Bruno's to Armchair Beach, December 28th 2006.


John Boeschen has been paddling around San Francisco Bay for the last 6 years or so in a kayak. Every Thursday evening, rain or shine, he meets a small group of friends and paddles out into the sunset. They land on a beach somewhere, start a campfire, drink wine, eat dinner out of their kayaks and then paddle back in the dark. John is a very creative writer and his books about these “Thurseve Paddles” are published and even available from Amazon.com under the name “Reflection on San Francisco Bay: A Kayaker’s Tall Tales”. Often the events recorded in the books bears very little resemblance to what actually happened. Recently he has been converting his digital photos into “Old John Boeschen’s Comics” available on the WEB. This link will get you directly to the page for this evening’s paddle. For all of the last 6 years I have been meaning to try and join him on one of these adventures and this was the first time!

I don’t often get Thursdays off or even Thursday evenings but during the week between Xmas and New years I finally got my break. I met John and some of the “regulars” at Bruno’s. John has pet names for all the good places to launch or sit on a beach in San Francisco Bay. Bruno’s is the name of a grocery store that used to be next to a marina in Marin County. We met there and paddled towards a beach that used to have a plastic chair washed up on it, giving that beach the name “Armchair”.

I was lagging behind and didn’t get to circumnavigate the island who’s name (even on real maps) is Rat Rock. The faster paddlers rounded this island and landed on Armchair Beach about the time I arrived, so I just stopped there. Everyone brings food and drink to share on these paddles. I wanted to make a good impression my first time so I brought a stove to steam asparagus and put my secret Thai peanut sauce on it. There were many other dishes to sample, including soup, chili, salmon and chocolate for desert. Not to mention several bottles of wine and hip flasks of liquor. I did not sample the cigars. It was quite the boy’s night out.

Suddenly the campfire was burring low, everyone was ready to leave and they jumped into their kayaks. I had to rush to pack up my gear and was left behind with Jonathan Percell. Many of the “regulars” have running lights on their kayaks but neither Jonathan nor I had lights. We paddled back in the dark and considered ourselves lucky to find the entrance to the marina to return to our cars!


All text and images Copyright © 2006 by Mike Higgins / contact