Penny Wells scheduled this paddle from San Rafael to Horseshoe Cove to take advantage of one of the big tide ebbs of the winter. We shuttled most of the cars down to the take out and launched from a small public beach that I had never been to before. It was behind the parking lot of a little business park just a few hundred meters from the San Rafael Bridge. We paddled under the pier belonging to the local Gun Club, then under the bridge. The fast current of the big ebb tide quickly pulled us down The Bay.
Half way through the trip we stopped on Angel Island for lunch. While we were eating we saw two other kayakers going downstream in Raccoon Strait. Someone recalled that John Somers was supposed to be paddling in the area with another paddler from Western Sea Kayakers. We shouted out to them and at first they did not hear us. Finally they turned towards us when they were most of the way to the next point. We watched them get swept away by the current until they disappeared behind that point paddling hard but moving backwards. What seemed a long time later they came back around the point hugging the shore and joined us in time for some cookies before we all launched again.
From here we were all going with the current and quickly zoomed across the bay to Yellow Bluff where the water is known to be rough on an ebb tide. It was not as rough as I have seen it, but we had a lot of kayakers on this trip and the most dangerous hazard we faced was the chance of banging into each other. Everyone managed to avoid this and soon we let the current sweep us around to the mouth of Horseshoe Bay. Here we could not land in our usual place, because the Coast Guard is still busy shooting itself in the foot over the possibility of terrorist attacks since 9/11. The Coast Guard station, boat ramp and beach are fenced off in case a terrorist will… will … will do something dastardly with all that parking space and beach sand. We found a back way into the remaining parking area when shuttling the cars, and landed in front of the Presidio Yacht Club. This is reasonably close to the parking area, and the club has a bar that is open to the public! Many people in BASK are horrified that it took us this long to find such a nice place to socialize after a paddle on The Bay!