As part of my continuing quest to paddle all of California, I set aside two weeks in August to paddle another section of the coastline. I started planning the trip a year ago, but continued to get new information faster as the date grew closer. I had broadcast a request for information about this section of the coast on the BASK buzz list server without receiving any replies. I went down to visit John Lull and ask him about different places to camp on the coast. He looked over my charts and drew marks where he had camped before. I called Sid Taylor and talked to him about camping possibilities, but Sid tends to travel long distances and couldn’t fill in all my blank spots.
Then two days before it was to leave I took a brake from packing (actually I had not started yet) to go to a movie with a bunch of BASKers. (The movie was “White Dawn” about three whalers shipwrecked in the arctic and taken in by an Eskimo village). Over dinner before the movie, Penny Wells casually mentioned that she knew a camping place south of Carmel, an area I was worried about! After the movie Ken Mannshardt perked up when he heard me mention Greyhound Rock to Maryly. Ken assured me that it was a good landing site and it has a trail to the top of the cliff where there is a toilet. Don Fleming asked me if I was camping at Limekiln Beach in Big Sur. We couldn’t find it by that name on my topographic maps, so later I looked it up in Roger Shuman’s book “Kayaking Central and Northern California” and found it mentioned as a good launching spot. It was in one of the rugged areas I was previously unsure if I would find a place to land.
On my float plan I put down Saturday August 4th as a day to finish packing and drive down to Half Moon Bay. But in order to finish you have to start first. I was working late every day the week before finishing up projects at work, so I amended the float plan to say START PACKING on Saturday. I started, and finished, and managed not to forget anything important. I got ready and drove down with time to kill.
So I dropped in unexpectedly on Barbara Kossy and John Dixon and pumped John with questions about camping in the areas I would be in. He first looked at my charts and gave me some good pointers on how to find the places that John Lull had marked. (Eel rock is near a waterfall, that’s how you know you are there). John (Dixon) did not recommend Greyhound Rock because it is a place that lots of people go to fish. Where you find prey (fishermen) you will find predators (game wardens) who are likely to be as officious and rule spouting as park rangers about camping on beaches. Instead he recommended nearby Davenport where it turns out an acquaintance of mine, Bryant Austin, is now living.
John also recommended that I talk to Steph Dutton, a man I have met only twice before. Steph once paddled Oregon in the middle of winter, braving 15 foot swell. He also paddled from Victoria British Columbia (Canada) to Ensenada Baja California (Mexico) in the summer and early fall of 1993. That was called the BC to BC/'93 expedition. So we called Steph up right then and I talked to him for 45 minutes on the phone. Just from memory and my descriptions he had several other suggestions for landings in Big Sur, one at a place where I thought there was nothing on the map and had planned a long day to get past it. When Steph heard that I was going to Guerilla camp on the beach near Moss Landing, he offered to let me set up my tent on one of his boats. He runs “Sanctuary Cruises” whale watching trips and has two boats docked at Moss Landing.
The next stop on my very social paddle was to visit Chris Thollaug, a co-worker of mine who lives 15 minutes from where I was to launch. He let me crash at his place Saturday night, drove me to the put-in, and drove my car back to his house for safekeeping while I was gone. The evening before a long trip I am usually nervous about what can go wrong. But this time I was euphoric instead. My heart overflowed with happiness contemplating the sights I would see and all the good friends who shared information to help me on my way.