Santa Barbara Harbor

A couple weeks ago my job brought me to Santa Barbara (~ 6 hours south of San Fran) to survey parts of Mission Creek and a beach lagoon. Naturally, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to have my gas mileage reimbursed and bring my kayak along, so I volunteered to drive. Wednesday was the first time I was able to get on the water since we worked a couple 13 hour days on Monday and Tuesday.

Not sure when I'll stop being amused by palm trees. They're just so tall and gangly looking!

Following advice from a local paddler, I started out at Ledbetter Beach, just upcoast of the Santa Barbara Harbor. I unloaded Big Purple and lugged it across the wide sandy beach to the high water line where I promptly seated myself and spent the next 20 minutes watching the intimidating waves crash uniformly on the beach. Not sure how to proceed, I made some wimpy phone calls to Dave/Morgan/Mike who told me to stop being a chicken and get in. 

Menacing waves at the breakwater.

While I didn't completely chicken-out, I ended up returning to the car and driving down-coast to the sheltered harbor, where I could avoid a solo surf launch. I scanned the boat names as I paddled down the aisles and realized that there are far fewer "joke" boat names here than in Upstate NY. Odd...

Sunset over Santa Barbara.

I paddled out into the ocean from the harbor and enjoyed bobbing up and down on the big swells, while avoiding the breakers. I landed on the little offshore sandbar (see map below) and watched the sun set over Santa Barbara for a while. It's such a cute little city. Apparently there are laws in place to ensure that it continues to feel like a little Spanish settlement with its red tiled roofs and missionary churches

(not) greeted by a seal on my way back to the dock

"A" Marks the launch spot in the harbor. The pier in the top left is Stearns Wharf.

I was a little bummed to have such a limited paddle in this beautiful SoCal city, but I'm sure I'll be back soon!

Date: Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Time: 1 hour
Distance: negligible

Solar eclipse, salt marsh, and a few sea lions.

May 20th 2012 was the date of the first solar eclipse since May 10th 1994, and what better way to enjoy it than to sun-gaze from a kayak on SF Bay? Doug (oceanographer and kayaker) and I left Oakland after picking up his boat at the Kayak Hotel, which is a glorified garage for communal boat storage by the Oakland Estuary. After a quick stop at a roadside fruit stand (yum! cherries!) we met up with Eddie (coastal engineer and kayaker) on the other side of the bay. The launch site was along Chesapeake Drive in Redwood City, close to the Stanford Boathouse. We parked in the shade of some trees (free parking! and launching!) and discovered that we were joined by some unusual birds making very loud squawking/groaning noises above. The sound was so ridiculous that I found myself giggling every time they started up. I would try to spell it if I could...

We set out with no ambitions other than to outlast the eclipse and test Doug's eclipse-viewing contraption. It was a breezy day so we stayed in the narrow channels that meander through the salt marsh. Power lines cross the south bay marshes in a number of places:

Eddie and the power lines.

We explored some side channels as we continued along the main channel, moving deeper into the marsh. A group of sea lions was sunning on the channel banks. When the eclipse finally started, Doug was  excited to discover that his contraption actually worked. We watched the little dark circle move across the sunspot passing through one page onto the other:

Doug using his snazzy eclipse viewer.

I like to take a more direct approach...  (proving that my camera would not explode). This clearly did not succeed at capturing the eclipse...

As we moved deeper into the marsh, the channel began to shallow and we played around in the mud now easily accessible. I gave Big Purple a nice facial (deck-cial?). Eddie's boat also got a secret facial (Shhhhh).

Amused by the amazingly smooth bay mud. Photo by Doug.

We pulled over to the edge of the channel to snack on fresh cherries and salty peanuts and periodically check out the eclipse. 20 minutes later we looked down to realize that we were now high and dry on the muddy bank. The tide had subsided significantly and the marsh was quickly emptying around us. We dragged our boats back into the shallow channel and quickly pushed our way out to the deeper areas. Not sure exactly how far we still had to venture to loop back to the dock, we decided to turn around and head back the way we came. As you can see in the map below, this was probably the right decision.

Upon arriving at the docks Eddie discovered the lovely mud facial on the back of his boat (now dried and solidly caked). After letting him wonder how he'd managed to make this mess I confessed and spend 5 minutes scrubbing it off. Cleaning off Bay Mud is like rinsing soap off with soft water.

Back at the parking lot we were greeted by the groaning birds, as well as my car, which they had turned into a Dalmatian in the 3 hours we were gone. No wonder these convenient parking spots were available! Time for a car wash.

Date: Sunday, May 20, 2012
Time: 2 hours
Distance: ~ 8 miles

Now that I'll be doing a lot of paddling in San Francisco Bay (and other large bodies of water), I think I'll start including a regional map in addition to the route map:

"A" marks the spot!

P.S. I'm pretty stoked about the new way blogger lets you view pictures in high-res when you click on them!

Introduction to BASK

B.A.S.K. is the Bay Area Sea Kayaking group, which apparently has over 400 members. I joined them shortly after Big Purple arrived to check out the group and meet some nearby paddlers. They conveniently had a new member paddle scheduled two days after my boat arrived on the Oakland estuary, which is only a 5 minute drive from my apartment.

We met up at the public launch site near Jack London Square. For the most part, Jack London Square tends to be completely dead, but on Sundays the farmer's market makes it a popular destination. It always makes me nervous to drive around the Square because a railroad runs along the center of the road. Apparently the maximum train speed is 15 mph, but when a train is coming all the side streets are blocked off, so you could theoretically get trapped on the road/railroad. Not cool.

Public launch at Jack London Square. Photo by Chris Amy.

The public launch also hosts the rental fleet owned by California Canoe and Kayak, which is a local paddling shop. I paddled here once in the fall, and they were able to rent me a plastic avocet (the same type as Big Purple), which was pretty exciting.

I arrived 5 minutes before the meeting time, which is apparently late for BASK-ers because everyone was already there! This was somewhat odd since I usually find myself having to drag people out of bed to go paddling with me. We launched promptly and paddled east, into the "estuary". It's certainly not the most scenic paddle, but we saw some interesting sites along the way. The route took us under 4 bridges, many of which opened to let boat traffic through:

Drawbridge #1

Drawbridge #2

Big barge from Portland. Photo by Chris Amy.

We stopped half way for lunch at the Tidewater Aquatic Center. The shear volume of snacks the BASK-ers brought to pass was quite astounding, and I will certainly bring more to contribute next time! Yum...

Chris took a bunch of other lovely photos, which can be found here.

Date: Sunday, May 6, 2012
Time: 3 hours ?
Distance: 7.8 miles