For several weeks, I have been trying to arrange a kayak camping trip with The Two Paul's (my brother Paul and Paul Futcher) and Bruce Duncan, a guy from bask. The first time we were supposed to leave for this trip, October 25th, a wind came up that whipped the swells at sea up to 20 feet high. We aborted and planned to try again the following weekend. Unfortunately, we couldn't fit that weekend into our schedules, even though the weather turned out to be great. So I was free this weekend to go on a BASK (Bay Area Sea Kayakers) initiated trip to Drakes Estero.
I have started to get tired of Drakes Estero. Not because it is a boring place, but because I have to paddle miles across the center of the Estero now to get to new places I have not seen yet. With people from BASK along, however, there was someone to talk to and point out new things to me. I left early with Sue Estey, who is an underwater photographer and naturalist. She pointed out some wonderful small jellyfish to me in the shallow water. The water was so shallow in many places that we skimmed along looking for more animals on the sandy bottom. Sue found a Moon Snail. This snail had a large (5 cm) shell, and an even larger foot (15 cm) spread out around it. The water was so shallow that she reached down and picked up the snail and tossed it to me. To my amazement, the huge foot managed to fit inside the shell and a trap door closed the animal safely inside. I placed it back right-side-up on the bottom.
When we came around the last point before the ocean, I told Sue about my last trip here and how much we enjoyed tide pooling, looking down from our canoes into the shallow water here. I slowed down to look at all the life in the water here, but Sue paddled way ahead and landed on the Limantour Spit. I was looking carefully in the water to see if there was any sign of abalone in this shallow rocky shelf. I had brought my diving equipment along and wanted to try tide pooling up real close. And I wouldn't mind picking up a few abalone if I saw some here. I caught up with Sue, told her my plans, and turned back to "Sunset Beach" to get my equipment out.
On the way back, we paddled over another shallow rocky place on the south side of the beach. Looking down into the water, I saw a large rock crab sitting on the side of a rock. It was close enough to the surface that I probably could have picked him up from the kayak. But instead, I stepped out into the one meter deep water between the rocks, and scooped it up from a more stable position. It turned out to be a mating pair of crabs. The female was very small, so I put her back and put the male in my goody bag for dinner.
At the beach, I put my wetsuit jacket on and organized the rest of my diving equipment. I paddled the kayak out to the edge of the kelp field, where the water was around 3 meters deep. The rest of the kayakers arrived and I asked Joan Weiner (the initiator of this trip) to see if someone would like to stay out and spot for me while I dove. After dropping some things off at the beach, she came back herself and asked me what she should do. I told her to count to 100 every time I dove, and if I didn't come back up, then dial 911.
My plan was to dive and swim in a line towards shore. This way I would see any changes in the life from deep to shallow water. I also hoped that I would find abalone at some depth, but I never saw even one empty shell. Joan towed my kayak behind hers and saved me from swimming back and forth to move the kayak. In the deeper water, I found some interesting big white tubular sea anemones under the edge of one rock. I saw lots of fish swimming away from me between the kelp. The bottom was sandy between the rocks and clumps of kelp, with a sprinkling of clam shells, probably fossils.
As the water got shallower, I saw more life. Bright pink strawberry anemones, the more common green sea anemones, and then lots of colorful nudibranchs. Most of these were small (2 cm) with incredibly bright neon blue and yellow stripes down their backs. Many had little neon yellow or orange tipped tentacles down their backs or around their edges. In one shallow place I found a huge (6 cm) pearly- white nudibranch with neon-orange tips all over his back. I tried to point it out to Joan, but all she could see was a white blur through the water. So I scooped it up between my hands and took it to the surface to show it to her. It flopped around and stretched and twisted under my gentlest touch, like a piece of wet tissue paper about to tear to pieces. Joan got a quick look at it, then I took it back to the bottom before I did any more damage.
When the water got so shallow that I could stand up on my knees, I told Joan it was silly of her to hang around. She went back to the beach to get ready for kayak-surfing. I discovered that if I was careful to swim over the clumps of kelp, I could tow the kayak behind me. The current and the wind were so calm that I could drop the bow- line and dive for short periods of time without the kayak even thinking about blowing away. The thick kelp helped keep it in place in the gentle breeze. Pushing over and through one clump of thick kelp, I came nose-to-nose with a little (60 cm) leopard shark. It was more supprised than me and turned to swim away at full speed.
I figured the kelp was full of crabs, and sure enough when I examined a clump of kelp up close, I found a type of crab I was not familiar with, kelp-colored with very small claws. I found another mating pair of rock crabs, and added the male to my goody bag for dinner. Then I found a HUGE lone mail crab scurrying under the shelf of a rock. He was about 16 cm across the top of his shell, and when he held his arms out, the tips of the claws were more than 3 times that distance apart. I almost got him before he turned and backed into a crack with his claws towards me. I went back to the kayak and got my abalone iron. With this, I could safely scoop the crab out into the open. I distracted him with the abalone iron, then picked him up with my left hand.
I have noticed before that rock crabs seem to be more dexterous than dungeness crabs, and this one proved it again. He managed to reach over his own back and got a good grip on my thumb through the neoprene glove. I came up out of the water shouting from the pain. I tried to bang him off on the top of the kayak, but could not get him loose at first. Fortunately, he seemed to think that my life vest was a suitable target, and let go of me to attack that in the bottom of the kayak. Then I managed to pick him up and slip him into the goody bag. Under the glove, my cuticle was mangled and bleeding. A bruise formed under the nail and on the pad of my thumb. It stayed sore for days.
With my thumb throbbing, the snorkeling didn't seem as much fun, so I got back in the kayak and paddled to the beach to eat lunch. The surfing expedition had still not gotten started yet, everyone was still eating lunch and talking.
Everyone met out in the waves where the Estero drains into Drakes Bay. There was a shallow area with waves breaking noisily over it with a deeper, calmer, channel on both sides. You could easily paddle out to sea in the calmer channels. Even the "surf chickens" among the group got more and more comfortable paddling closer and closer to the breaking waves. A few of us plowed right in, and I soon got dumped out of my kayak by a breaker I wasn't ready for. I came up to discover I was standing in little more than a meter of water. Two of the other guys also got dumped in the surf, made "wet exits" from their sit-in-side kayaks, and also discovered that they were in shallow water. Both managed to get back into the cockpits of their kayaks and pump the water out.
I was trying out a pair of "thigh straps" that slip over your knees and are supposed to allow a sit-on-top kayaker to stay in the seat in rough water. Unfortunately, the pair I got are too long for the attachment hoops on my kayak, and they kept slipping up over my knees. Fiddling with them constantly made them worse than useless. One really big wave sneaked up and broke right into me, but I forgot all about the knee straps and managed to lean way into the wave and brace over the top of it. If I had stopped to pull the silly straps back over my knees I would have been plowed under. I'll have to take them back and get a pair that adjust to a smaller length.
After surfing, we headed back to Johnson's Oyster Company and home. I mentioned the problem that I'm having with this long paddle just to get to the Limantour Estero. Joan told me that there is a culvert near Limantour Beach where you can get a kayak in the water. This sounds perfect for my next bird watching, tide-pooling, canoeing trip with Marty. Despite the late afternoon hour, the wind did not come up like it does in the summer and we had a calm paddle back across the middle of Drakes Estero. We didn't get back to Johnson's until after 4:00 PM. I was hoping to catch them open and buy some oysters, but they had closed early for a family wedding.
With three crabs in my goody bag, I called around to try to find someone to help me eat them all. I drove to Berkeley and steamed them plain without any crab spice. Our downstairs neighbor Ez was visiting friends for dinner, her husband Michael was home sick and didn't feel like eating seafood. Our "paying guest" Stephanie had already eaten, but she sat down and cracked a few legs and claws with me. I had enough crab for dinner and then picked the rest of it and saved it for breakfast. I warmed it with some butter and just rolled it into a two egg omelet. Yum!