Only one other person was awake at the Youth Hostel when I got up and made myself breakfast. Despite my getting to check in early because of my mode of travel, no-one had asked me about my trip until now when the other early riser started asking questions. Delicia Liu is a young Chinese American on vacation from school, studying traditional Chinese medicine. Formerly a western medical student. I encouraged her to do both, but she was already considering that. When I answered her questions about my gear, she took notes in her diary in Chinese! Then when I saw her sketching pictures of me lugging my gear around and packing it, I begged her to send me copies of them! As you can see, she followed through and sent me copies! I rolled my boat down to the beach and Delicia (not a traditional Chinese name) watched my gear on the street while I made several trips to the water’s edge. She watched me launch and waved goodbye from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk Beach.
I paddled straight across Santa Cruz Harbor to Soquel Point, which already had several large pods of surfers hanging out to ride the point break. I followed the inner edge of the kelp bed to avoid having to drag my boat through the vegetation. This put me close to the surfers and even close to the rocks off the point. Then I plowed out through the kelp into deep water and started making tracks across Monterey Bay. This was going to be my longest day yet, and I intended to cut the straightest course I could set.
I started seeing dolphins right away and continued to see them all day. I saw the usual solitary sea lion from time to time, and one large pod of them. Of course everywhere I went I saw sea otters. When I got close to shore later in the day it seemed like I saw them regularly spaced, like they had staked out territories.
The day was overcast and hazy. I could not see the Moss Landing power plant until I was within 4 miles of it, eating lunch near the mouth of the Salinas River. Then I worked hard to do the last hour of my long day. First I turned left inside the harbor and stopped at Monterey Bay Kayaks to look for some gear I wanted to buy. Then I called Steph Dutton and arranged to meet him at his boat. Steph owns "Sanctuary Cruises" and has a large catamaran boat berthed at Moss Landing. He generously offered to let me camp on his boat and to talk with me about kayaking the Big Sur area. Steph is the kind of kayaker who does large sections of the coastline by paddling 30 nautical miles a day or more.
When I found him on his boats he was a blur of activity. I was directed to a spot to store my gear and where to sleep. When he finally had time to look at the charts, I turned out to be too chatty and jocular for Steph. He informed me that I "talk too god dammed much!" Later when I relayed this to Konstantin, he said "Yes". Then HE (Konstantin) told me that everyone already knew this. On a day paddle recently, Konstantin and Roger made me stop talking so I would get ready to go sooner. I told them that one day when they were stranded on a desert island with no-one to talk to they will wish they had Mike Higgins to talk to them! Back on Steph's boat when I joked about the difference between nautical and statute miles, he jumped up and blew up at me. "You are on the ocean, you are using nautical miles!” One of his other captains was listening and joked with him not to snap at the paying customers. I immediately quipped "No, I'm not a paying customer, he can snap at me all he wants". That statement was also probably too chatty and jocular. But Steph sat down again and continued showing me his recommended stopping points on the Big Sur coast. According to his weather sense, I should have good weather until Tuesday. Too bad I will be on the water through Wednesday.
