Ken Mannshardt schedules a weekend camping trip to the Mendocino coast every year. This year he had trouble making reservations in time. Apparently all the abalone divers grab up the group campgrounds way in advance. Ken called on the morning of the first day that you can make reservations in June and found them all full! In July there is a moratorium on abalone collecting, so Ken was able to reserve the group campground for a long weekend in this month. He takes a few days off before the weekend and reserves the site for 4 or 5 days, so some of us come up on Thursday or Friday and we don't have to vacate the campground until Monday morning. I wasn’t able to get away very early and came up on Friday evening.
The area around Russian Gulch State Park is a coastal kayaker’s haven. There are hundreds of caves and arches to paddle into and places to surf. It is a short paddle from the Mendocino Headlands in the south or the Point Cabrillo Lighthouse to the north. On Saturday morning I went north on a short trip with Don Barch and returned by the time Maryly arrived.
Then with Don, Ingrid, (Don’t girlfriend) and Maryly we paddled south through the islands and coves of the Mendocino Headlands. We had left a car at a beach on the Big River on the other side of Mendocino and had go up river a short distance. The waves were breaking into the mouth of the river and this was known as a rough area. I had scouted the beach while we shuttled the car and figured that we could land at the extreme north end of the beach which had the most protection from the Mendocino Headlands. We portaged the kayaks over the sand to a shallow lagoon behind the beach connected to the river and got us in past the big surf at the river mouth. This worked, except Don stayed in the ocean and played in the surf at the river mouth before joining us. Then we all calmly padded back to the car.
On Sunday we planned a longer trip together. A few other BASKers joined us so there were eight of us going from Van Damn Beach to the Albion river. Like the day before we shuttled a car, this time down to the Albion Campground. The water was starting to get rougher as the weekend progressed and we were pleasantly surprised to find that the caves north of Van Damn Beach were still passable, even by some of the novice kayakers we had with us. We were able to paddle inside “Mikes Cave of Doom” where I got in trouble with Don’t help several years ago. Don “Ductape” Barch is a very adventuresome kayaker with the skills to back himself up. On this trip he went through a few more caves than the rest of us and went closer to shore than anyone else when the water got rough.
Just before the mouth of the Albion River there is a rock garden that is sometimes navigable by kayak. Then there are some large offshore islands with channels behind them. The best route is to work your way through the rocks and behind the islands if the waves permit it. Last year we did this trip and had to go out and around, where the tip of the island concentrates the waves and makes it a rough trip. This year we saw waves breaking across the rock garden and had to turn out to sea. But when we got close to the island it looked like there was “green water” path (no breaking waves) down the north side of the island where we could duck into the channel. Don went down this to check it out while I waited outside for everyone else to gather around and hear the plan. When Don decided it was safe, he raised his paddle in the “come here” signal and I lead everyone else in. It was a pretty wild ride with large waves following us in and giving us a shove now and then. There were a few shallow places that we had to avoid by curving our path back and forth. When we got close to shore everyone relaxed for a minute before ducking into the calm channel behind the island. That was when a rogue wave came up behind us and gave everyone a scare. But we all managed to weather it out.
Everyone ducked behind the island and came out into the middle of the calm bay at the mouth of the river. We calmly paddled up the river to a dirt boat ramp and hauled all our gear out into the campground. While a few of us were shuttled back to get their cars, the rest of us stayed behind and used the faucets at the campground to get a head start on washing the salt out of our equipment. The people running the campground were nice to us and didn’t charge anyone for just driving in to pick up a kayak.