Kayaking on the Monterey Bay

I’m taking a friend kayaking on the Monterey Bay this weekend, and I’m being asked what to expect.

The day starts relatively early. I’m about 90 minutes from Monterey Bay, and the calmer water is in the morning, so I try not to arrive later than 9:00. After getting about ten minutes outside of Cupertino, the scenery is all agricultural.

The intervening communities are known for garlic, artichoke, pumpkins, strawberries, so the landscape is plowed fields, low-lying fog, early morning dew. Traffic is quiet and you can watch rainbows in the spray of water from the irrigation towers. As I approach the coastline, sand dunes start dominating the view. You might see early kite flyers, or people flying hang-gliders off the top of dunes over the morning ocean breakers. The water looks cold and gray this early, reflecting the morning clouds and fog above.

I pull into the northern end of Monterey, past the big public park with pedal boats, past the touristy Fishermans’ Wharf, past the real working wharf. There’s a big public parking lot to search for a space. Even this early, it’s quite full with people there for scuba diving in the bay. Aside from the cars, there are clusters of people struggling into or out of neoprene, hefting gear onto their shoulders, making their way to the beach at the foot of the parking lot.

I pull my bag from the car and walk a block to the kayaking outfitter I use. I found this company the first time I went kayaking about ten years ago. They’re a shop that rents kayaks to the public, provides about ten minutes of instruction and then launches you out to sea. To be precise, the boats they rent aren’t traditional kayaks, but a vehicle known as a “scupper”. A kayak is a hard shell with a hole in the center. You slide your legs into the hole, and seal a water-tight gasket around your waist. Flotation is provided by low-density foam in the stern and bow of the kayak. In contrast, a scupper is a sealed plastic cigar-shaped boat with the appropriate indentions on the top for your rear-end and feet.

You actually sit “on” it much more than in it. Kayaks require challenging skills like being able to roll the kayak all the way over without pulling yourself out of the boat (an Eskimo Roll). Scuppers are easy enough to shimmy back onto if you fall off, without classroom training, and without having to drain water from inside it first.

At the outfitter I strip down to shorts. If it’s cold enough, I’ll slide into a “dry suit”, a rubberized nylon suit with velcro at the wrists and ankles to help keep you dry. More often, I’m counting on the clouds burning off soon and paddling enough to keep warm, so I just stick with shorts. I slide on a life jacket, grab a paddle, and walk across the street to the small beach they use for launching the kayaks. I’m a frequent enough customer that the guide generally recognizes me. I’ll hang around for five or ten minutes, chatting, or helping him launch a large group. When I’m ready, I’ll drag a scupper from under the pier to the water’s edge, pointing out to sea. I’ll slide into the depressions on top of the scupper and wiggle and push against the sand with my paddle, until the boat slides from sand to water.

Scuppers are safe, forgiving boats, wonderful for newcomers. However, there are things to be aware of, especially during the launch. A scupper’s stability is stern to bow. If you’re going to run into a wave, a boat, whatever, you want to hit it dead-on. Where scuppers tend to lack stability is side-to-side. If you’ve never done this before, or even if it’s been a while, there’s a tendency for your hips to start to shake while your body tries to find the side-to-side rolling stability it expects. It’s not there. It’s not uncommon to see a new paddler launched into the bay, start to do a fast hula with their hips, and roll the boat right over, ten feet from the shore. Usually all it takes to prevent that is a knowledge that it’s going to happen. Wait for your hips to start shaking, and then force yourself to sit still. The boat steadies and you’re ready to try paddling again. Take it slow and get used to the rolling under you again.

Paddle some fifty feet off shore and you’re in a bed of kelp. Kelp is a plant that grows from the ocean floor. Long vines stretch upwards, held erect by pockets of gas trapped in round, rubbery pods along the length of the plant. Generally speaking, paddling in the kelp or just inland from it is a good thing. The mass of vegetation smooths out some of the rougher waves, and you can always stop paddling, reach down for a handful of kelp to anchor you, and just float in peace for a while.

Once in the kelp, I turn the boat south and start paddling parallel to the coastline. Restaurants and piers are on my left, open ocean to the right. The wind is in my face, so I have to keep a slow paddle to keep from being blown backwards, or else grab the kelp to anchor myself for a while. The bay is full of marine mammals, from harbor seals, to otters, to scuba divers. You get used to looking for the stream of bubbles that means a diver is under you, or the glossy brown coat of an otter laying on zir back, sunning zirself. The Marine Mammal Protection Act has massive fines for harassing the otters and harbor seals. You only get so close, and then you have to slowly back away. If one pops out of the water right next to you, you have to pull your paddle from the water and wait for them to leave of their own accord.

The route south leads past the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a wonderful place to visit. There are crowds on the pier outside the aquarium, waving and pointing at you, and you can hear seals from the open-air pool off their pier. Further south, the land pushes further into the sea at Hopkins’ Point, and waves crash into large white boulders. It’s a balancing act to stay far enough to sea that you’re not in danger of being pushed into the boulders, and close enough to land that you’re not being buffeted by the larger waves. Once past this brief risk, the water becomes calm. The land to your right is marked with tide pools and shallows. Waves come sliding in, slow and calm, only causing a stir at the last moment when they hit a rock or shore. You can float there, holding the kelp, and not even notice the waves at first. Without something to break against, it’s just a slow steady rising and falling as a wave passes under you. You can close your eyes, lean back, and let yourself be cradled, rocked by the cycle of waves.

Just further south is Lovers’ Point, the turn around spot. There’s a beach to stop at, where you can rest for a while. It’s part of a local tourist beach, so you can listen to kids splashing, playing in the water, jumping off the pier. Before long you crave the peace of the water again, and you launch into the bay again, pointing back north.

Going north, the wind is at your back, so there’s less work to be done. I’ll often paddle much closer to the shore on the way back, riding high wave surges through the really shallow spots, or letting a wave push me along towards shore like a surfer, turning out of the wave before running into anything harder than water. There are large outcroppings to paddle behind, watching the harbor seals sun themselves. As they dry, their fur goes from a slick wet black to a tawny golden brown. You can watch the large puppy pile of them, as they toss for better exposure to the sun, slide out of the pile back into the water, or hurl themselves from the water into the middle of the mass. Their barking and smell can be a trifle… overpowering, but that doesn’t seem to deter people from watching as close as they can.

Eventually I’ll nose the scupper back into the beach where I launched. Standing on sand feels strange after a few hours on the water. The ground is suddenly notable for its lack of motion. You realize how much you took for granted the steady lifting and falling of the water once it’s not under you any more. The boat gets dragged back under the pier and the gear is carried up the stairs and across the street to the shop, for rinsing and drying. Mmm, warm, soft clothes and a cup of coffee. And, if you’re hungry, I know the best Mexican restaurant, about fifteen miles south.