Charles Harris came down with a bug of some sort and decided to take care of himself and not go on this trip. I drove down to Gregg’s house and crashed on his floor the night before so we could get an early start. We lowered our kayaks down the kayak slide in front of Michael Power’s house at Miramar Beach. The waves were mild but every once in a while a large set crashed down. Gregg managed to sneak out on a mild set but I timed it wrong, had a large set break over me, got surfed backwards, and flipped upside down. I rolled up and made it easily on the second attempt. When Gregg asked me what happened I said that I wanted to make the launch interesting for the watching crowds.
On the paddle south it was interesting to go to places I had only seen once before. I paddled close to the beach at Seal Rock and looked at the landing possibilities where I had camped once before. The swell continued to be surprising so I was not tempted to do much rock gardening at Martins Beach. We saw some waves breaking into caves just south of there and Gregg made a promise to himself to explore them more later. This trip I was expecting big boomers offshore from Pescadero Point and was not alarmed to paddle between them. We rounded Pigeon Point right about the time that the Youth Hostel opened and were there early to register and reserve a half an hour in the hot tub.
The next morning we got up to start packing our gear. Dick Ryon had been interested in joining us on this trip but had been unable to get away from other commitments on Saturday. So he drove down early and met us on the beach in Whalers Cove behind Pigeon Point on Sunday morning. After I launched I saw a chance to go rock gardening close to shore. I turned between the rocks and then noticed a large swell coming. I dithered about whether to charge into the wave or wait for it to come to me. A large area in front of me turned out to be very shallow and drained completely in the trough of the wave as it arrived. I tried to turn my large slow heavily loaded boat sideways to broach and brace but could not turn in time. The wave broke, slammed into me, rolled me over and surfed me back between the rocks. For the second time in as many months I actually found a use for my helmet. It tapped the rocks underwater a few times before I could roll up. It turns out that Dick Ryon had followed me into this rock garden and he was knocked over by the same wave. He rolled up and then reported to us that this was his first-ever combat roll! Gregg came over and kidded me about always making my launches interesting for my fans watching from shore.
I often see little dolphins when I am kayaking on the Pacific Ocean. So often that I usually don’t mention spotting them. They usually appear for only a second to breath and then you don’t see one again for hours. But on the trip north several of these little dolphins appeared in the same place over and over again. I stopped to watch for a minute and they swam up close to my kayak and seemed to react to my presence a few times.
I seemed to be the slowest kayaker on this trip and was often dropping behind. Gregg usually pulled ahead and even paddled back and forth to keep warm while we caught up. Dick started out the day pulling ahead of me and making me feel all of the ten years I am younger than him! But by the end of the day Dick started to loose steam and fell behind. Gregg and I waited at Miramar beach for Dick to catch up. I saw a big window of calm waves and could not resist landing. Gregg waited for Dick to arrive and then the two of them landed.
Because Dick had driven down to meet us, his car was still at Pigeon Point. We dropped Gregg off to start cooking us dinner at his place while I drove Dick back down to his car. By the time we had returned, Gregg had arranged to combine his fried fish with some BBQ beef at Ed Anderson’s house nearby. We had a huge meal there before some of us started the long drive home.