Blog - The Naked Kayaker

Kayaking: Part of a Hard Day's Work + Baseball by Kayak

6/15/2014

Damien preparing the kayak for the bathymetry survey.

This will be a brief one... Friday was (likely) my last day of fieldwork at my job - I have 5 weeks left now, so things are starting to wrap up (or at least that's what I'm pretending). We are working (with a few other agencies/companies) on an oyster/eelgrass pilot restoration project off the coast of San Rafael (project website, recent article in the SF Gate). ESA (my company) is monitoring the physical processes like changes in topography, waves, and also water quality. On Friday we conducted a site-wide bathymetric survey that we will be comparing with a pre-project survey to see how the oyster beds may be affecting regional sediment processes.

We used a GPS/depth sounder system strapped on our sylishly-camo field kayak to do the survey. I haven't had a chance to calculate exactly how far we kayaked, but we paddled east and west and north and south across the site for about 4 hours. It was exhausting, but we finished just in time to return the equipment to the rental place. It was also just in time to head to San Francisco and meet up with Doug and his friends to watch the Giant's game from outside the stadium.

Sunday Lunch on Sea Glass Beach

6/3/2014

Seatrek Beach at low tide. The fog brings out the green.

The perfect kayaking trip should start something like this: a cool foggy morning, bundled in your favorite sweatshirt, with 30 minutes of meditative/caffeinated (do those cancel each other out?) beach sitting: bare toes hidden inside the boat for warmth.

The 100th Post

6/2/2014

We have a couple exciting milestones this month:

This is the 100th blog post! Nearly every post represents a single cycle of coordinating schedules, boat/gear loading and unloading, miles paddled, even more miles driven, and a few hours spent on a blog post. Phew...
The Naked Kayaker (blog) is 4 years old!

I reviewed my first blog post, in which I set some tangible paddling goals. I met the first two by the end of 2010 (paddle 100 miles and paddle on each of the Finger Lakes). The 3rd goal was postponed indefinitely (paddling the 40-mile length of Cayuga Lake in a day). The 4th goal (kayak in lots of places) is ongoing and a bit undefined, so let's call that a success: check!

In commemoration, here are some updated goals for the rest of 2014:

1. A couple months ago Alice and I set a goal to paddle together 15 times before I left for Europe. It's pretty ambitious since Alice is leaving for a month on Friday. So far we've done 7 in 2014 (Berkeley, Red Rock, Estero Americano, Out-the-Gate, Whiskeytown Lake, Lewiston Lake, Sea Glass Beach). We have some upcoming paddles but we'll definitely be cutting it close!

2. Paddle 100 miles before leaving on my roadtrip (described below). This will be easy since I'm already at 85...

3. Paddle in 10 new places in 2014, including at least once in the Netherlands.

4. Get involved in sea kayaking in the Netherlands.

Starting July 19th, I'm embarking on a 23-day road trip up the west coast to the San Juan Islands and then east through the Great Lakes to Boston. I won't put too many details here, but stay tuned for much more blogging later this summer! Here's a list of the places I'm hoping to paddle:

Mendocino Coast: sea caves, waves, and crystal clear water
Humboldt lagoons
Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area
Whitewater somewhere near Portland
Somewhere in Seattle
San Juan Islands - San Juan Island and Orcas Island
Fish Trap Lake near Spokane, WA
Apostle Islands, Lake Superior, WI
Pictured Rocks, Lake Superior, MI
Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan, MI
Irondequoit Bay in Rochester, of course :)
Cayuga Lake in Ithaca, of course

Lewiston Lake: The Annual Freshwater Paddle

6/1/2014

These grassy tufts reminded me of the Lorax and Nena of Wilson, the volleyball.

Let me introduce you to Alice, my wonderful Bay Area kayaking buddy. She wrote this guest post about our quick trip up to Lewiston Lake over Memorial Day weekend. We also paddled on Whiskeytown Lake, which you can read about here. The last time we paddled on freshwater was at Clear Lake in June 2013, so this was quite refreshing!

After dilly dallying waterside at the Berkeley Marina (Nena had just completed a heroic game of kayak water polo and we were watching the more advanced paddlers warm up), Nena and I left the Bay’s sparkling waters for the heat of mid CA. At first it didn't feel like it made sense to leave such pleasant weather behind because the Bay was so glorious, but it was cool to travel through so many climate zones- arid, agricultural, mountains and valleys. My camping book guided us just north of Whiskeytown Lake to Lewiston Lake, where we nabbed the final walk-in site at the end of the loop, hugging the southwestern side of the lake...