Don Flemming, who paddled around Jenner with me with several weeks ago, initiated this trip for BASK. We met in Vallejo across the channel from the old Mare Island Shipyard. There were only five of us all together, including Joan Wiener who was in her brand new Tsunami Rangers X15. She had been trying out someone else's X15 the last time I paddled with her, and now he has her own! This new one was actually a "cosmetic reject" from the factory. It had some defects from not setting in the mold correctly, but these had been filled. It looked like an X15 that had already been well used in a rock garden and repaired, but it actually has never been crashed (yet).
The last few days had been extremely windy, but Don promised we would only paddle against the wind for a few minutes, then the wind would blow in our direction for the rest of the trip. First we paddled across the Mare Island strait towards a decommissioned aircraft carrier that was being dismantled. The Navy has moved out of Mare Island, and a private company has taken over the task of taking the mothball fleet apart for scrap metal. Don says that is has turned into a local scandal: The scrap company has gone bankrupt but the Navy keeps delivering old ships to them. The channel is filling up with boats and the neighbors are beginning to wonder who is going to do something with them.
Next we paddled down the Mare Island Strait against the wind and incoming tide. We crossed back across the strait to try and get into an eddy current and paddled past the row of houses on Sandy Beach road. I had launched from under one of those houses with my Dad some time ago. We paddled around an old Navy pier and should have headed upwind and up-current along the Carquinez Strait. But first we crossed over to the east shore of the Carquinez Strait to get across the shipping channel.
We paddled up to an "infamous" restaurant that Don recommended we try out in a little town called Port Costa. The restaurant is called The Warehouse, and it was in an old concrete box of a building. This seemed to be a bit of a biker bar in a run-down town with falling property values due to several toxic gas leaks from a nearby refinery. Unfortunately the restaurant was closed and we had to settle for bar snacks. These consisted of things that could be served cold or warmed up in a microwave, like a cheese and cracker plate or a chicken paddy sandwich. All the popcorn or corn chips you can eat were free at the bar.
Finally, we paddled back across the strait to the marina in the town of Benicia where we had shuttled most of the cars before we launched in Vallejo. Don insisted that we cross over a little down river from the marina so we had a chance to admire a "maritime museum" he pointed out to us. This turned out to be a junkyard of old boats and barges tied up together in one place. I decided that it is a bad sign when you see an old wooden boat that does not rise and fall with the waves: It must have sunk in the shallow water and was actually resting on the muddy bottom now.
As we came around and under the last pier before our landing spot, the waves rose up in a little rip current. A field of small noisy waves made navigating the last corner interesting. Then a few minutes later when we had landed, this field of waves disappeared into calm water again. The wind or tide that created them was a transitory effect.
