Goat Rock to Russian Gulch, May 26th 2008.

Konstantin Gortinsky has not been kayaking in a while but he called me up and suggested a coastal paddle. Neither of us, and especially Konstantin, had launched from Goat Rock in a while so we met there. We paddled north past the mouth of the Russian River and into prime rock gardening water. The swell was a mild 4 to 5 feet high. This let us go just about everywhere we wanted to go but still created white water around a few rocks.

The places we could go were limited by a just slightly minus tide at 10:18 AM. Some caves and areas behind rocks we have gone in the past were high and dry. This is a reasonably late time for a low tide and I wished that I had gotten organized to bring my abalone diving gear. Exactly at low tide the sun came out for a few minutes, then disappeared behind a high ceiling again. I had forgotten to bring my dive skin and was wearing a fleece jacket under my dry-top. This kept me exceedingly warm and the sun added too much to the equation and I had to practice my roll a few times to cool off.

We turned back just north of Russian Gulch Beach and paddled into a light breeze. We paddled hard from point to point on the trip back but the overcast and the breeze keep me cool enough that I didn’t have to roll again. When we approached the beach behind Goat Rock I waited for a large, well larger than the rest, wave and managed to surf into shore. The wave broke behind me, broached my boat sideways and dumped sandy water all over me. At home the sun came out again and made the task of rinsing all the sand off less onerous.