McInnis Park to Rat Rock, November 11 1995.

A friend of mine, Steve Brittian, works most nights until after midnight. He has been asking about going out on the Russian river with me one of these days, but his schedule has made it difficult to arrange. I suggested that we could wait for a full moon, and go out after work in the middle of the night. But on the last few full moons he has been especially busy and could not go. This last full moon, I brought the canoe to Mohammed, with the plan that we would go on a local trip to McInnis Park in San Rafael, which is only 15 kilometers from work. My brother Paul once told me that this park had a sign that gave directions to the "Canoe launch". On the map, an estuarine creek comes up through the middle of the park from San Pablo Bay. This would save Steve the hour and a half drive to meet me on the Russian River. Howerver, on this particular night, Steve still could not get away before midnight, so I left to go reconnoiter the park. It closes at 11:00pm, so I parked on the street and walked around in the park with a flashlight looking for a boat ramp. Before I found it, I frightened two Black Crowned Night Herons fishing on the side of the creek. After I found the ramp, I went looking for a pay phone and talked to Steve while two raccoons walked within 4 meters of me. Steve still couldn't get away from work and had to call off the canoe trip. By the time I had gotten back to my van and checked the maps, it was almost 1:00 in the morning. The really interesting trip here would be to go out into the bay, and down to an off shore island called Rat Rock. Or a few more kilometers to The Sisters, two islands I had seen from Molate Point on the other side of the bay. But a trip like that would take hours, plus two hours to drive home, so I gave up an went home without kayaking. Then I had trouble sleeping, stayed up for hours, and wished I had spent the time kayaking instead.

On the next weekend, when I was going to work Sunday evening anyway, I stopped at McInnis Park on the way to work. I got in the creek at their canoe launch around noon, near the peak of a mild high tide. What do you call it when you go "down stream" in a creek, but the water is running up the creek? I paddled straight down to the bay without exploring back up the larger creek that joined the little one from the park. As the creek widened out, I turned south and followed the marshy shore. Most of the places on the Greater San Francisco Bay shores used to have shallow marshy edges like this, but they have been "developed". This usually means putting in artaficial shorelines made of blocks of old concrete, and filling in the marsh with soil. So it is wonderful to find a stretch of shoreline that shows what the bay must have loked like when we first found it. Even though I was practically in the middle of the city of San Rafael, I could pretend I had traveled back in time to an un-modified Bay. McInnis Park, and another park farther south, connected together on the shore here and made at least a 15 kilometer stretch that has been spared the development of the rest of the bay. I angled my camera to point at places which did not have buildings or power poles in them, to bring back pictures from my time travel expedition.

I paddled 15 kilometers down to the island named Rat Rock, just off shore. I wanted to go a few kilometers farther to "The Sisters", two islands I had seen from accross the bay when exploring "The Brothers" on the other side of the mouth of San Pablo Bay. But I was supposed to go to work this evening, and I didn't want to stay out until the strong low tide went out and stranded me in a mud flat. So I headed back and saved The Sisters for another trip. Before I left, I could see the Sister islands from Rat Rock, and they seemed to be surrounded by lots of moored barges. That trip may not be as sienic as most that I have been on.

I got back in plenty of time to avoid the low tide. But despite all the marshy area that I had paddled past, I did not see very much wildlife on this the whole trip. I startled two ducks when I paddled into a little side channel in the reeds. And I crossed the creek at one point to avoid bothering a snowy egret. I guess I am spoiled by my ownn back yard, where we see so much wildlife every time we look at the Russian River.

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