Saturday June 25, 2022.
Forecast: High tide of 3.94 ft at 11:41am, low tide of 2.46 ft at 4:36pm.
Total paddling distance: 6+ miles in relatively calm waters, with some stretches of stronger wind.
I found a SUP group on Facebook =D They organize paddles fairly regularly, around once every two weeks or so, and this week would be my first time joining them. The location was at Hearts Desire Beach on the western shore of Tomales Bay. Originally the meetup time was set at 8:30am, which would mean an early rise for me since it usually takes about 70 minutes to get there from my house. Thankfully the time was set back by an hour, so I got to sleep until 6:30am, then had my usual breakfast of oats together with a banana and strawberries (bananas are $0.89/lb nowadays, up from $0.69/lb just a couple of months ago; inflation is hitting me hard here, given how much I like bananas!). I packed all of my paddling gears into the car by 8am and headed for San Rafael to fill up my near-empty gas tank. Gas at the 76 just off 101 in San Rafael was $6.16 a gallon, considerably cheaper than what I had to pay near my house, which ran about $6.60 a gallon. When all was said and done, it was just a bit north of $85 to fill up my Solara to full. It hurts me a bit upon seeing the numbers, and times like these made me long for my old Prius!
It took about an hour to go from San Rafael to Tomales Bay State Park in Point Reyes National Seashore. The road was winding and lots of cyclists were out pedaling even at this relatively early (for me) hour. I got to Hearts Desire Beach around 9:30am, met John, the organizer for this paddle, pumped up my inflatable SUP and got ready for the upcoming adventure. We were on the waters shortly after 9:30am.
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!Our group for this paddle consisted of 5 SUPers: John, Eva, Leah, Esther, and myself; and a couple who went in their pedaling kayaks (Hobie Compass): Patricia and Les. From Hearts Desire Beach, we paddled north along the western shoreline, admiring the calm waters, great scenery, and the wild life as we went along. I saw some turkey vultures, bat rays, and lots of jellyfishes in this paddle; others saw sea otters as well. The water was very clear in many parts of the bay, which helps with the viewing of the aquatic animals. Everyone mingled with one another, SUPers and kayakers both paddled in harmony and peace =)
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!Here, we had just left Hearts Desire Beach, and Indians Beach was at my 11 o’clock in the above image. Originally, I was closer to Les and Patricia, who paddled furthest from shore. They came from around Petaluma, and were going to camp in their RV in Olema (very close to the Point Reyes National Seashore Visitor Center) over the weekend. They found the SUP meetup on Facebook and thought to themselves, “What the heck, might as well join them and enjoy our Saturday on the water!” (those were their words, not mine =D). We were chatting for a bit when Esther switched over and mingled with them.
As we were about to leave Indians Beach behind us, John pointed out a bat ray in the water and everyone was clamoring to see it. It was the first one we saw on this paddle. I, myself, only saw a dark mass gliding in the water, barely catching a glimpse of it. In the end, everyone was satisfied to some degree with what they saw, everyone but Eva. It just so happened that Eva missed out on the bat ray and decided to turn back and give chase to the wild animal. She was not successful, unfortunately =(
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!Eva is missing in the 360 picture above. The reason? She was chasing after that elusive bat ray.
We continued past Kilkenny Beach and went around Long Cove Beach. It was smooth sailing, or rather paddling, up until now, but I guess someone’s stomach was grumbling (probably me), so we decided to have a lunch break at the next beach on the way. Everyone’s spirit was still high and we all were still able to keep up with one another just fine.
It was time for lunch and recharge our energy. We stopped at Marshall Beach near Lairds Landing, which (FYI for future camping / paddles) conveniently has a pit toilet for anyone who needs to use the restroom. I brought my steamed cauliflower and two boiled eggs stored in a used bag with the big “Organic Figs” label on it, which confused Leah to no end!
Win, are you only having figs for lunch??
– Leah
I also had my Sprouts dark chocolate covered almonds in a Sea Salt bottle, which I again had to clarify to everyone. I offered my dark chocolate to everyone, but it seemed that people were not ready to have chocolate on this paddle? Only Eva took up on my offer and had a munch on my chocolate. Oh well, I’ll think of something else to bring along next time.
Lunch break at Marshall Beach, Tomales Bay. Mine was steamed cauliflowers, boiled eggs and dark chocolate covered almonds =)
The beach was used by at least 2 other parties. One was a man and his family out boating in the bay. The other was a group of campers who had their tents and hammock(s) set up. They kayaked into the beach and camped out overnight. The pit toilet restroom was likely the reason for this bigger crowd. Heck, it beats taking out your you-know-what if I’m the judge.
While at lunch, we were deciding whether to push forward to Hog Island given that high tide was at 11:30 am, and the wind was picking up. Everyone was still very energetic, and we all declined to make a decision. Instead, we passed the torch to our trip organizer, John, and said we would do whatever he thought was best. After some deliberation, the decision was to head back to our launch point, as Hog Island was still a couple of miles away, and we were dreading the afternoon wind factor.
But first, Leah wanted to take a peek at the upcoming bend of the bay, so we decided to push on just a bit further so that Leah could get her wish.
I got a later start than everyone else, as I needed to pour water over my GoPro to wash away the dried up salt residues on it. This seems to be a problem with the short board mount that I have, as a moderate splash or wave would wet the camera and dirtied the lens (with water droplets). Good thing that the GoPro is waterproof, or I’d be in a heap of trouble otherwise (and out of a heap of money, too!). Maybe I should try using my Smatree clamp mount on my next paddle, which has a height of about 1 foot above the board floor. The question then becomes: which part of the board should I clamp this mount to?
Oops! It seems like this post isn't published yet. Stay tuned for updates!On my paddle out, I ran into Leah as she was applying sunscreens on her board. The others had gone on ahead of us. Leah offered me some sunscreen as well, which I gladly took and applied liberally on my face, hands and neck. We then tried to catch up to the others, and soon saw them turning back in our direction. Esther and John said there was another bat ray up ahead, which got Leah excited and she decided to continue going that way to search for the ray. John then turned back and accompanied Leah on her mini adventure while everyone else just huddled around in one place waiting for them [to come back]. In fact, Esther was relaxing on her board, lying on her back and taking in the sun and wind of the bay. I wish I had taken a picture of that perfect lazy moment =)
Our paddle back was met with lots of wind and some chops in open waters. In fact, I was blown out closer toward the middle of the bay and was struggling to get back to shore. Of course, some boats also had to speed by to make the matter worse for me (be kind, boaters! beginner SUPer on the water here!). I then assembled my kayak paddles and used them instead. They did not help, and I reverted back to using my SUP paddle. Then Les was kind enough to pedal his kayak out to check on me; he also offered to tow me back to shore, too =) I don’t know about you, but it definitely felt nice to have AAA service out in the middle of Tomales Bay!! I told Les that I can still paddle for a bit longer, to which he advised me to go diagonally against the wind and head for shore, where the wind won’t affect me as much. I thought that was a brilliant idea and followed through with his advice, and was soon able to get everything under control once again.
Then Esther showed me how to paddle diagonally so as to steer my board more toward the side I wanted to go. It’s basically a power stroke where you start closer to your board and end away from your board. I have my own set of paddle strokes, and to change direction I’d do a wide sweep, or a version of the J stroke, or just back paddle. I never thought of this simple version, which can be effective to both (power) propel and turn your board at the same time.
I was more or less on cruise control the rest of the way back, which allowed me a much needed respite to listen to Patricia’s story of owning four kayaks between her and Les: the two that they were on, another single that was not too stable (or was it not tracking well?) where they were thinking of selling, and a tandem kayak which they’d never used together (or something along that line).
We’ve been married 27 years, and never have we paddled in a tandem together.
– Patricia (based on my spotty memory at the end of a long paddle)
That reminds me of an article I read a while back, where the author advised her readers to rent a tandem kayak and paddle out with their significant other for an afternoon. It’s a good litmus test to see if you’ll be compatible with one another for a lifetime. A “divorce maker” they called it =)
And with that we had returned to our launch point at Hearts Desire Beach.