Bodega Head, July 10th 2007

Konstantin Gortinsky called me up and suggested that we start doing the Tuesday Evening paddles again. He is a teacher and has weekday evenings off for the summer. The two of us agreed to meet at Bodega Head at Campbell Cove (a.k.a. E-Coli Beach). The tide was pretty high and when we launched I thought I might be able to get through the “short cut” in the jetty. But I only made it half way through this low notch in the jetty and had to climb out of my kayak and launch again on the other side. Konstantin tried to follow me and had to do the same procedure.

The water has been unusually calm for weeks now and we were able to paddle pretty close to Bodega Head. I think we have been out here once before when it was calmer, as we were not able to paddle right up against the cliffs this time. We were able to get right up against the cliffs at the whale watching lookout. Here there is a slot continuing north that I have never paddled in. Roger Lamb once paddled up it but came back and told us it was impassable. On this day Konstantin and I both paddled up the slot and were able to escape back out to sea on the other side.

We paddled north to the Bodega Marine Laboratory and into Horseshoe Cove. We circled the cove and went close to shore but did not land on their beach (because they asked us politely once not to do that). By the time we were back out of the cove it was 7:00 PM and time to head back. We re-traced our route going through the slot in front of the whale-watching lookout. We also went behind a few more of the rocks at Bodega Head. And when we came back to the jetty the tide was higher and it was easy to take the short-cut into the harbor entrance and E-Coli Beach. After loading up our gear we stopped at the Sand Piper restaurant for a seafood dinner before heading home.