SUP – 2022/10/01 – Elkhorn Slough From Kirby Park

If I live in the South Bay or closer to Santa Cruz / Monterey, I’d visit this magical place much more often. But since it takes an almost 2-hour drive to get here from where I am now, I’d have to plan carefully and am only making this trip for the first, and possibly the only, time this year. Elkhorn Slough is situated in Moss Landing, which is between Monterey and Santa Cruz. It is well known for its many sea otters, lots of birds, and where I fell into the water and fried my Google phone five years ago. I’ll have more on that later in this post =)

I left Richmond early to get to Cupertino before 9am to purchase a waterproof camera. Someone was offering his used Lumix TS5 camera for $25 on Craigslist, and since I’ve been using my phone in a waterproof pouch as my primary camera on the water up until now, I thought having a dedicated waterproof camera would make life nicer for me. The transparent pouch works fine to keep water out of my phone, but the picture quality suffers significantly when there are smudges on the clear plastic cover, or if the cover is not pressed tightly against the phone camera lens. I’ve been seeing some used waterproof cameras being offered locally, but they were all asking unreasonably high prices for these, so I just kept on waiting until now.

I got to Cupertino near Apple Park at 8:45am to pick up the camera. It looks used, but not abused, so I’m happy with the purchase. The seller also helped charged the battery for me as well, so I would be able to use it for my upcoming paddle later in the day. And since my gas tank was only half full, I set my Google Map to lead me to a Valero gas station in Watsonville for filling up. At $6/gallon, it was one of the cheapest places for gas that I could find anywhere in the SF Bay Area (which goes around $7/gallon these days). From Watsonville, it was another 15 minutes to get to Kirby Park, which is one of the two launch places for Elkhorn Slough, and the one furthest away from the ocean. So why did I pick this location instead of the launch point next to Hwy 1? First, if you haven’t guessed it by now, it is free, as compared to the $18 parking fee I’d have to pay at the other location. And second, coming back to Kirby Park in the afternoon after a day paddle would be easier as the wind will (likely) be rushing in from the ocean, which should help push me toward the park. And high tide was to be around 3pm, too, so that I should be coming back around slack tide, or if earlier than 3pm, a flooding tide that would lessen my paddling effort. Everything seemed to be working in my favor for this trip. Well, almost everything….

The whole coastal region from Monterey to Santa Cruz was super cloudy on this day. The sun did not even appear during my entire paddle. But there were lots of paddler launching from Kirby Park, nevertheless. When I got there around 10am, there were already many cars in the lot, but many parking spaces also remained available, and I’d imagine that it won’t ever run out. One thing to note is that it may be best to park on the side away from the water, as I’m not sure if the water will spill into the park during a very-high tide event. Just watch your tide and park accordingly. While I was pumping up my board, one paddle boarder and two kayakers had gone into the water. Then when I launched, a couple in their tandem Oru kayak went right after me.

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I headed left from the dock and paddled toward the mouth of the slough. The first half mile was easy and nice, where I’d occasionally see a pelican swooped down from high above and dove into the water to hunt for fish. I was staying close to the north bank of the slough and there were many shorebirds to accompany me. But then the water became shallow, so I decided to head out toward the middle of slough, where I ran into an island occupied by several sea gulls and pelicans. Well, take heed fellow paddlers, and do not follow me to the island, for the water here was also (could be) very shallow as well! Since I put on the standard fin (12in fin?) for this trip, I got stuck in the mud flat where the water was about 8-10 in. deep. I was worried for a bit, but then realized that there was an incoming flood tide so I’d eventually be free from being stuck if I can wait things out. So instead of paddling in the water, I was pushing against the mud with my paddle, and little by little I was able to dislodge my board and continued on my way (bless my Kialoa paddle, its end may be around the corner!). But during that time when I was sitting duck near the island, several large groups of pelicans flew by, going into and out of the water, and put on a show for me to watch. And the best was yet to come!

I ran into many sea otters in the next two, three miles of paddling. And there were also many kayakers and paddleboarders coming from the ocean side as well. At about 1 mile from the Hwy 1 bridge was where all these wild animals congregated. First, there were the pelicans gathering on two small, thin, long islands.

Then there were the sea otters, with most being by themselves, but there were some playing in groups of two or three.

And this little guy (gal? how can I easily tell?) was posing for a good 10 seconds before he dove into the water and disappeared.

I hung out in this same area for another 30 minutes or so before deciding to head back. The wind was picking up slightly, but the paddling condition was still very favorable. When I turned around, a group of 10+ kayakers were heading back in the direction of the Hwy 1 bridge, the lead kayaker was explaining to those closest to him the history of the slough. That brought my memories back to 2017 when I came here for the first time, all due to the recommendation I found in the book “Adventure Kayaking – Trips from the Russian River to Monterey” by Michael Jeneid, which I adapted to my own SUP adventures instead. Jeneid highly recommended Elkhorn Slough, writing that it was “one of California’s best marine life sanctuaries and bird-watching venues.” I saw a great many sea otters on that first trip, and was excitedly pointing here and there when I lost balance and fell into the water, which happened somewhere in this very area here, and my unprotected phone got submerged and died. I was without a smartphone for almost a month, which was both agonizing and liberating at the same time. Since that trip, I’ve always placed my phone in a zip-lock bag or some other waterproof pouch to protect it from the elements. And for one reason or another, I never had a chance to revisit Elkhorn Slough again until today. Hence throughout this paddle I had tried to really enjoy the beauty of this place, not knowing when my next time back would be.

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It was still flooding tide for my paddle back to Kirby Park, which made it easier for me since I have slight wind behind my back and a cooperating tide to boost. Here and there I’d see pelicans and egrets and gulls. And when I was about 1.5 miles away from Kirby Park, I got to a small island with lots of birds on it. The birds were not scared of me at all and allowed me to approach them within reasonably close distance to snap a few photos of them.

And I came back to Kirby Park after that. There were more cars in the parking lot at this time, but it was still not even half full. The tide had risen high enough that the concrete boat launch could barely be seen when I arrived. It was almost 3pm when I got back on dry land, having paddled some 7+ miles for the day and spent nearly 4 hours on the water. Next week I may be heading to Bodega Bay, where there’s a Facebook SUP meetup organized by John, the same organizer for the trip at Heart’s Desire Beach in Tomales Bay back in late June. I’ll write more about that trip next week.