At the mouth the river went through a network of 7 arches just offshore. One of the pairs of arches is called Elephant rock and it does bear a little resemblance to that animal. The current of the river ran around and over a bunch of smaller rocks, between the arches and then out into breaking waves. I decided I would rather drag my loaded boat 30 feet over the sand and launch into the calm ocean water a little farther south. In a river kayak the mouth of the river might be fun, but not in a long heavily loaded sea kayak. Roger Lamb followed my example and we launched behind an offshore reef to protect us from the ocean swell. Hanging out at the end of this reef you can wait for a window in the waves and dash out to the open sea.
Just south here are two little points, or islands just barely connected to the land, called Hogback and Little Hogback. I had considered trying to land behind one of these but had seen cabins and even dirt roads called out on the topographic map of the area. As we paddled down this coast I also saw a number of smaller valleys emptying into the ocean. One of these would probably have been a more comfortable place to camp the previous day.
We paddled across the bight in front of a little town named Tahola and came to an incredibly fun rock garden around Point Grenville. We went close to shore between small and large rocks and saw a little sandy beach where we could have landed. At the tip of the point we surfed into Grenville Bay and saw a long beach with kids playing in the surf and cars driving up and down the sand. We cut halfway across the bay and landed through the surf for a lunch break. I had the second best surf ride ever in my big Necky Narpa, a boat that normally does not surf well. This beach was miles long, hundreds of yards wide, and covered with sand dollar shells. The surf was not difficult to launch back out through after lunch, calming my fears about the next couple of days when we would hot have points and islands to create protected landing and launching spots.
We paddled past the town of Pacific Beach and the trailer park, I mean State Park, with the same name. From the satellite maps I had picked out a creek, Elk Creek, a mile past the town where it looked like we could ninja camp and replenish our water supply. But as we approached the creek I saw that the road dropped down towards the water with a good view of whatever we tried to do there. So we landed a little closer to town at a smaller creek. As we had paddled past the town of Pacific Beach we slowly passed and pulled ahead of a group of people going down the beach on horseback. When we made our turn and surfed to a landing on the beach these people saw us land and came over to tell us what we were doing was crazy. They were very friendly and one woman, Sage by name, gave us protein bars after hearing how far we had come. Another guy was wearing an authentic old-west looking outfit with an oiled jacket and hat. When his name turned out to be John, I said “Last name Wayne, right?” We asked these people if they were locals, (they were) told them what we were up to and asked if we might camp on this beach without being hassled. They figured we would probably get away with it if we kept a low profile. We hid our kayaks and gear in the saw grass at the base of the bluff and when the horseback riders came back by later we were so low profile they could not see our gear at all! Of course we didn’t set the tents up until dusk.