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Easter Sunday on Estero Americano

4/30/2014

At 8:20am on Easter morning, Alice and I simultaneously pulled into our favorite Park-N-Ride in San Rafael. We have a history of perfect timing - we're both 10 minutes early. We loaded White Lightning onto my car (next to Big Purple) and headed up the 101. Estero Americano flows into Bodega Bay, roughly 1.5 hrs north of the Bay Area. The launch site is at the end of a dirt road that spurs off the intersection of Marsh Road and Valley Ford Franklin School Road. Another kayaker arrived shortly after us, and spent 20 minutes urging Alice and I to join a kayak racing club in Berkeley.

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Keller Beach 'round Point San Pablo to the Chevron Refinery

4/7/2014

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Dilapidated buildings, west shore of Point San Pablo.

After our nature-drenched paddle on Saturday, Jeff and I stayed close to Berkeley and checked out the developed shoreline of Richmond in San Francisco Bay. After kayak polo we loaded ourselves + our wet butts into Tess (my blue Subaru) and drove 15 minutes up I-80 to Miller Knox Regional Shoreline. Some of my colleagues are working on a project to restore a pond in the park, so we went for a brief stroll around the pond to take photos. The pond used to be a coastal lagoon/inlet before a railroad was built along the entire shoreline, cutting off connection with the Bay and converting the tidal lagoon to a scummy pond.

After the stroll, we parked at Keller Beach, just north of Miller Knox, to launch our boats. A park attendant pulled over in his truck to inform us that we were launching in a very inconvenient location. Rather than take his advice to launch further south, we stubbornly carried our boats down and up the large hill, including multiple flights of stairs. We do this partly for exercise, right?

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Kayak Polo Uniforms

4/6/2014

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Last Sunday I brought Jeff with me to Kayak Polo practice at the Berkeley Marina (see this post for an explanation of the sport). Since it was a "rainy" weekend (see photo) everyone else cancelled the night before, and we ended up in a private class with coach Peter. Since there have been exactly zero updates to my kayak polo education/skills, I just wanted to share the ridiculousness/awesomeness of our outfits+gear.

Looooookin' good.

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Moon Snails, Loons, Seals, Sea Stars, and Fish Heads: Tomales Bay Never Disappoints.

4/5/2014

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Starved of salt water and kayaks longer than 10 ft, Colorado Jeff flew to San Francisco for a weekend of bingeyaking (my second favorite verb, after sponyaking). The bingeyaking was certainly not spontaneous, as we spent two weeks planning our routes and finding ways to squeeze as many miles into one weekend as possible.

We had planned to paddle Estero Americano (i.e. Americano Creek) from Valley Ford Road to its confluence at Bodega Bay. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was looking pprreeettyyy miserable for Saturday, with heavy rains...

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Blog

Easter Sunday on Estero Americano

Keller Beach 'round Point San Pablo to the Chevron Refinery

Kayak Polo Uniforms

Moon Snails, Loons, Seals, Sea Stars, and Fish Heads: Tomales Bay Never Disappoints.

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