THE "OTHER SIDE" OF TOMALES BAY

BY OUTSIDE ADVENTURE TO THE MAX GUEST BLOGGER LYNN HALSTED

I’ve dipped my paddle into Tomales Bay on a handful of occasions. Mostly on  moonless nights, to explore the bioluminescence, a light produced by a chemical reaction in living things in the water. Winds are typical, for Tomales Bay and Point Reyes National Seashore, north of San Francisco, Ca, but, for the second day in a row, the wind was almost non-existent.

This sunrise was a welcome site as I sipped my morning coffee and thought about the paddle ahead of us that day. We launched from Miller Park, which is located on the Eastern side of Tomales Bay. This is my first time launching on this side of Tomales. You pay at the kiosk to park, and the cement launch makes getting into the water a breeze.

Our Plan “A” was to head across the water, circle around Hog Island (protected), explore the Western shoreline before having lunch at White Gulch Beach.

If you’re an experienced paddler, you are never afraid to go with Plan B.
So, once everyone was in the water and after a quick safety talk, we paddled towards Hog Island. The wind, still non-existent, as you can see from these pictures. It was so pretty and calm! One of our paddlers was using a ‘peddle’ kayak for only the second time, and he indicated he was already getting tired after only 10-15 minutes of paddling.

So, we partnered someone up with him and continued to Hog Island. The eastern shore of the Island was closed due to sensitive Seal habitat and Seabird Colony. So we paddled around the island, my first time up this close, and talked about our plan. Our tired paddler was now a concern, as the wind had come and there were rather large swells that seemed to some out of no where. I’m serious, the conditions changed in a matter of minutes!

After a conversation with a fellow paddler who has been on this section of Tomales countless times, we decided it would be best to paddle back to the launch and let our tired paddler take out and rest. The rest of our group would paddle on the Eastern shoreline, heading inland. This must have been meant to be, as this turned out to be a beautiful paddle.

So, after our tired paddler was safe to shore and out of their kayak, we paddled by the little sitting area off of Nick’s Cove restaurant, where later we would enjoy an adult beverage. I was hopeful I could take this old gas pump for my backyard Most of us ladies had fun joking about our ideal ‘man’, stationed up on the hill, overlooking the bay as if to flag us in with his stoic stare and well positioned lantern. A resident Bald Eagle was perched up in a tree, so I paddled under him and too this shot.

My favorite part of the day; Lunch! After about 2 hours of paddling, we found a great place to exit, stretch, and enjoy the sunshine as we ate our lunch. I even found a ‘planted’ piece of driftwood for my garden at home. Once our tummies were full, we decided to explore a little channel that only went inland a few hundred yards before dead ending into Highway-1. There was an Egret eating his lunch, but my pictures didn’t turn out well.

However, this picture of the Egrets turned out quite nicely. I’m sometimes amazed at the great shots I get. This was one of them. These Cormorants were drying out their wings and the silhouette was breathtaking.

After a long day of paddling, we headed back to the take-out. This will go down in my memory banks as a top 10 paddle experience.

 Lynn Halsted  is the founder of Sacramento Paddle Pushers,
Halsted started SPP, an online paddling meet up group in October 2010. As  popularity of kayaking grew so did her group. It now has close to 500 members with a solid core of 60 paddlers actively taking part in trips through out California and even sometimes venturing into the Pacific Northwest. Catch up with more of Halsted kayaking adventures at her blog Dipping My Paddle. You can find Sacramento Paddle Pushers on Meetup.com.

Outside Adventure to the Max is always looking for guest bloggers. Contact us at Nickayak@gmail.com if you are interested.

ISLAND IN TIME, TOMALES BAY PART I

"We need to keep some of our vanishing shoreline an unspoiled place, where all men, a few at a time, can discover what really belongs there -- can find their own Island in Time." ---Harold Gilliam

The area outfitter gave us a stern warning. "Weather is moving in. Tomorrow it could be worse." she stated firmly, "We had a lot of rescues over the weekend. If you go out there you might not make it back."
We had all seen the weekend report of fifty-four kayakers on a nocturnal outing being plucked out of Tomales Bay by local fire departments when the conditions suddenly changed. Two were treated for hypothermia after a kayak capsized in the wind and rough seas.
A gray sky hung overhead while two-foot waves pounded Miller Boat Launch at Nick's Cove on the northern section of the bay as we continued unloading our kayaks and gear.  I saw the outfitter's tired eyes looking out over the water watching her crew retrieve kayaks from across the water, remnants of the past weekend's rescue operation. Her crew's motorboat with kayaks in tow seemed to make slow progress across the bay.

 "The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by the crests, made progress that in the absence of sea-weed was not apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing, miraculously, top-up, at the mercy of five oceans." That's how American author Stephen Crane described the ordeal in his short story The Open Boat. The story is based on his own experience of surviving a shipwreck.  In classic literary style, he would narrate the tale that seemed to match my view of the motorboat crossing the bay. "As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped over the side and gave them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break their repose. The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected them as it would have affected mummies."

I looked to the members of our five-man party all loading their kayaks with camping supplies. We had all paddled together in San Francisco Bay and camped on Angel Island. The conditions seemed similar, wind, waves and a little current. Nothing we had not paddled together before. "You know what we call a day like this in Minnesota?" I asked the group with a with a smile and then answered quickly not waiting for an answer, "A nice day."
The outfitter shook her and continued with her loading of kayaks. Her warning had disappeared in the wind. We had planned this trip to Tomales Bay for weeks. It was a scouting mission of sorts. We are looking forward to bringing other folks along on a future camp out as part of Bayside Adventure Sports, an active outdoor church group based in Granite Bay, California. The idea was to find a suitable beach for camping and viewing of the bioluminescence along the Point Reyes National Seashore. All we had to do was paddle out past Hog Island to the western side of the bay, about a mile away.
"A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important," Crane observed in The Open Boat in enduring the test of the ocean swells. Loaded full with camping gear, the waves crashed over my bow putting a salty spray in my face. I was the last one trailing behind the others heading into the gusty bay. Memories of paddling the mid-west lakes floated back to me. There wind and waves are commonplace. I can remember, one windy day on West Lost Lake in Minnesota where I battled whitecaps while paddling along the Otter Tail River chain of lakes. Up and down my kayak bounced along in the same fashion across the bay.

Hog Island sits about five miles south of the entrance of Tomales Bay. Small in nature the uninhabited island covers only two acres, while its next-door neighbor Duck Island is even smaller. A haven for wildlife, the islands are managed by the National Park Service as part of the Point Reyes National Park Seashore and access in restricted. However, it did serve as a good rendezvous spot out of the wind as we all paddled between the two islands. Near the western shore of Tomales Bay the wind eased up and the waves ceased. While the other three paddled ahead into the cove with sand-colored cliffs called White Gulch, longtime paddling partner Erik Allen cruised the along the shoreline looking for a beach to camp on. From the shore, we heard the bugling sound of the tule elk. In the distance, we could see them grazing freely in open grasslands and coastal scrub. Once almost wiped out, the elk have returned to Point Reyes and are one of the largest herds in California.

Under the shelter of Tomales Point blocking the winds coming off the Pacific Ocean, the tempestuous bay calms yielding way to smooth paddling along the coastline of the bay. It's a mixture of sandy beaches, high bluffs and thistle plants clinging to the rocks and tall banks. The vegetation huddles close to the ground.  Coyote brush and grasses are the dominant plants on the peninsula. It may look quiet but its home to all the animals, birds and reptiles. Higher up and lining the draws are a full array of Douglas fir, Bishop pine and coastal live oak.

Conservationist and writer Stephen Trimbles
said, "To cross this valley to the peninsula (Point Reyes) is to leave modern California and enter an island of wilderness, forgotten by progress, a quiet land misplaced in a noisy world." We picked out a quiet beach along the coastal prairie almost directly across from the noisy world, where had we started. Pulling our kayaks on to the shore, we pitched our tents in the sand, ate freeze-dried food and watched the tide roll away. The weather and waves and warnings faded into the tranquil sound of the water lapping against the shore. Resting around a beach fire, we found own haven by the bay.

Photos by Erik Allen & Jim Bryla. 
Next week in Outside Adventure to the Max find the magic during a bioluminescence excursion in Tomales Bay.