Half Moon Bay to Seal Rock, August 5th 2001.

It was 38 kilometers to Pigeon Point but I didn’t want to have to do a long paddle on my first day. So I planned a short 10 kilometer warm up paddle to a place near Eel Rock, just south of Half Moon Bay. I got there in only a few hours but the landings all looked difficult. The waves rose up threateningly far from shore, steep enough to surf a kayak out of control. Then they dumped explosively on incredibly steep sandy beaches. I worried that I might have to do a long paddle and get a day ahead of schedule. I continued south to another offshore rock called Seal Rock, which protected the end of a beach somewhat from the waves. Here right at the end of another murderously dumping beach, a large rock cut off the waves from the last 6 meters of sand before a steep cliff dropped to the water line. The waves were not as steep here and the sand a little less steep. I was able to paddle closer and closer to shore to check it out. If I could stay in good control of my boat and hit this small sand target it could work. In the troughs of the larger waves I could see a row of smaller rocks submerged close to shore. I picked a medium sized wave after a large set and paddled in.

I landed and popped my spray skirt, then hesitated as another wave approached. I should have gone for it. The boat stuck in the sand, the next wave came and dumped water into the cockpit, then the backwash almost pulled me back out. I dug my hands into the sand, stopped the boat and jumped out this time. Then I nearly sprained my wrist dragging the heavy boat above the waves. But I was landed and on shore! My beach had lots of room with plants and debris attesting to places to camp well above the high tide. I landed within an hour of a five foot high tide and the tide that night was to be six feet. Plenty of room to camp!

Because this was a short day, I landed at noon. Now I had eight or more hours of daylight to spend. It was a hot sunny day on the beach so I set up just the rain fly of my tent as a sun-shade. I read most of an Eskimo detective novel, “Silent as the Hunter” by Christopher Lane. Its sort of like a Tony Hillerman novel, but instead of setting it in Navaho territory, it is in the arctic with modern Inupiat native Americans. I wrote in this journal, as you can see. I dozed under my sunshade to catch up on all the sleep I lost while finishing projects at work and planning and packing and worrying in the middle of the night about this trip.

Lots of small aircraft flew by from the small air strip just north of Half Moon Bay. I wondered if one of them was Jack Pines, a kayaker who considered joining me on part of this trip and who also has an airplane. Then in the middle of the afternoon I heard an airplane roaring loudly overhead. I stepped out to see a bi-plane doing loops over the beach. It turned on a smoke generator and started sky writing! The letters looked something like this:

The vertical section in the right of the first “letter” was straight up into the sun and the plane seemed to fall right down at me! The second letter was out over the water and the last line was stretched out towards Pillar Point. It was insanity to imagine that someone was using this elaborate means to send ME a message! Two other bi-planes passed by out at sea so it was probably some barnstorming club. Even if the message was for me, what could it mean? WX? (Turn on your weather radio?) I tried that and listened to a prediction of mild weather for the next few days. The sky-writer circled around behind the cliffs and roared past one more time low to the water and close to shore.

As I sat back down in my shade to read more of my murder mystery, another sinister interpretation of the message occurred to me. I imagined the following scenario: All afternoon long doctors and lawyers and other rich people have been flying past this beach and seeing my green tent fly. Eventually one of them recognized the beach I was on and called his rich landowner friend to tell him I was here. This guy jumped in his biplane to check it out, and what does he see on HIS beach? A hearty kayaker/explorer landed on a rugged shoreline? NO! He sees a "cockroach of the sea" (a derogatory term used to describe the swarms of weekend kayakers thronging places like Tomales and Monterey Bays). He sees a disturber of wildlife, a litter bug, a driftwood campfire builder, a strewer of toilet paper and empty beer cans SQUATTING ON HIS PRIVATE BEACH! (None of these things are true of me of course, but he doesn’t know that).

One of this guy’s other hobbies is sky-writing so after getting my attention he turns on the smoke and writes: “GO ---“ to tell the trespasser to go back to Princeton Harbor, or wherever the heck he came from. This scenario took hold of my imagination and spoiled the rest of my stay at this beach. My shoulders cringed with the expectation of hearing the shouts of an irate land owner from the top of the cliff at any moment. I probably should not have set my tent fly up until after dark.