Mendocino Magic

So many stories to share! I seem to be challenged with finding the time to post them all. Perhaps that’s just as well. I wouldn’t want to bore you with every single adventure. But then I consider this blog to be a log of my adventures, so why not share them all?

I’m going back to September, when we put our kayaks in the water in Mendocino and had a magical paddle. Our kayaking club, BASK (Bay Area Sea Kayakers), has an annual tradition of spending a few days in Mendocino in September. This year with social distancing and the coronavirus pandemic, the club cancelled the event dubbed Mendo Madness. We had been planning on this trip for many months, so rather than just cancel we managed to spend two nights at Van Damm campground and two days paddling. One of those paddles on the Albion River I wrote about not too long ago. Now it’s time to share our coastal paddle.

On the morning of September 20, we launched from Van Damm beach and paddled north. The wave action on the coast was calm and we discovered that we could paddle places that are often too rough to access. Our paddle took us into some magnificent sea caves.

I had a GoPro camera going on my helmet. I’ve finally managed to edit the video down to three minutes that I think will give you the feel for what it’s like to paddle here. Here’s the video clip.

Paddling into the caves with the water glowing a blue-green was magical. This wasn’t about covering distance, but we did cover about four miles while poking along the rocks. We were back on the beach for lunch. After lunch we explored a few caves south of the beach. Here’s the track of our morning paddle.

Author: treve

When I'm not creating architectural photos for clients (see my primary website at www.treve.com), I like to travel, hike, kayak and enjoy other artistic and cultural pursuits. I'm also concerned about environmental and social issues and issues of faith.

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