot of traffic noise. As I headed north, all those big rocks just off the cliffs were glowing white in the morning sun. The sun was also activating the smell from the guano of thousands of pelicans and cormorants. Paddling northwest into a gentle breeze behind these rocks was almost enough to make me gag. Around the next point, there was a collection of little cabins lining a slope down from the cliffs. On my map, this turned out to be a campground maintained by the GGNRA, again. They have a little beach there, and a view north to Stinson Beach and Bolinas bay. Stinson Beach was just a little way past this, and after coming even with the lifeguard tower, I turned back. I cut straight across point-to-point and avoided most of the guano smell on the way back. The waves still looked mild at Muir beach, so I finally did some surfing practice, landing and paddling back out a few times. I discovered that you can still get slammed in the face with wet sea water on the way out in mild waves, if your timing is bad enough.
