Continuing our good relationship with the Presidio Yacht Club, we had our monthly BASK planning meeting in their downstairs room so we could go paddling afterwards. We planned to go under the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bridge is quite close to Horseshoe Cove, so once under that most of us kept going. Eventually we made it to the little beach inside of Point Bonita. This beach had very little sand on it and most of us did not want to land there.
So after hanging around for a few minutes some of us decided to paddle out around Point Bonita and look at the ocean. Out there we ran into a few rowers in shells! These small boats with outriggers are commonly seen around Sausalito but it is rare for the ocean to be calm enough for them to come out this far. One of the rowers was an attractive woman in a bikini! Although it was a sunny day the air was chilly and the water, as always, was cold. As a safety measure in case we ended up in the water all of us kayakers were wearing wetsuits, paddle jackets and helmets. We couldn’t let a half naked rower go someplace that we feared to go, so we kept paddling north on the ocean to Bird Rock. We knew that sandy Rodeo Beach was on the other side of that rock so we decided to paddle there and land for a snack.
A few people pulled chocolate and cookies out of their boats and we lazed around on the beach until I noticed that it was 4:00 PM. If it took us as long to get back as we had taken coming out, it would be dark before we landed! So we launched and headed home at a brisk pace. We cut straight across the water from point to point. The evening sun lit up the Marin Headlands on our left with a golden light. That same golden light was shining on the Golden Gate Bridge as we went under it and I laid my head down on the back deck of my kayak to take it all in as I went under. All our indecisiveness had added up to a 12 mile paddle for those of us who went to Rodeo Beach.