Kayaking: Part of a Hard Day's Work

This will be a brief one... Friday was (likely) my last day of fieldwork at my job - I have 5 weeks left now, so things are starting to wrap up (or at least that's what I'm pretending). We are working (with a few other agencies/companies) on an oyster/eelgrass pilot restoration project off the coast of San Rafael (project website, recent article in the SF Gate). ESA (my company) is monitoring the physical processes like changes in topography, waves, and also water quality. On Friday we conducted a site-wide bathymetric survey that we will be comparing with a pre-project survey to see how the oyster beds may be affecting regional sediment processes.

Damien preparing the kayak for the bathymetry survey

We used a GPS/depth sounder system strapped on our sylishly-camo field kayak to do the survey. I haven't had a chance to calculate exactly how far we kayaked, but we paddled east and west and north and south across the site for about 4 hours. It was exhausting, but we finished just in time to return the equipment to the rental place. It was also just in time to head to San Francisco and meet up with Doug and his friends to watch the Giant's game from outside the stadium.

Friends (Doug and Ken) playing

Happy Doug and Ken

I parked at Pier 52 and paddled over to AT&T Park (~1 mile). Doug and Ken arrived shortly after. Doug surprised me with two strings of purple lights to decorate my boat (you can kind of see them in the photo below) - they match perfectly! Big Purple now glows radiantly.

Big Purple watching the game with her snazzy new twinkly lights

We floated around and snacked on some sausage/cheese/crackers while waiting for the BBQ-canoe to arrive. I was pooped, so I only stuck around for ~1.5 hrs and missed the BBQ/capsizing/tequila-bottle-tossing/firework madness that ensued. Instead, I spent the next 36 hours in bed nursing my unusually sore back, blistered hands, sunburned face, migrained head, and bruised lip (I dropped the kayak on my face while lifting it onto the work van...). Apparently this is what it feels like to get old, but until further notice, I'll blame it on the un-quantified number of tough paddling we did during the workday. :) Such a wimp.

Date: Friday, June 13th, 2014
Time: 2 hours
Distance: 2 miles (roundtrip)