First Time Out the Gate

With the help of great instruction by an elite set of excellent kayak coaches I achieved a goal I've been working towards for months -- I kayaked out the Golden Gate to the Pacific. And had fun doing it.

Here are a few photos of this trip: My pictures

Sean got some better ones: Sean's photos

And here's a video that Tiffany, one of the women on this trip, took with her GoPro camera. It gives quite a feel for the kind of paddling we were doing and the range of conditions we got that day. I'm in some bits of the video. I'm paddling a yellow kayak (Delphin), wearing a blue drysuit, yellow PFD and black helmet. Tiffany's Open Coast: Marin Headlands video

Yes, I paddled out the Gate for the first time on Saturday May 18th with Sean Morley, Matt Krizan and folks. This is something I've been working toward over the past months. I had a plan and it worked!

I learned to kayak in the Seattle area so developed good skills for paddling in strong current (like Deception Pass) and wind waves (which arise everywhere). I'd become a decent intermediate kayaker. When I moved down to the Bay Area I started exploring the kayaking areas and these skills were just what I needed on the Bay. But there is lots of great paddling on the Pacific Coast and I lacked a few key skills to go out there: I needed to get much better at launching and landing my kayak through surf and I needed to build skills paddling along a rocky coast with ocean swell. A skill called "rock gardening".

The plan was to work on surf and rock garden skills. I started in earnest at the Lumpy Waters Kayak Symposium in Pacific City last October (2012) where I focused on intro surf classes with Karl Anderson. Then intro rock gardening with Paul Kuthe and Cate Hawthorne at the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium in January 2013. Then an absolutely fabulous surf clinic with Sean Morley in whitewater boats at Bolinas. That's where I really first started to "get" surfing a kayak rather than just surviving getting one to shore through the surf. I had a huge amount of fun that day. After meeting Cate and Jeff of Liquid Fusion Kayaking it was clear that I could learn a lot from them than would help this endeavor. So I went up to the Mendocino Coast for a couple weekends of surf and rock garden classes with them. By the end of those classes I was having nothing but fun rock gardening in relatively mellow conditions. Still need a lot more practice in surf. I have no idea why parents take their kids to Disneyland when we have this kind of excitement in the real world right here in Northern California. In nature getting exercise no less!

Of course I wasn't going to just take these skills, point my kayak west under the Golden Gate Bridge give it my best shot on my own. I wanted good coaching my first time out the Gate. The folks at California Canoe and Kayak supplied exactly the opportunity I was looking for. Their Open Coast: Marin Headlands Class is focused on teaching the skills required for paddling the open coast safely. It starts at the Presidio Yacht Club, which is just inside the Golden Gate Bridge on the north side of the Bay. The plan for the class is to work on skills in current, wind, swell and waves going out the Gate and along the north shore of the Bay to Point Bonita. And if conditions are mellow enough, to then go out into the open Pacific and explore the beautiful Marin Coast heading north to Rodeo Beach. They were clear that if conditions are not safe for people at our level, we would not go past Point Bonita. (To be more precise, they were clear that if conditions were rough we wouldn't leave the parking lot.)

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But that Saturday was beautiful. A sunny day with a light breeze from the west. We launched near the Presidio Yacht Club and Sean had us do some warm-up exercises in the quiet waters of Horseshoe Bay. (Which I'm sure also gave him a view of the current skill level of each person.) The tide was ebbing with slack at appr 2pm. Since we were at about a 1/2 moon the tides were pretty mellow. A nice day for a first out-the-Gate trip.

Going under the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time was amazing. It is an awesome piece of engineering. At that point there was very little wind and the ebb made paddling effortless. I'd never seen those little beaches between Lime Point and Point Bonita. I'd studied the nautical chart many times and I was enjoying the new scenery in real life.

At Point Bonita we carefully checked out the conditions "outside". They looked doable for folks at our skill level so out we went into the Pacific! I had a great time doing rock garden stuff along the coast north of Point Bonita, especially in the rocks near Rodeo Beach. Tiffany's video has some nice footage of that. And I was able to enjoy the one surf run we did going into Rodeo Beach for lunch. (It was small, spilling surf. Appr 2' waves.) It was also easy to launch from that beach and get out through these small waves. I was feeling very thankful to all of the kayak coaches who've helped me with surf skills. That's still an area I need to work on quite a bit.

After lunch the wind had kicked up to appr. 25 kt so we had much bigger seas for our return trip. In the Point Bonita area we had 5' swell with appr 2' wind waves mixed in. It would have been easy to get a bit gripped with fear, but I remembered advice I'd gotten from Jeff Laxier on paddling in rougher waters: "Slow is steady. Steady is fast." So I just kept a paddle blade in the water doing forward strokes with the blade angle ready for bracing. Though we were not surfing, all the surf practice I had done recently gave me great skills for going over the tops of the waves so that I could keep making progress to get back inside Point Bonita. Several people went over. It turned out I felt solid the whole time and I stayed upright through it all.

Back inside Point Bonita the swell was much smaller and the wind was at our backs making for a very pleasant paddle back to the Gate.

So I'm feeling thrilled. I now want to get out and get lots more practice rock gardening and surfing. I've already got more trips to the Mendocino Coast on my calendar in August and September. It's turning into a good summer.

If this sounds like fun and you'd like to try it, start with some good instruction. You will learn much faster than if you try to learn on your own, you will learn proper safety skills, and you'll have much more fun. Here are a few folks who can really help you:

Pacific NW	Body Boat Blade	I learned my core kayaking skills from Shawna and Leon and Matt of Body Boat Blade on Orcas Island in the San Juans. They are the people to go to for both foundational and advanced skills. And going up to the San Juans is always such a nice vacation. [NB: the wait at the ferries is much too long in summer. Go some other time.]
	Alder Creek	Paul Kuthe of Alder Creek in Portland taught me whitewater skills and how to roll. Both of those skills make paddling so much more fun. Karl Anderson does a great job teaching skills for surf, rough water, and navigation. I remember well one cold drizzly morning at Cape Disappointment where he was talking about safety before we went out on the water and he said "Do not arm wrestle with Neptune. You will lose."
	Columbia River Kayaking	Mark Whitaker and Ginni Callahan and the rest of their crew teach a wide range of kayaking skills on the beautiful lower Columbia River. Great place for beginner classes. Mark has really helped me improve my roll.
Northern California	California Canoe and Kayak	I've taken some great classes with CCK coaches that have helped me be able to paddle safely in the dynamic waters of the Pacific. I really want to thank Sean Morley, Matt Krizan and Matt Palmariello for all of their help.
	Liquid Fusion Kayaking	Jeff Laxier and Cate Hawthorne of Liquid Fusion teach kayaking on the stunningly beautiful Mendocino Coast. I highly recommend them for learning surf and rock garden skills. And for my friends who are not kayakers, they do some wildlife tours using really stable kayaks.
Scotland	Skyak Adventures	Gordon Brown is an excellent kayaking coach. It is so worth it to take a trip to the Isle of Skye to paddle with him. Sea kayaking on the rugged coast of NW Scotland is a wonderful experience.

Learning surf and rock garden skills with Liquid Fusion

As part of my plan to build the kayaking skills I need to do coastal paddling trips in Northern California I took a couple classes in early May with Liquid Fusion Kayaking in the Mendocino area. When I was living in Seattle I developed good skills for kayaking in waters with strong currents and wind waves. But I had not built much experience in sea swell or surf. Jeff and Cate of Liquid Fusion have a great reputation for helping people build exactly those skills. Also, I had never been the Mendocino coast so I was looking forward to that.

Here are a few photos of those trips. All of the kayaking photos are courtesy of Liquid Fusion.

The first weekend in May I took a surf class with Jeff.

The drive along Hwy 128 through the Anderson Valley was very pretty. It's one of the most northerly California wine regions. I had not yet tried any of their wines so I made a mental note that I'd have to come back and stay there sometime. When Hwy 128 joined 101 I got my first views of the Mendocino Coast. I was awestruck with the color of the sea there -- a shade of blue out of a Maxfield Parrish painting. The drive up the coast to the town of Mendocino is gorgeous.

I met Jeff on the Big River at the south edge of Mendocino. The tide was flooding and we would use the surf at the mouth of Big River for our class. He had me use a Necky Jive, which was perfect for me for this class. A long-ish whitewater kayak that surfs well. We did a wide range of exercises on the pretty friendly waves that day. I got a lot of practice paddling back out through the waves and eventually got a lot better at it. Managed to surf a few waves well and had a great time. I was definitely exhausted by the end of the day!

After a day like that I was hungry. I wanted to get a feel for the local restaurants and Jeff had a few recommendations. I ended up having a well deserved beer and pizza at Piaci Pub in Fort Bragg. Great beer selection. I recommend it.

The next day I met Jeff and Cate for their Surf Safari -- basically getting out and surfing. We met for breakfast and talked a lot about surf -- the various kinds of surf, what to look for, finding the rips, etc. We then went to a bluff about the beach where we planned to surf and watched the surf while they pointed out in detail the things we'd been talking about earlier. We went down to the beach and watched the surf and currents some more. We got on the water, did some warm up exercises, and Jeff helped me pick out waves, time catching them, and gave lots of feedback out what was working and what wasn't. I got a huge amount out of the day.

As I was driving back to San Francisco, I felt really glad that I'd come up to Mendocino to get some great coaching with Liquid Fusion. I was also pretty tired. I got to Boonville in the Anderson Valley about time for dinner. I'd wanted to stop there and explore a bit and I'd heard that the restaurant at the Boonville Hotel was very good so I stopped in. It was still early in the tourist season so I was able to get a table without a reservation. Yeah! turned out to be excellent.

About halfway through my first course I realized I was exhausted. I was talking to my server about my weekend and he suggested that I just get a room and stay instead of driving all the way back to the city. He noted that they had a couple small rooms available. An excellent idea. He showed me my room. I really liked it! So with room key in hand I went back to my table in the dining room, thrilled that I could now conveniently sample the wines of the Anderson Valley! I was impressed. Due to the cooler weather the area's wineries do a fine job with Riesling and Pinot Noir. I slept very well at the Boonville Hotel. I highly recommend it.

The next weekend I returned to the Mendocino Coast for a rock garden class with Liquid Fusion. I had taken an intro rock garden class with Paul Kuthe and Cate at the Golden Gate Sea Kayak Symposium in January and I was really looking forward to building those skills. This turned out to be exactly the class I needed. We started at the beach in Noyo Bay and did a number of warm-up exercises near rocks not far from the beach. Then we talked a lot about safety kayaking in sea swell near rocks. Things like always being clear about where the safe spots are if big swell or breaking surf come through. And making sure you know how to get to those spots fast. We did a number of exercises where the goal was to stay close to a particular rock as the swell went up and down, pushing you toward the rocks and then pulling you away.

We then paddled north out of the bay along the rocky Mendocino Coast. It is gorgeous. We did progressively more challenging exercises as the day went along. Which became progressively more fun. Things like going through slots between rocks. The fun part is that as the swell goes up and down there are times when there is water between the rocks. And times when the water is gone and it's just wet rocks there. Not surprisingly, the idea is to paddle between the rocks when there is actually water there.

The swell was pretty mellow that day so we were able to practice how to go into a cave safely. Hints like pointing your bow back out to sea and backing into the cave so you can see waves coming. That was a fascinating environment.

We worked on landing and launching from rocks, which is a great skill to practice.

Now, with a good day of exercises we'd built the skills to go over a couple pourovers. That was really fun. That made my day. I want to go back and do that some more!

And to wrap up the day we practiced rescues near a larger pourover. It had been a long time since I'd practiced rescues in dynamic water. Very worthwhile.

This trip I stayed at the Sweetwater Inn in Mendocino. I reserved a room that had been an old water tower. It's a really comfy and cozy room. Right below my room were wonderful old wooden hot tubs that were pretty much all mine later in the evening.

I was not nearly as tired after this class as I was the week before surfing. And I'd had a huge amount of fun learning exactly what I knew would help me kayak in this area. So I wanted to reward myself -- dinner at Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino. It was excellent. Again, I highly recommend it.

So I had a great dinner, enjoyed the hot tub til late in the evening, relaxed and explored the town of Mendocino the next morning, and slowly meandered south along the Mendocino Coast, stopping here and there to check out other places I might want to stay on other visits.

For example, the Glendeven Inn looks great. Their rooms are very nice and their restaurant has have an excellent looking menu. While I was there I got some fresh eggs from their chickens on the property.

It was a great weekend. I felt that given relatively mellow seas I could now go out on more trips along the Northern California coast -- with people who know what they're doing. So I found myself looking forward to coming back and getting out on the water again with Cate and Jeff.