Weekends have always been a difficult time for me to go on BASK kayak trips because I plan on spending time with Marty who is not a kayaker. So I was pleased to see a BASK trip scheduled on a weekday and signed up to go on it. Then I found out that Marty's schedule has changed and she will be working weekends and geting Thursday and Friday off each week instead. Originally I had planned on staying in Cazadero this weekend to spend time with my sister Patty and her kids. So Marty and I were going to miss each other this weekend. But if I went on this BASK trip, I could join Marty for dinner in Berkeley afterwards.
This trip was a repeat of a similar BASK trip that I had also been on. From San Quenton to Horseshoe Bay, hoping to play some standing waves in the tidal rip currents created by a 5.8 knot ebb tide at 3:45 PM.
We didn't quite repeat the same path on this trip, but cut across Raccoon Strait sooner and went down the west side of Angel Island from its northern most point. The current was quite strong, and there was a very fast eddy current going back north on this part of the island. Between the main ebb current and this backward moving eddy current large whirlpools formed. Another kayaker, named Jack, and I were drawn to these and tried to get them to grab our kayaks and spin them around. This did not turn out to be as fun as we hoped. The kayaks turned sluggishly in the whirlpools which formed moved away and disappeared to fast to hold onto us.
While we played in the whirlpools everyone else got ahead and landed at Hospital Cove on Angel Island for lunch. This is apparently a popular place to stop while kayaking because of the rest-rooms maintained buy the State Park. We stopped for a quick lunch because it was already 3:00 PM and continued on down Raccoon strait. This was one place we had seen standing waves in the last trip. Everyone was hoping they would be stronger this trip because the weather was predicted to be windy with scattered showers. But perversely, the weather was overcast but calm with no rain. We saw no standing waves in the strait, but ran into a few patches of them while crossing over to Yellow Bluff.
Yellow Bluff is supposed to be the premier place to play in the tidal rips, but it was even calmer this trip than the last one. The waves would occasionally rise up a little, but disappeared every time anyone took out a camera to catch them in action. Joan Wiener, who initiated this trip, is starting to develop a complex about this, feeling responsible for the calm weather on all her trips, even the ones where we want some rough water to play in! I told her I want her on my Lost Coast trip to calm the waves on that rough stretch of shoreline.
On the north end of Yellow Bluff there is a set of three rocks just sticking out of the water with the strong current running between them. One by one, us "guys" approached these rocks and zoomed between them against the current. None of the "gals" (3 of 8 kayakers) seemed interested in this sport. Must be a testosterone thing. On the south end of Yellow Bluff, Jack and I stayed behind to surf back and forth in the waves breaking into the point a few times. The generally calm water did have a fortunate effect for me: Everyone was eager to leave a little earlier than the last trip here, and I got to Berkeley in time for dinner with Marty.
