Having loaded the boats on the car the day before, we were ready for an early start to make the drive to our launch site. It’s a 50-mile drive to Marconi Cove. We were on the road at 8:05, arriving at 9:30. Traffic across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was normal for the morning rush hour. We seemed to have time to spare for a 10:30 launch, so in addition to the usual safety talk and radio check we took a few minutes to do some stretches. We launched on flat calm water under grey skies.
On the water I discovered that my skeg was jammed. I’m paddling a Dagger Stratos 14.5S. Attempts to free it were unsuccessful, so I was putting extra energy into boat control, trying to keep the boat on course. Good practice.
We paddled across the bay and followed the shore to Inverness. Our original plan was to have lunch near the wreck of the Reyes. I actually have a photo of this wreck taken when it was still an interesting photo subject. That photo is available in my art store. Now the wreck is looking rather dilapidated. You can see it over the back deck of the kayaks in one of the following photos.
It was too early for lunch when we reached the wreck, so we opted to paddle back across the bay to Millerton Point in Tomales Bay State Park. During a quick stop while scouting lunch locations Joann and Steve swapped boats, with Joann paddling the Romany. Once we landed for lunch, I was able to free the skeg. Some gravel had become jammed in the skeg well and the pull tab I had put on the skeg to assist in this process was missing.
Jellyfish were quite plentiful on the paddle, and I was tempted to stick my camera underwater (iPhone in a dive case) and snap randomly hoping I would capture them. To my surprise, I actually captured something. More photos are available in an online gallery. We were back at our launch site at 1:50 having logged 8 miles. On the drive home we stopped at the Tamale vendor at the Platform Bridge. Tamales for dinner. Yum!
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