This trip is one that I put off for quite a while, because there is a long boring beach (Dorran beach) between the entrance to Bodega harbor and the border. But it was the last connecting story between lots of Sonoma county trips and all the Marin county trips I had already gone on. The morning was socked in with fog, so I drug my heels getting started. The Ocean Conditions recording at Salt Point reported only 4 foot swells, and partially cloudy skies, but a chance of scattered showers. Finally, I made it out at 10:00am and drove to "Cambel Cove", the muddy beach at the inside end of the entrance to Bodega Bay. The beach had crunchy sand that collapsed 3 inches where I stepped on it, and it smelled like a cesspool. The smell didn't go away until I got out of the channel and into the bay proper. (The harbor that the restaurants all face is not the "bay", the bay is the large area offshore from Doran Beach which is relatively protected from the waves). There was someone standing on the Dorran beach side of the breakwater, and he started jogging down the beach. I cut halfway across the bay to see some of the beach on my way to the rocky part, and caught up with the jogger. But without any more short-cuts, he pulled ahead and beat me to the end of the beach. (A 2 mile run I think). My pull-out-all- the-stops sprinting speed in this kayak is about 4 mph, and I think a jogger can easily do over 4 mph, so I don't feel so bad. Let him race me on his hands and see who wins next time.
The beach was not as boring as I expected: The waves were mild enough that I could get within 50 meters of the beach. I had the beach to watch and the sound of the surf. And every once in a while, a big wave would go under me and give me a scare. After Doran Beach, the last mile to the border is very rocky. At the top of all the cliffs, are expensive houses extending south from the bay. I saw one attractive little valley that had a small inaccessible beach, a waterfall, and no sign of civilization (if you ignore the remains of old rancher fences). I started to consider this as a potential camping spot. But then the north side of the valley came into view, and there was a wall of expensive houses with curved walls and swooping roofs. They started at the clifftop and extended up over the first row of hills. I'll bet they would not approve of seeing a tent in their back yard one morning. There were lots of rocks to paddle around, with mild waves so I didn't have to avoid them on my way to the next valley separating the counties from each other. On my Lawson's Landing trip up this way, I saw a utilitarian building on the Sonoma side, and didn't know what it was. Now I think it's the sewage treatment plant for all those houses. Sure enough, along the top of the cliff next to the building is a berm, probably hiding the sewage treatment pools from view. So much for this valley as a potential camping spot. The waves were breaking into the valley, and I was tempted to ride one in and see how far I could paddle inland, but I felt pressed for time.
Instead of heading straight back across the bay, I paddled back from rock to rock, traveling completely around some larger rocks I had passed on the landward side on the way out. When I got back to the beach, I cut straight across to the harbor entrance. The sky had been patchy when I left, with attractive (scary) anvil heads out to sea. Those thunderheads were dissipating or heading north, but there were also puffy clouds inland. As I cut accross the bay, it looked as if the sky was parting above my path. Above me, the sky was blue, with just some feathery clouds, and the sun was shining brightly over the top of the clouds to my left. I got so hot I had to splash water on the left shoulder of my wetsuit to cool off. I never would have predicted I would need to do that in the middle of winter! When I left the channel from the harbor, I had to fight my way out past the incoming tide, and I apparently planned the trip poorly enough to come back in against the outgoing tide. With a safe harbor to land in, there were no worries about getting dunked while landing. The high tide allowed me to ride right up to the edge of the path I had come down two hours earlier. The warm windless hour allowed me to get out of my wetsuit in relative comfort.