The forecast winds had not arrived yet so our plan was to get as far north as we could before it arrived, land and try to catch a ride to my car in Santa Barbara. I was divided about our turning back, but when we started paddling around Point Sal I saw evidence that we had made the right decision. The swell was much larger than when we had paddled past this point the afternoon before. Between the rocks where I had played in the waves they now rose up, broke steeply and kept going towards the steep rocky shore. Even paddling farther out I was almost caught by one of these and Konstantin said “Too close”. I wasn’t sure if he was commenting on that wave or admonishing me for being where I was.
We paddled north around Mussel Point and north to a beach we had seen with lots of trucks parked above it. Here we went close to shore again and saw that many people were fishing from the beach. If we landed here a fisherman might give one of us a ride back to civilization. But the waves were rising up large and dumping on the beach and I didn’t want to land there. It was still early in the day, the northwest wind had not risen yet, and I wanted to keep going north as long as we could. I figured that the farther north we went the more protected the beaches would be because of San Luis Point. Konstantin was all for landing in the dumpy surf but I talked him out of it.
We continued north until we were paddling past the Oceano Dunes State Park (formerly the Pismo Dunes SVRA) where we could see dirt bikes and dune buggies running over the sand. We watched people driving their cars and trucks up and down along the edge of the beach but could not see how they were getting onto the beach. Again, Konstantin wanted to land when we saw people camping in their RV’s but I wanted to find the road. Finally we saw cars disappearing over the dunes and verified this was the right place by talking to some butt surfers playing in the waves. These two guys were surfing Kaos kayaks, and I asked them how they handled. They were having a blast. I acquired one of these kayaks but have not had time to play with it in the surf.
We landed in mild surf and walked up to the end of the road to talk to a Rangers Aide. She informed us that we had landed just two blocks away from an Amtrack Bus terminal and they had regular busses going down to Santa Barbara! I called up Amtrack and heard that the next bus was coming by in 4 hours, plenty of time to get organized. We also learned that the beach was open for day use until 11:00 PM so there would be no problem with Konstantin staying with the boats to watch over them. Amtrack also has a train station here and I started thinking about using this as a way to shuttle the boats for our next attempt at doing this section of coastline.
Shortly after we landed, long before I caught the bus to go get the truck, the northwest wind came ashore and whipped the sea up with whitecaps. Konstantin asked me if I really thought I could paddle in conditions like this. I was still internally divided on this subject. Although we had calm air all morning the wind probably came up around Point Arguello a lot sooner. If we had gone south we would have had to round this point in rough windy conditions. The wind would have been trying to drive us into a rough shoreline, but I felt my skeg would have allowed me to control the direction of the boat. I was scared in the morning but would have been willing to commit to it.
Instead we were changing into dry clothes on a sunny day with lots of weekend beach-goers. although when the wind came up most of them left. I caught my bus and rode down to Santa Barbara. The bus station was only 6 blocks from the boat ramp where my car was parked. With a few hitches, like finding that the headlights had been left on for three days, I finally started the drive north. I got back to the beach barely in time to pick Konstantin up before the 11:00 PM curfew.