I had been hit up for a “lunching fee” at Lawson’s Landing in Dillon Beach the day before, so I was calling around to several other kayakers that evening. I found out I am the only kayaker who has ever been hit up for this fee, which one assumes is normally charged to people who tear up the sand/gravel “boat ramp” with their 4x4 trucks and trailers when launching their motor boats or jet skis. In the process of finding out I had been uniquely hassled by the Lawson’s again, I also heard that some of my friends were planning a trip across San Pablo Bay. This was a section of The Bay that I have not seen yet, so I got myself invited to come along. I met Bill and Doug at China Camp, where we were going to leave some cars for the take-out. Everyone else had apparently canceled due to fear about the weather or the mud at low tide. It had rained a little during the night, but the skies were clearing up again.
We left two cars in China Camp State park. Actually, we left the cars on the side of the road a mile farther north. We didn’t do this to save the meager $3.00 parking fee. I’d be glad to pay three times that if they would only let me park my car. They have restrictions to prevent people camping overnight, and I’d be glad to obey them and not park overnight. But the overnight restrictions are enforced at sunset and any car there gets dinged with a parking ticket or locked behind a gate and required to stay overnight. Since we thought we might be arriving a little late, we had to park on the side of the road. Lord save us from stupid bureaucrats.
We crammed three boats on top of Bill Steiger’s pickup truck and crammed ourselves inside. Then we drove up to the Lakeville Marina near Petaluma. This is a little marina behind Papa Taverno’s Restaurant between the Petaluma River and the Lakeville Highway. The sun came out and we got overheated in our wetsuits. The tide turned and started going out, promising to make our trip a quicker one. However, a mild headwind came up from the south, cooling us down and promising the arrival of the rainstorms later in the day or evening. We never did have any rain fall on us but the sky was full of clouds that got more threatening as the afternoon developed. Eventually the sky was so dark and full of clouds that we missed out on seeing the sunset from the water.
But first we had to paddle nine kilometers down the Petaluma River and another 12 kilometers across San Pablo Bay. When we came to the mouth of the river, we stopped at a little park under the bridge where Highway 37 launches over the water. While eating lunch we watched a boat with engine trouble get towed into the boat ramp there, then watched some Coast Guard trainees learn how to load their boat onto a trailer. Then as we started out into the bay we started running into very shallow water. One exception to this was a deep channel dug out from the Novato Creek that had a strong current poring out of it. We debated going up the creek, but decided that was a trip for another day. We were torn between paddling close to shore to see the sights and paddling far from shore where the tide would not leave us high and “dry” in the mud. We compromised by paddling in water a foot or so deep with our paddles striking bottom on every stroke. If it suddenly started getting a lot shallower we would feel it happen.
As we moved across the bay we saw a motorboat ahead of us and wondered what they were doing in such shallow water. Getting stuck apparently. As we approached, they moved farther to the right into shallower water. It turned out one guy was pushing the boat ashore. We tried to convince them they were only making matters worse and should be going the other way to look for the deep channels. We pointed out the row of markers for the Novato Creek channel. Bill showed them his chart that showed how that channel had even shallower water in front of it and they were going to have to go around it to the right. But as we paddled away we saw them turning to the left again. I assume they spent the night on the mud flat.
Paddling across San Pablo Bay we came across one duck-blind after another. Although these were once repaired once with plywood and pressure-treated 2x4’s, they were made from rough hewn trees jammed into the mud. They looked like ruins of some indigenous village on stilts. Even the modern repairs were in disrepair, with the roofs caving in and the floors broken where the last few people had stood on them. I wonder who “owns” these piles of sticks out in the middle of the bay? Does some local gun club have “rights” to them, or can anybody put up a blind here in the mud flats where nobody else goes? If we repaired one of them could we claim rights to it as our own kayak clubhouse?
We went from one blind to the next across the shallow bay, and started referring to it as a “duck blind tour”. The last one was close to shore. After surf launch the day before and now 22 kilometers on the water I was starting to get tired and sore. In the summer when I get to kayak more often this would not have tired me out as much. I tried turning directly to shore and paddling the last kilometer with some rocks and trees on my right. This gave me something to watch drift by and I forgot my aching shoulders and back until I got back to the cars. We loaded the cars in the dark, then went into down-town San Rafael for a meal at a British-style pub.