Kayaking to Tomales Beach

I had been thinking about going kayak camping for a while, and Dean suggested to organize a trip for my birthday. I had never done it and neither had any of my friends but it sounded like a great plan. You can get permits at the Recreation.gov website and, unlike others, they don't sell out the same day they are available. https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/…

Our plan was kind of ambitious for a group who had never done this before.

We had a group of ten people, plus four people who were coming just for the day. We borrowed two kayaks from Brendan, rented three double kayaks and one individual from Point Reyes Outdoors, and one individual from Blue Waters. The ones from Blue Waters seemed nicer and they had more availability but Point Reyes Outdoors was considerably more affordable and they let us borrow gear to attach the kayaks to the cars. They also delivered them for $75. Unfortunately, they only had seven seats available so we couldn't avoid getting an extra one from the other place.

On top of that, James and Octavio were just coming for the day but did not have a kayak so Dean and I decided to just get an inflatable one and keep it.

Fast forward to the actual day of the trip, we had a couple of issues.

Dean and I were planning to be there around 10 or 10.30, but we actually didn't make it until noon. I guess we underestimated how long it would take to pick up the kayaks from Brendan and pack everything we needed. That meant that we couldn't spend as much time packing the kayaks as we should have and that the wind got worse and made it harder to paddle.

Soon after we got into the water, problems started. Dean was the first one to capsize but not the only one. Joe and Julian followed. On top of that, the inflatable kayak seemed way too small for Octavio and James, who ended up capsizing as well - although maybe it was just overinflated? I'll have to check that.

At that point, I was starting to feel that I had dragged all my friends to an adventure, promised them it would be easy, and they were all about to die and blame me for it.

ANYWAY. That did not happen. We made it to Tomales Beach - it was actually quite close - and had lunch. Another group of guys was already there but, other than that, the beach was ours. We ate, set up our tents and put our stuff to dry.

We had even brought streaks for dinner and a portable grill for fire. The location was beautiful and the night was fun.

The morning after was great. Weather was much better and we had breakfast before heading back. Without the wind, kayaking was easy and fun, and we packed much better this time.

Before heading back to San Francisco we stopped at Point Reyes Station, but we were all so exhausted! Despide the problems, this was a great trip. I'll just reserve another post for the lessons learned.Read more