Waiting for Sea Landing to open and for my free breakfast at the motel had me launching at an extremely late hour. I didn't start paddling until around 8:30 AM. This was particularly worrisome because I had several things working against me. I had been unable to find a place to stay the next night that was a shorter distance and had to paddle a long 28 mile day. It was the first day and I would no be in my best shape for it. I was paddling a folding kayak that would not perform as well as my normal touring kayak. I was not used to paddling this boat. And I had a heavy wooden Greenland paddle. The luggage rules at Amtrak meant that I could not take my favorite 230 cm long Greenland paddle. I have a 4-piece plastic paddle that fits inside the 3 foot maximum size of luggage on Amtrak, but it is not my preferred paddle. I had taken the Feathercraft K1 kayak out on the Russian River the weekend before and discovered that I could not always roll it upright with that 4-piece paddle. When that failed I was able to switch paddles underwater and roll up on a Greenland paddle every time. But the only Greenland paddle I owned which would fit in 3 foot luggage was a 3-piece wooden paddle. I made this extra thick, and therefore heavy, because of something I had read about holding Greenland paddles near the ends. I wasn't happy with the resulting weight and have been meaning to shave it down but never found the time. Also this paddle had heavy stainless steel ferrules at the joints. Could I paddle 28 miles with this paddle? I had to make a surf landing at the end of the day and was unwilling to do that with a paddle that I could not roll with. I had to go with the heavy Greenland paddle.
I launched from the boat ramp in calm conditions with glassy water. Cormorants saluted me with outspread wings as I left the harbor. As I paddled the first day of this expedition I was disconcerted to notice that the entire coastline seemed to be make of either brick-brack (rocks piled up to protect the shoreline) with houses behind it, or sandy public beaches with lifeguard stations every 100 yards. Welcome to Southern California. From time to time I would see bottlenose dolphins or California sea lions at a distance. In the afternoon a breeze came up, but it was blowing my way. The western swell, the remains of the northwest swell that made it around Point Conception and between the Channel Islands, helped to shove me on my way. By the afternoon as I approached Ventura there was a bit of a wind wave also going my direction. These all added up to make paddling easy and fast, even with my heavy wooden paddle! Looking at my GPS I saw the speedometer go over 5 miles an hour on one swell! Most of the time I could keep the speed around 4 miles an hour. With stops to rest every hour and a long break for lunch I managed to average over 3 knots every day.
The landing at Ventura looked scarier than I had hoped for, those friendly waves pushing me along were bothersome and there was an occasional southern swell that really dumped. Will I be able to launch through this? I was able to land at the end of a public beach near a paved road. A guy on the beach helped me carry my kayak to the road so I didn't have to unload it to move it. Once on the pavement I put the kayak up on my wheels and easily rolled to my motel. I brushed the sand off and parked it inside my room for the evening.