Sunday Lunch on Sea Glass Beach

The perfect kayaking trip should start something like this: a cool foggy morning, bundled in your favorite sweatshirt, with 30 minutes of meditative/caffeinated (do those cancel each other out?) beach sitting: bare toes hidden inside the boat for warmth.

Pre-kayak relaxation at SeaTrek beach

Jackie (trip initiator), Doug, Liz, and Carrie arrived around 9am. Text from Alice, 9:10am: "I just woke up!" The rest of us launched off the sea-weedy low-tide beach around 10am. 

The fog brings out the green.

The paddle south was reasonably calm, with the exception of Hurricane Gulch (so named because of its gusty tendencies). We paddled past the usual fleet of massive yachts at the Pelican and Sausalito Yacht Harbors investigated a couple fire boats. A large Buddha statue stood proudly at the helm of the freshly painted fire boat.

Visiting a decrepit and a newly renovated fire boat.

We tucked into shore and soon arrived at the Sausalito-Marin City Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant. Based on this newsletter, the plant underwent an odor-reduction revamp in 2007, but our noses told us a different story!

Doug chilling in the eddy near the wastewater treatment plant.

Sea Glass Beach was just around the corner from the wastewater treatment plant. We dragged our boats up onto the beach and began an epic 1.5 hour picnic. Doug kindly offered me his pistachios and stale tortilla chips, which I devoured with gusto (I'd left my thai green curry in Tess's trunk). We discussed many important topics, such as the side of everyone's "Buttons." We determined that Liz's buttons are hidden but large, and Doug's buttons are numerous. Jackie gave me some great suggestions about visiting the San Juan Islands (one of my upcoming road trip destinations). Doug found a new way to use his kayak as a reclined chair. Liz and I discussed TV shows, for which Jackie judged us harshly. Jackie tells an epic story about a sketchy cat-Man who likes to hover outside her patio door. It went on... and then Alice arrived!

Alice finally arrives at Sea Glass Beach!

Foggy view of San Francisco from Sea Glass Beach 

The return trip was uneventful and speedy. Alice and I quickly loaded our boats while the others rinsed and put away their borrowed ETC kayaks. Alice tried to recruit a fellow french-fry-eater, with no luck. After a quick goodbye I was off to try my hand at mountain biking with Bailey up at China Camp!

Date: Sunday, June 1st, 2014

Distance: ~ 5 miles

Time: ~4 hours (including a leisurely 1.5 hours on the beach!)

Midwest Reunion Road Trip to Morro Bay

In September 2008, Nena and Terry met and moved into a little apartment in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Terry taught Nena how to dance like Justin Timberlake and Nena taught Terry how to recycle (ok, so both of those lessons failed). However, some of the cross-cultural exchanges stuck. For example, Terry developed an affinity for hiking and country music that grew long after the end of the Procter & Gamble internships. In May 2014, Terry visited Nena in California with one request: go on a California adventure.

Commence road trip to Morro Bay, in the first person.

At 6am on Friday morning we departed Berkeley after a much-needed but too-short night of sleep. We beelined down HWYs 880/101/1 until we arrived in exotic Carmel, just in time for a hearty breakfast burrito. We were chatted up by surf-instructor Ed, who nearly convinced us to stick around for surf lessons. After some beach frolicking we continued down scenic HWY 1 along the coast - a stretch of coast that I'm less familiar with. The views were staggering!

We stumbled across some beaches drenched in sea lions, where we gleefully watched them grunt, grown, and throw sand on each other for a half hour.

After some mishaps (1. Nearly running out of gas, then paying $6/gallon, 2. Stopping by Hearst Castle and being severely disappointed - you have to pay $25 just to get near it!) we arrived in Morro Bay, set up camp, went for a short hike to look at the bay, ate a delicious lunch at a vegan/vegetarian restaurant (much to Terry's surprise), and went for a hike in Montana de Oro State Park, just south of Morro Bay.

Views from our hike in Montana de Oro State Park

After surviving the hike without a mountain lion attack, we returned to Morro Bay (the town) and went to the windy beach. We observed a ship practicing turns at the mouth of the harbor for a little while before heading into town for some fish & chips and white wine: classy!

Morro Bay is famous for Morro Rock, which defines the skyline of the Bay (Morro = spanish/portuguese/italian for prominent rock formation). The rock used to be surrounded by water, but was connected to land by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct Morro Bay Harbor. The rock was quarried for 80 years before being preserved for peregrine falcon habitat. A large power plant, characterized by three tall cooling towers, sits adjacent to the harbor.

Dynegy power plant (a.k.a. "Three Fingers")

We camped out at Morro Bay State Park (only moving campsites once to avoid sleeping next to a Rihanna party and nearly being ticketed the next morning for moving into the wrong campsite). On Saturday morning we arrived at Kayak Horizons just in time for the 10% off deal (arrive before 10 am). I had to launch my boat at Anchor Street Park, a few blocks south. 

5 minute kayak training for Terry

Once Terry was settled into her rental boat, we followed a tip to cross the Bay and look for narrow points in the sand spit, where we could extract ourselves from our boats and hike over the dunes to the ocean-side beach. Apparently we don't know how to follow directions, because we found ourselves in shallower-and-shallower water, eventually bottoming out and having to backtrack. We never did find the trails, but we did get to look at the sand dunes up close.

We meandered down the Bay and then back up towards the harbor to look for seals and otters. Some paddle boarders broke the sad news that otters seemed to be lacking in all their usual hang-out spots, so we begrudgingly accepted that sea lions would be the most exciting discovery:

5 miles later we were tired out and headed back to the rental shop. We departed Morro Bay, refilled on sunshine and salt water, and headed back to San Francisco with a quick stop for delicious Thai food in Paso Robles.

Thanks for visiting, Terry!! :)

Date: Saturday, May 10th, 2014
Time: ~2 hours
Distance: ~5 miles

Fighting the Tide at Elkhorn Slough, Monterey Bay

[blog post interrupted by random clippings from Marika's trip summary!]

In June. Marika, Julia, Whitney, and I decided to go for a paddle in Elkhorn Slough. This was shortly after I found out my company was applying to work on a restoration project for the slough. In 1947 a harbor was built at the mouth of the slough to provide a safe haven for boats coming in and out of the slough. Unfortunately, constructing a permanent structure like a harbor limits the slough's ability to naturally manage itself by opening, closing, and moving north to south, depending on factors like inflows and sediment supply. Since 1947 the slough has experienced massive erosion - even when we were there we could see big chunks of the marsh falling into the channel. Keeping the mouth of the slough wide open makes it so that the water moves in and out with the tide more quickly than it otherwise would. This makes sand and mud move back and forth more quickly. On the ocean side of the slough is a huge submarine canyon: 

Source: NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries

This canyon is like a big sink - much of the sediment that comes out of Elkhorn Slough falls into the canyon and doesn't come back. I found out recently that my company will be working on the restoration project (that I'll be helping to manage!), which will look at different options to try to fix this problem. Getting rid of the harbor isn't really an option, so the main focus will be on importing sediment from other sources (to be determined) and placing it upstream in the slough to try and counteract erosion. The project is just starting, so more info on that later! 

Guy-with-cool-moustache telling us the rules. He later showed us pictures of a baby otter that had jumped into his kayak... There were some very cute kayakers working at this shop... "Also, the cute kayak shop guy lent us his watch because we forgot ours. He was cute I remember that part." - Marika

Pickleweed! One of the main marsh plants native to California. It turns bright red in the fall, so it almost makes it feel like there are seasons here. I tried chewing on it... it tastes like grass, which was a huge relief considering my disagreements with pickles.

Some sea lions chilling out in the marsh. In the background are the cooling towers from the Moss Landing Power Plant, a natural gas-driven electricity generation plant. The plant takes cool water from the slough or ocean and uses it to cool the gas turbines. The warm water gets dumped back in the ocean.

Cormorants and sea lions hanging out on the mud flat.

Happy Julia! Here you can see how quickly the marsh edge is eroding. 

Seagull hanging out above the pickleweed. Everyone in CA hates seagulls because they're invasive, but they're still fun to take pictures of because they're not very scared of people... :)

The slough is full of jelly fish. We tried to pick them up with our paddles and toss them at each, but gravity is not their friend, so they ended up being 2D instead of 3D. It was a little gross, so we stopped. "We passed by a cow farm with manure sliding down a hill into the water...nasty smell." - Marika

While the slough is known for it's excellent sea kayaking, it's also known for intense winds and fast moving tides, that can combine in the afternoons to make for tricky returns to the harbor. The wind was pretty strong on this day, so it took us at least two times longer on the way back to the kayak shop.

Date: Saturday, June 30, 2012

Time: 2 hours
Distance: ~5 miles

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!