As part of the conspiracy to pump up the kayak statistics at Horseshoe Cove, I scheduled an overnight camping trip to Angel Island. I reserved the "Kayak Campground" way in advance so up to 20 BASKers could join me on the island. The Kayak Camp is a large campground that is not part of the normal State Park reservation system. You have to call the rangers on the island (preferably ranger Dan) and reserve it the old fashioned way. Apparently someone had already reserved it for the same weekend, but it had not been written down in the book yet. So my name was written down first but someone else had priority. The rangers are tired of this sort of thing happening and wish that the Kayak Camp was on the computer system so they don't have to deal with it. But we fear that non-kayakers will reserve the campground when all the normal ones are full if they see it on the computer and then we'll have trouble getting it in future.
We were put in contact with the people who had first dibs on the Kayak Camp. They were willing to share, since they were a party of only 4 people, but they really didn't want to be swamped with 16 BASK members. We compromised at six, so Maryly Snow, Roger Lamb, and three new BASK members who had never paddled to the island were the only ones who got to go. Roger wanted to paddle straight across The Bay to take advantage of the tides. The beginners wanted to hug the shore and duck across to the island at the narrowest point. Roger prevailed and we took a direct route. The wind and waves were reasonably calm and the tide did help us. Just as we rounded our last point on the island the tide rose up in a little tide rip that Roger stayed behind in to enjoy. One of the beginner kayakers pointed Roger out in the middle of the rip after we landed and asked if he was OK. I told him that Roger eats rips like that for breakfast! We took our time and prepared our dishes for the pot luck dinner. I made the peanut sauce rice dish that I invented on the trip to Baja, this time a larger version that was enough to serve six. After dinner Roger, Maryly and I attempted to climb the trail up to the top of the island. But we found it to be clogged with poison oak and we turned back.
In the morning the bay started to fill up with boats, and one of them had a VERY LOUD sound system. They played the introduction to " Thus Spake Zarathrustra" over and over again. (The introductory music for the movie "2001"). One of the beginning kayakers mentioned that today was the "Opening of The Bay" day. Maryly was horrified! Apparently she knew what this meant even though the rest of us did not. This was an annual event when everyone who had a boat put it out in the bay. The bay would be clogged with them and we might have trouble crossing back to the mainland without getting run over! So on the trip back we did take the shortest distance across Raccoon Strait so we could hug the shore and avoid all the traffic. After safely crossing the strait we looked across the mouth of Richardson Bay. A gray whale sounded near us and dove! They rarely come inside the bay so we were happy to se one, but we worried that it was going to get in trouble in the crowded bay.
It looked like the sail and motor boats all stayed out of the shallows and went around a buoy near the opposite side of Richardson Bay. So we were able to cut across the bay and then hang out at that buoy waiting for a break in the traffic. Then we zoomed across the channel to Sausalito and were safely up against the shore and done with boat traffic. As we relaxed and paddled towards Horseshoe Cove, another gray whale sounded near us! Apparently word about the "Opening of The Bay" celebration really gets around. The whale disappeared as we approached Yellow Bluff, and soon we were landing in Horseshoe Cove. We didn't see any of the "survey crew" cars that we saw the week before, so we're not sure if they were still keeping statistics about how many people use the cove.