This camping trip was scheduled by Bob Stender of BASK for a full moon weekend three months ago. The weather was bad on the weekend of the full moon, so it was re-scheduled and rescheduled again until we finally had clear skies on a weekend near the full moon. We met early on Saturday morning at Tamal Saka, a local kayak outfitter. They were kind enough to let us park our cars for the weekend and launch from their beach. Bob and Mary paddled out Friday evening and camped an extra night, then they paddled back to meet us in the morning. Also to drive up to a bakery for morning coffee and pastries. Then everyone paddled diagonally up the bay to the campground on Marshal Beach.
The National Park rangers have informed us that camping is allowed on any of the beaches on the west shore of Tomales Bay north of Tomales Bay State Park. But outfitters and large groups are now required to bring some sort of portable toilet and carry out their own waste. BASK has such a port-a-potty that fits in a large kayak. Fortunately, Marshal Beach has its own toilet facilities and packing out the waste is not necessary there. So all we had to set up was our tents.
When the camp was all ready, five of us struck out on a day paddle to try and make it to Hog Island. Roger and I also brought along our helmets inside our boats in case we made it all the way to the opening of the bay to go surfing. We hugged the shore to take in the sights and enjoy the wild shoreline as much as possible. As we paddled north the afternoon wind got stronger and stronger until it was probably 15 knots (as forecast by the NOAA). Close to shore we could avoid most of this wind until we got to Pelican Point. This is a large permanent sand bar sticking out into the bay. We stopped for a break here and looked at the whitecaps blowing back down the bay. After a few minutes of this nobody was interested in making a dash into the wind just to get to the island. We decided to return to camp and go to Hog Island the next morning before the wind came up. The ride back to camp was interesting with a following wind and waves. By working twice as hard as I did going into the wind I was able to occasionally catch a wave for a few seconds on the return trip. Roger says that the only way to use a following swell like this is just to paddle normally. He says he gets more rides by accident this way than when he tries to catch the waves. The Zen of kayaking.
After a nice long rest in camp everyone got ready for the first leg of our evening trip down to the town of Inverness for dinner. The wind and swell was still strong from the north and we had a quick and easy ride 9 kilometers into the town. We landed on the beach behind Blue Water Kayaks, another local kayak outfitter, shivered in the wind as we changed out of our wetsuits and into dry clothes. The plan was to have a nice dinner at the Golden Hinde Restaurant while the sun set and the wind died down. The full moon would come up and we would paddle by moonlight back to our tents.
We had a great meal but worried about the weather. Soon after we arrived the world seemed to get socked in by fog. Fortunately this turned out to be a local effect on the inside of the restaurant windows. The sky was actually still clear outside. But the wind never died down and the Moon did not come up the whole time we were eating! We kidded Bob about the poor planning of the trip, but none of us had remembered to check the Tide Log for the time of the Moonrise.
After dinner we all stood around the kayaks shivering in our dry clothes. It was not going to be very fun to get into cold slimy wetsuits in the wind. Since the Moon still had not risen three kayakers decided to go back into the restaurant for a while and five of us got suited up to brave the dark waters. Once I was over the initial shock of the wetsuit it warmed up nicely. I put on gloves but had to take them off later because I got too hot! The first people ready to launch discovered that the tide had gone out exposing knee deep mud at the shoreline. So we all carried our boats to the marina behind the restaurant and launched from their concrete boat ramp. As we started north a large orange Moon finally rose over the hills behind us. But it was some time before it cast enough light to clearly illuminate our way. We stuck to the middle of the bay to avoid trouble.
Roger took the lead and slowly pulled ahead until we lost sight of him. We were using a protocol I had learned from a Sea Kayaker Magazine article about night paddling: Each kayaker is assigned a number and had to call it out in order. Every so often I would shout “ONE!” and would hear “TWO” “THREE” “FOUR” and “FIVE” come back to me from the darkness. This gave each of us an idea where the rest of the boats were when they were too far away to see in the poor light. Until Roger got too far away to hear us and broke the chain (he was number two). So the rest of us re-assigned the numbers and kept going without him. Roger turned towards shore when the light got bright enough and slowed down to enjoy the shoreline. So he actually arrived at camp after the rest of us.
The next day I assumed that there would be interest in paddling to Hog Island. I left my tent set up to dry out in the warm sun and started early, telling Roger he could easily catch up with me later. I paddled straight from point-to-point skipping the shoreline we had explored the afternoon before. I stopped at Pelican Point and found a survey benchmark in a concrete pier in the sand. Behind me I caught a glimpse of a kayaker rounding a point, but he disappeared. I got back in the water and continued north. From here on, I hugged the shore to take in the sights and give the other kayakers time to catch up. So I was close enough to see a stripe of green on a rock that looked suspicious to me. I made a landing to check it out and discovered my hypothesis was correct: It was another survey benchmark that told me I was now on Pierce Point. I didn’t have a chart with me, but started to feel like I didn’t need one. I had a life-sized map of Tomales Bay under me, complete with labels indicating where I was!
In one little valley I saw the ruins of an old house and went in for a landing. All that remained of the house was a fireplace, chimney, and a few clumps of lilies growing where the garden used to be. The creek that created the valley had moved and was running right in front of the fireplace, where the living room once was. I picked a few lilies and tied them to the back of my boat. They survived the trip back to hand out to the women on our camping trip. (For which I got accused of being a charmer). My thoughts about these flowers was that they were the longest lasting sign of human habitation in that little valley. The people who lived there are gone and forgotten. The house is long gone, the fireplace was being undermined by the creek and would soon be gone. But because some woman once cared enough to plant decorative flowers in her front yard, there will be a splash of color in that valley for hundreds of years to come.
The wind came up earlier than the day before and I hugged the shore to get out of it behind the points. I figured we would have lunch on Hog Island so I started looking for a point a little upwind. I would turn out into the bay from there and let the wind blow me to back to the island. However, when I got to the first logical place to do this I still had plenty of time. I kept going until I was kilometers north of the island and low on time to make a noon rendezvous. I had followed the shoreline around several more points and finally launched out into the bay to catch the flooding tide and the wind both pulling me towards Hog Island. This is when Roger finally caught up with me. He was the only other kayaker who had felt like another day trip. He pointed to shore and we met on Pierce Point where I showed him the survey marker. Then we rode the wind and tide together back to Hog Island and sat down there for lunch.
After lunch we paddled back to camp where I put away my tent. Then we paddled across the bay to where our cars were parked. Despite the long side trip to Hog Island we still found the rest of the group putting away their equipment. They had taken their time breaking camp and moseying across the bay where we almost caught up with them.