This memorial day weekend was apparently haven for abalone divers: There had been a week or two of calm waves, so the visibility in the water was good. The waves stayed calm for diving, there were low tides every morning, the days were warm and sunny, all on a three day weekend! Normally on memorial weekend all the campgrounds would be full, and the shore especially would be lined with abalone divers. As I drove north into Mendocino County, the sides of the roads were certainly lined with their cars as divers climbed down the cliffs. I drove north to Manchester State Beach, which I had recently checked out. This time I launched from the north end of the park at Alder Creek. First I walked down to the shore and studied the waves, then I paddled across the creek and slid the kayak over the sand.
Even with mild (five foot) swell and low tide this beach looked rough. While studying the waves, however, I saw a rip current running out to sea. Behind the rip the breaking waves never made it all the way to shore and getting into the boat and settled down was easy. I tried to follow the rip current out to sea but started plowing into large breaking waves and what looked like shallow water again. I figure the rip current had deposited a sand bar offshore. Next time I’ll paddle out of a rip at an angle in hopes of getting to deep water sooner.
Just north of Alder Creek is a community on top of the cliff. They have several access trails and roads to the beach and I saw people on the sand. This is actually a continuation of Manchester Beach that runs from here all the way south to Point Arena. On this whole stretch of beach, perhaps ten kilometers long, the waves break far from shore. I saw large waves ahead of me that seemed to be dumping, but when I got there all the waves around me broke slightly but none of them dumped. Looking way behind me I thought I saw dumping waves where I was before. I had put on my wetsuit complete with jacket in preparation for a rough launch so I figured I was ready for one of these waves if it found me. Be carefull what you ask for: A large wave rose up and broke over me with little warning. I braced, stayed upright, and got surfed sideways (and backwards) towards shore. This wave never stopped breaking and I started wondering if it was going to take me all the way to shore. If I had known it was going to be a long ride I would have started counting the seconds. When the wave finally let me go I was half way to shore, a single ride of at least 100 meters! Once I got the nose pointed back out to sea I was easily able to plow over the next few breaking waves and make it back out to safety. I was reasonably glad I still had the wetsuit jacket on.
Unfortunately, the wetsuit jacket was chaffing under my arms. My plan was to stop at the first calm beach and change to my nylon wind breaker. When Manchester Beach finally ended I traveled between rocks around the point and into a series of shallow coves. But most of these coves had dumpy beaches and I could not land. The first calm beach I found was covered with a colony of harbor seals so I left them alone and kept looking. Each of these coves has the ruins of an access road coming down the cliff. Some of the offshore rocks still have iron rings cemented in them. More dog-hole ports? I am developing a picture in my mind of this coastline buzzing with activity in every cove during the lumber rush. Most of the shore is deserted now, few people even use these coves for recreation. I saw perhaps four people in four kilometers of coastline. Which is fine with me and great on a busy three day memorial weekend!
One of the points between the coves had shallow water protected from the swell, full of sea weed covered rocks exposed at the low tide. I wove a path between these but got rolled over when a breaker made it in farther than the rest. I was not hurt but got completely dunked again. The water was shallow enough to stand up and roll the kayak back up. Still glad to have the full wetsuit on. The chaffing under my arms was getting painful, however, distracting me from the ocean and preventing me from making a full stroke with the paddle. Finally I found a cove with mild waves and stopped to switch jackets. The beach I landed on had a mountain of dead seaweed washed up on it one meter thick. The nylon wind breaker jacket was in a dry sack and was still warm and dry. I wanted to keep it that way so I resolved to stay out of trouble. Good plan.
The whole trip so far (half way to Greenwood Cove) I didn't see a single cave. The cliffs are not rocky here, made out of crumbling soil that won’t hold shapes. I knew the conditions would change because Greenwood Cove has lots of caves. Finally I found a narrow arch sticking out of the end of a point. The waves broke across the entrance but the inside looked a little calmer. I paddled in closer and hung around too long taking a picture. A large wave approached and without time to back away I went into the cave to test my hypothesis that it is calmer inside. The wave arrived and surfed me all the way through the arch. I got a great ride and didn’t even get the jacket wet!
I saw a little black bird in the water with a flash of yellow/orange on it’s beak. Could it bee a puffin? I though I saw one at Stump Beach once, and Marty tells me they are supposed to show up here occasionally. This puffin let me get five meters from him without swimming off. I positively identified it as a puffin! On my way back later I was another one which did not let me get close to it. It dove away and never came back up while I was looking.
One of these coves had several groups of rocks in it. Brave me, I paddled through the middle of one group of three. Two small rocks on my left, a larger one on my right. The previous wave through here sloshed between the rocks and looked like fun! As I passed the first one on the left, a rouge wave rose up that I hadn’t seen coming. I figured that geting wet wasno longer an option, but I needed to get past the rock on my right so the wave wouldn't smash me into it. I paddled for all I was worth, fighting the current the wave was pulling backwards between the rocks. A vertical wall of water rose up on my left and slammed into me. I braced into it and managed to stay upright, but the boat rotated right until it was facing straight in to shore. I missed the big rock on the right with centimeters to spare!
The kayak fell down off the wave an started to turn left. Away from the rocks I saw the wave had not broken yet. I slid down the wave and pulled ahead of it, in position to get slammed again when it finally did break. But miraculously the boat carved down the wave and surfed beautifully across it. I only wish I could do this on purpose when I want to! This cove has a long sandy beach that I had considered landing on, now I had no choise. And so far the jacket was still dry, at least on the right side.
How fast do surfboards (or surfing kayaks) move? IT'S FAST! I felt an incredible exhilarating rush of speed. I would have enjoyed this, if only I wasn't heading straight for a large square rock near shore. I tried to deflect my course right to miss the rock, but the wave was so steep I couldn't reach down far enough to bite water with my paddle on the right side. I considered digging in on the left, but figured that might deflect me only far enough to end up behind the rock to get smashed into it by the breaker. Surfers have an option I do not of shifting their weight forward and backward on the board. If I did nothing I would nose straight into the rock at full speed. My phisical intuition told me that the nose of the boat would cave in and my stiff legs would cause me to rotate up out of the seat to strike the rock head first. My helmet would not be adequate protection.
I had time to regret getting the jacket wet, but had only one option remaining. I bailed off the left side of the kayak into the wave, figuring I'd make a good sea anchor and pull the kayak back over the wave. About this time the wave finally finished breaking, so I got tumbled under water still holding the paddle in my right hand. My head and shoulder thumped into and moved against something yielding. The sand? A shark? I didn't feel like I was deep enough to find the bottom already. Then I thumped again. It turned out to be the tail of the kayak! The boat was caught in the breaking water, towing me forward by the paddle leash. I accidentally bodysurfed along with it, so the paddle was not pulled out of my grasp. We rose to the surface and I did not see the rock in front of me. I figured "Why not?" and grabbed the side of the kayak with my left hand. Like boogie boarding I surfed all the way up on the sand holding onto the leash and tail of the kayak. I ended up safely behind the rock I was trying to avoid. I had surfed fifty meters sideways and a lot less than that towards shore. I did not look forward to fighting my way back out through more surf like that. So when the water calmed down a few waves later, I launched immediately and made it back out to sea without exploring the beach.
The main attraction for me (from a distance) of this stretch of coastline was the Elk Creek Cove. Highway One makes a big round turn inland around an isolated hill in the middle of the Elk Creek valley. At the mouth of the valley a long curved beach is interrupted by a large rock. From the road it looks like an attractive spot, but there is no public access to it. I have long wanted to paddle to this beach and explore it. As I pulled around the point for my first look at this beach up close, an otter ran across the offshore rock to my left! It was small, assuredly a river otter since sea otters have not come this far north yet by a long shot! I said "What are you doing out here!?" and backpedaled to follow the otter around the corner of the rock. It was not visible when I backed around the corner. Did it jump into the water? Run around the next corner? Hide in a crack? Exactly what was this river otter doing on an offshore rock?
The southern most stretch of the Elk Creek Beach is separated from the rest by a bump in the cliff and is inaccessible by land. On this beach was a tent and two guys fishing. I looked for kayaks but instead saw an open deck canoe! The swell was mild all week but was getting rougher. I hope these guys got off the beach OK and didn’t have far to travel. These two guys found a private place to camp away from all the crowds. Almost nobody knew that they were here, almost nobody can get here to tell them to leave! I landed at the opposite end of the beach for lunch and wandered around while I munched. There were very few footprints in the sand, none of them recent. I had the main part of a large beach to myself on a busy three day memorial weekend when all the public beaches were crammed.
As I left Elk Creek Cove, I passed in front of two caves. They were too shallow, too rough, and didn’t go anywhere. If they had been arches I would have tied them, but shallow dents were not worth the risk. Around the next point I cut between rocks close to shore and surprised a half a dozen harbor seals. They jumped into the water before I could back out and take the long way around. Sorry! I continued into this spot and found it very interesting. A group of large rocks sit offshore with waves breaking through and around them. The breakers come from all angles and wash up on a sand bar in the middle. In one calm spot the body of a harbor seal was drifting back and forth. I moved close and slapped the water with my paddle. No response. The seal was not breathing and its face was in the water. How sad. There were no shark bites and the body is not very bloated yet, so I wondered how it died. I bounced the edge of my paddle on it three times: Boink! Boink! Splash! The seal woke up before the third boink and swam away in TOTAL PANIC! I had been incredibly rude, but could not help laughing my head off anyway.
One of the rocks sheltering the seals had an arch in it with rough water in it. But I paddled through and paused in the breakers behind it. When I turned and continued on, I saw a small motor boat turn and head towards me. I though they wanted to talk, but when they arrived it turned out to be a group of abalone divers. They assured me that this area was a great place to get large abalone. Behind all the rocks the water was reasonably calm. I paddled up to a big cave in the cliffs and paddled into it. This cave was very long and opened up to a large noisy chamber in the back.
Back outside the cave I turned right and continued along the shore behind the rocks. In one place the water got so shallow that it was not navigable between the waves. I paddled up close and watched for a while. A wave would travel across the gap and break into the cliff on the right. A few seconds later the same wave would rise up behind me and push me towards the gap. I picked my time correctly and rode out through the gap, then turned left and paddled out to sea over the next few waves coming in.
The next point had a cave entrance that looked like it turned and continued to the right. But I didn't see light coming out of it from anywhere else, so I passed it by. Around the point I found two more entrances. The next one had light shining out from the first entrance. It was also very narrow at the waterline and would take very good timing to get through. The third entrance had deeper water but it ended in a T intersection that went left and right. I paddled into this and looked around. To my left the cave turned right again and disappeared into darkness. To my right it ran a long distance that ended at another T intersection. Light came around that intersection so I paddled in that direction. Left from this intersection the cave continued off into darkness. To the right the cave connects to the first entrance I saw in the point and then out through the second shallow entrance. I turned right for a short distance, then left and paddled out to sea through the first entrance I had seen in this point. This area has an incredible maze of tunnels running through it with twists and turns that I would need a flashlight to explore fully. I also did not feel comfortable exploring it without someone to back me up. I continued on without trying any of those dark tunnels. I think I recognize this maze of caves: It is the caves that the National Geographic filmed the Tsunami Rangers in! They came in here wearing protective riot gear, although they also came on a day with much rougher waves.
The next section of shore was rough for a while with the swell breaking directly into the caves at the base of the cliff. I passed all of these by and soon found the point at the south end of Greenwod Cove, where I planned to turn around. This point had two arches through it. The one on the right looked narrow and had a rock in the water on the other side. So I went through the larger arch on the left. On the other side I found lots of room behind the narrow arch, paddled out that one and back through the wide arch again.
Like the last time I landed at Greenwood Cove, the swell was refracting around to approach the south end of the beach from the southwest. These waves were breaking far from shore while the north end of the beach was calmer. I paddled around the south half of the beach and went through one of the caves in Gunderson Rock to get to the north half of the beach. Then I paddled straight in to shore for an easy landing. Here I found another kayaker preparing to launch into the water. By his bicycle wheeled kayak cart I recognized him as a member of Force 10, a local kayak school. We talked for a while and he offered to let me use one of their carts next time I land or take off from Greenwood Cove.
On this day, however, my plan was to paddle straight back to Alder Creek where my car was parked. I went back out through cave in Gunderson Rock to avoid the surf, then paddled out to sea toward White Rock. This rock is about a kilometer from shore and is made from a light tan colored stone, but the name probably comes from the bird droppings that stain most rocks around here. After White Rock I stayed far from shore all the way back to Alder Creek. The trip north took 5 hours to travel only twelve kilometers, but that included stopping for lunch and going through every arch and behind most of the rocks. I traveled a straight line on the trip back and had the wind and the waves going more or less in the direction I was going. It only took two and a half hours for the return trip.
My landing at Alder Creek was a wild ride. I waited for a set of large waves to go by, then surfed the next wave half way to shore left to right. When the kayak slipped back over the top of that wave, it rotated to the left and I surfed the next wave right to left. The kayak pulled ahead of the wave and continued moving fast without any white water to brace into. I held the paddle horizontal, waiting for something to brace into until I made it to shore and braced into the white water to carry me up the sand. After pulling the kayak over the sand, I paddled across the end of Alder Creek to the end of the road to haul everything out.
In one version of my plans for this weekend I had considered camping on Saturday evening to get an early start on Sunday morning. But I didn't want to drive up only to find that all the campgrounds were full on this busy three-day-weekend. After the kayak trip I decided that I was willing to bet on the laziness of my fellow Americans and hiked into the Manchester State Park environmental campground with my tent and sleeping bag. I did this from the parking lot at Alder Creek, so I came at the campsites from the opposite direction that everyone else did and only had to travel two kilometers to get to the last campground. This was a little dell behind the dunes that was covered with little yellow wildflowers around the fire pit and picnic table. It was occupied by a jack rabbit that soon left the campsite to me. I ended up with a beautiful campsite that was a kilometer from anybody else even though I was camping in the middle of the busy Memorial Day Weekend. All I had to do was hike back out, drive around to the other side of the park, pay for the campsite, and hike four kilometers back in from that direction. I had landed the kayak on the beach at 6:30 PM, so by the time I had my camp set up the sun had set. I spent the hour of dusk after sunset collecting driftwood for my campfire, then stayed up in front of the fire until midnight writing in my journal by flashlight.
My journal is an MS Word document file of course. I had to resort to writing with pen on paper all the details of this kayak trip. My fingers got sore, a repetitive stress occupational injury you don't hear people complaining about these days. Instead they complain about their wrists over the edge of the keyboard, a problem I would gladly have traded for. When the air and my fingers got cold, the fonts on this primitive medium started to get poorly formed. Then I had to type it all back in again when I got home anyway!
