Konstantin felt that he has not been getting in shape for the upcoming trip to Baja so he suggested an afternoon paddle to get some exercise. I joined him at Campbell Beach next to "The Hole in the Head" at the mouth of Bodega Harbor. We suited up and paddled out the jetty and cut across the bay towards Bodega Rocks. We skirted around the east side of the rocks and talked about surfing there. Konstantin had tried surfing here once in his Pirouette and gotten long rides. Some friends of his had tried surfing with longer sea kayaks at the same time and had a difficult time getting rides at all. We didn't try surfing this time.
Instead we set off for a brisk paddle down to the mouth of Estero de Americano. The mouth of this muddy tidal creek had pretty challenging surf on this day and we talked about the possibilities of landing here. On our trip to the Pacific coast of Baja we expect to have to land in conditions like this or possibly much worse. So landing here would be a good practice run. We watched and saw mild windows in the waves that a kayak could paddle in or out through. We both agreed that it would be easy to land here. Then we both agreed that we didn't need to test the theory by actually getting wet. We turned and sprinted back to Campbell Cove.
The sky was full of big white storm clouds. We half expected to be paddling on an overcast day but the clouds hugged the horizon on both sides of us and the sun shone down brightly on the bay. We took the long way back, hugging the shore along Doran Beach. Konstantin pulled a little ahead of me and I started working hard to keep up. I was in my new Necky Narpa, getting comfortable with it for the Baja trip. It is a bit wide but has more storage space than Konstantin's narrow hand made wooden boat. But as I discovered his boat is a very fast one. Suddenly, Konstantin decided that he really wanted a workout and started paddling hard. His boat pulled ahead of me as if I wasn't paddling at all! I turned towards the mouth of the jetty to shorten my path but Konstantin still had to wait for me there. Then we paddled together up the jetty to land at Campbell cove.