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Sea Kayak Trips Bulletin Board
Trip Report - Santa Cruz, CA Coastal Run
Posted By: Mark Woodhead
Date: Monday, 9 June 2003, at 3:15 a.m.
I had invited some regular paddle buddies, and everyone else I knew around Santa Cruz, but to no avail. Well, sorry everyone else missed it. The weather wasn't ideal. The original plan called for a one-way trip south from Davenport Landing to the SC Harbor, about 14 miles. But there were pretty big beach breakers near the harbor and around the lighthouse. I decided to bag the beach launch and launched instead from the harbor in Santa Cruz. I was in the water by 10am, and I paddled out and headed straight for Seal Rock, figuring I'd just keep going for about two hours and see how far up the coast I could go.
The fog already had a break out to sea, and another above Wilder Ranch. The wind was blowing pretty steady at 10 to 15 knots or so (just guessing), but the wind waves were pretty small, only about a foot. There were some big swells coming in though, and some were breaking over a 150' from shore. I took the outside line along the edge of the kelp bed, and stayed just outside the swell surge area. I saw at least 25 otters on my way, and I got to the sea stack at Four-Mile Beach at 12:10 pm. I took some photos just to show the big breakers. No beach landing here!
Here's the pic:
http://home.pacbell.net/endoboy/kayak/four_mile_beach.jpg
I headed back at 12:15, expecting to ride swells all the way back to the harbor, but it didn't last. About halfway back to Natural Bridges SB, the wind and swells calmed down, and I had to paddle all the way back. They picked up a little near Seal Rock, but I cruised slowly back, feeling tired from over three hours of paddling. Riding swells takes a lot of hard work. I reached the dock again at 1:45pm, 40 minutes faster than the trip out there. I was tired. No close calls, no frantic paddling over swells that seemed about to break, just a long, great paddle. The only casualty is my face, which I forgot to slather in sunscreen. It seemed so cloudy...oh well.
After getting home and plotting the course on Topo!, I found it was 15.6 miles. I averaged 3.6 mph into the wind and swell, and 5.2 mph on the return. I think it's time to get some sleep...
Later,
Mark
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