Three days, three paddles

SA Guides: Woodley Island, Stone Lagoon, Trinidad Bay

If your best laid plans go awry, chances are they really weren't very well laid in the first place.

I've been kayaking in California for several years and virtually everywhere I've gone the rule of thumb has pretty much been to get your day started early because the breeze almost always comes up some time after noon. Sometimes it's an opportunity for a bit of a workout, sometimes it's a minor nuisance. But it's not at all unusual, especially in central and northern California, for the wind to really crank and make things quite difficult for paddlers.

So it was that as Laura and I got a late start for a paddle around Woodley Island in Humboldt Bay, with the wind already freshening, that thing in my head that goes, "Eh, it'll be okay," caused me to ignore my better instincts once again.

Laura took off first as I finished gearing up my boat and parked the car. When I caught up with her and we headed north, out from behind the wind shadow of the island, she was already feeling the power of the breeze (at least we had the good sense to begin our paddle into the wind and current). It took little time before we found ourselves well into the broad northern portion of Humboldt Bay (Arcata Bay) feeling the full force of the wind and catching the frequent, capping chop built up over a three-plus mile fetch.

Our sixteen-foot Tarpon 160s paddle fast and easily. They don't have rudders, and we've never really needed them, but I have to admit that these conditions challenged that confidence. In order to round the northern end of the island and get ourselves into the lee of Woodley Island's neighbor, Indian Island, we would have to power through this spraying chop and stinging wind. I was having to expend a lot of energy to make way in these conditions, so I knew Laura might be pushing her limits. As we both struggled to maintain forward progress I decided we should opt for the better part of valor and we ended the day's battle. We headed back to the put-in, relieved to finally be back in Woodley Island's lee where Laura pulled her boat out and hit the snacks while I headed south to the marina area - out of the wind - to check out a couple of trimarans I'd seen.

I'd sum the day up by saying lesson learned if it wasn't already painfully apparent that certain lessons don't seem to penetrate my skull.

Fortunately not all of my excursions suffer such ignominy.

We were here in this part of northern California for a conference in Trinidad, a lovely and quaint little town on the redwood coast. Laura's first meetings were in Arcata, just north of Eureka, hence our attempt to paddle Humboldt Bay. We'd been this way before and in the process paddled Big Lagoon, one of a chain of lagoons that are part of Humboldt Lagoons State Park. That experience left me wanting to visit Stone Lagoon, just north of Big Lagoon, and so while Laura hit the next day's meetings I headed the fifteen or so miles north on 101.

Stone Lagoon is comparatively isolated, quiet and picturesque. It's an easy launch from the visitor center lot right off the road, and the paddling is scenic and serene (yes, I got a much earlier start this time).

I headed south along the shore on a circumnavigation of the hill-rimmed lagoon (a little over 5 miles). For a little over a half-hour I paddled past cattails and marsh grass, watched the fog slip in over the western strand, and listened to the chattering of kingfishers in the hillside trees scolding me as I passed. At the north end of the lagoon I landed on the spit and hiked up the beach for a half-mile or so appreciating the isolation.

After a quick lunch if finished following the northern, then eastern shore and eventually returned to the launch next to the park's small visitor center and parking lot. As I loaded up my gear I noticed that people were gathering near the center and just down the road to the south. Wondering what would cause such a disturbance in the area's quiet solitude I drove down to see camera-laden onlookers lining the road looking off to the lagoon. I grabbed my camera and joined them in snapping pics of a herd of Roosevelt Elk which had wandered out into the lagoon.

Eager to get in a last paddle in before we had to leave the Trinidad area, I dropped Laura off for her Sunday morning meetings and headed down to the picturesque harbor just below the little town's cliffs. I parked the car on the beach and paddled out past the pier on the eastern side of protuberant Trinidad Head, intending to follow the bulging point around to the north to investigate some rock gardens. But the foghorn began sounding and a quick look to the west confirmed that there was substantial low fog rolling in toward the coast.

So I paddled the boat east toward the shore and worked my way through some interesting reefs and past napping, but still wary, harbor seals drying out on the rocks. All in all it was a fun, if short, ninety minutes of interesting paddling in a pretty little bay.

After such a nice time, any complaints about missing out on those rock gardens would have been churlish. But I couldn't help notice that the foghorn had ceased its moaning, and the fog never came ashore.

Sometimes that's the way it goes.

Info:

Woodley Island: Distance - 3.1 miles, Portage - none, Rating - Moderate/Difficult
Stone Lagoon: Distance - 6.3 miles, Portage - none, Rating - Easy/Moderate
Trinidad Bay: Distance - 3.7 miles, Portage - none, Rating - Easy

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