While on a hiking camping trip in Point Reyes National Seashore one time, Marty and I noticed that there was a small state park, Tomales Bay State Park, in the middle of the National Park. This small park is on the bay side, and has several sandy beaches. Overnight parking is not allowed, but there are 6 hike-and-bike camping spaces in it that people can stay at if they do not have a car. We resolved to canoe here one day, and this year we finally got around to doing it.
There is a boat ramp on the east shore of the bay about 9 kilometers north of the park. We got our usual late start, and arrived at this boat ramp at 11:00 AM. The parking lot has signs in it that say you cannot park overnight, but we were reassured by a kayaker who was also getting in the water. He had parked here many nights and never gotten a ticket. We started south and went down the east shore of the bay. This shore has Hwy. 1 running along it, so there are almost continuous houses, restaurants, oyster markets, and marina coves filled with boats.
Because of our late start, the wind came up and helped us on our way. Waves came up also but they were going the same direction and were not a problem at first. We saw several beaches on the other side of the bay but could not tell which beaches belonged to the state park. So we kept on until we got to where the bay narrowed down and crossed over to the nearest beach. Turning sideways to the wind and waves was very uncomfortable. The helpful swells on the trip down were now rising up and letting the wind blow water off their tops, splashing water over Marty in the front seat. We fought our way across to the beach, and asked a swimmer which beach it was. Turns out we were on the southernmost beach of the park.
We started north to find the main beach (Hearts Desire Beach), but the wind and waves made it too uncomfortable to proceed. We pulled over on a small rocky beach that had no access from the park and had a picnic lunch. The tide was turning, and Marty suggested, correctly, that the waves would calm down after the tide finished turning. We headed north past all the beaches, and discovered that in the middle of the state park (in the middle of the national park), there was another island of private land with a private beach and boathouse. We found a dead leopard shark, only 40 cm long, in the shallow water of the private beach. At Hearts Desire beach we landed and went looking for a Park Ranger. The ranger station is unmanned, like many state parks these days, but we found the rangers working on road maintenance. We asked about the hike-n-bike camping spots and she told us where to find them. She said that we would probably have them all to ourselves since it was a Thursday. We set up camp and hauled all our stuff up from the beach.
That evening we bar-b-queued some salmon steaks we had brought with us for the first night. While walking down to the beach after dinner, we saw a fox, a skunk, and a raccoon prowling around the beach looking for things left behind by the daytime beach users.
On our second day, Friday, we set off in the canoe to explore the southern tip of the bay. We went down the west shore past the town of Inverness, and had to turn away from the shore because of the shallow water over the muddy bottom. The tide was coming in, so we let the rising water take us farther and farther down over the mud flats. It was a little surprising to watch Herons walking in the water on all sides of us, but the kevlar canoe has a very flat bottom and can float easily in only a few inches, especially over a few feet of mud. It was hot out in the middle of the mud flats and we didn't think we stayed there long watching birds. However, by the time we started back up the west shore, the wind was starting up already.
We both paddled hard for quite a while to get back north to the park. I watched objects on the west shore and was pleased to detect parallax that indicated we were in fact making progress. Eventually we got to the narrow part of the bay and cut across to the same beach as the afternoon before. We had the same problems with wind, wave, and spray. We rested on the sandy beach for a while before getting back in the water to paddle north to our camp. This first beach, Pearl Beach I think, is two beaches separated by a little hill. At low tide, the sand bridges the two beaches together. At high tide you have to swim, paddle, or walk a short trail up over the hill to get to the other half of the beach. There were a LOT of people at this beach and more arriving all the time. We took a short hike up the only state park trail to this beach and didn't run into anybody. Back at the beach there were people with big coolers, umbrellas, and other beach paraphernalia. There was no way all these mothers with small children came down that 9 kilometer trail with all this stuff. The locals must know a short cut to here from Inverness or from one of the National Park roads. We didn't ask.
When we got back to the campground, it was nearly full: The rangers allow people in cars to dump all their stuff in the campground and park just outside the gate. This means this little 6-site campground fills up every Saturday and heaven help you if you hike or bike in during the weekend looking for a spot. I don't think I like this practice. On a trip up to the (closed) ranger station, there was a map on the wall with an arrow pointing to a spot outside the gate, with a legend that said "park your car here for hike-n-bike camping". The rangers encourage this behavior.
Marty had saved our salmon skins from the night before, and cut them up into small pieces. That evening we went down to the beach where we had seen the critters, and put the pieces down in little trails all around the edges of the beach picnic grounds. We sat around until dark watching the fox, skunk, and raccoon quarter the ground looking for tidbits and finding the ones we had left them. At one point I followed the skunk along the beach and walked closer and closer to her to see how large her private space was. She moved away from me until she was next to the water and I didn't feel up to pressing her any closer.
Saturday morning, we packed up to go and headed north up the west shore. From this point north it was mostly National Park and there was little but wild shoreline. We found a family camped on a rocky beach with a big tent and a powerboat way up above the current water line. The tent was surrounded by cows ranging on the federal land and a national park boat came and chased the cows away. When we got there I asked if the ranger had given them trouble for camping on the beach. They said no he had just rescued them from the cows that were aggressive and scary and were chewing on the tent.
The afternoon wind came up and the sky, which had been clear for the previous two days, became overcast. We went all the way up the west shore so we could turn and go across at Hog Island. This island is in the middle of the bay near the boat launch where we got in on Friday. Marty heard somewhere that camping was allowed on Hog Island, but it was a windy cold and foreboding place this day. We have no interest in coming back and camping here some other time. We turned towards the east shore and the boat ramp. Going across the wind made the steering problems with the kevlar canoe worse than normal. We were tired and damp and miserable when we made it to the landing. Our bus had been parked there for two nights in the no overnight parking lot, but all that we got was a warning ticket, saying that overnight parking was not allowed here.