Very short video showing me and 2 others padding through the wind chop in ~15 knot winds on San Francisco Bay. So short because I had to stop filming and drop camera as a wave started washing across my deck.
We had about an hour of this as we worked our way from Alcatraz (the land on our right) to Point Blunt, the tip of Angel Island. Had a gray whale surface 100-150 feet away as we got close to Angel Island. The couple I was with was from the east coast and had never seen a whale from kayak before.
Whale just came up for one breath and then disappeared (likely feeding underwater, so only would come back up after a couple of minutes for the next breath). Not sure in the conditions I would have been able to get a video anyway.
But if you want whale videos, here are ones I have posted over the years:
The Bay is a great and scenic venue. For the uninitiated, the area around the Gate can be challenging with current and swells (and boat traffIc). Nice to have a guide for those new to the area.
The mouth of the bay is one place I only paddle with locals. I’ve been near the bridge and at Fort Point, and down to Ocean Beach with some very unexpected and unpleasant waves. Probably a bit scary for out of area paddlers.
Never knew there is a serious break at Fort Point until Alexander Stubbs posted a video of himself catching waves among the boardies under the bridge. Alex used to surf with me and the NE Surf kayakers when he was like 14 or 15 years old. His mom would drive him and waited for him on the beach for the 2-4 hour sessions. He competed in Santa Cruz Surf Festival when he was 16-18. He evidently like the Bay Area. He moved out there and went to Stanford. I’ve since lost track of him.
Of course, I enjoyed paddling out there with TsunamiChuck. Would not have gone out the Gate without his guidance.
Alexander is a professor of biology at Berkeley . I’m connected with facebook, he has been involved in several really interesting projects regarding bio diversity. I met him when he was a teen-ager and his father was spending the summer, I think on sabbatical in Lajolla. He paddled up to me and we talked surf kayaking for quite a while, just off the Scipps Pier.
Wow. Talk about a “small” world. LOL! Thanks for that update. Good to know he is “all grown up.”
I can still picture his 2nd or 3rd session with us on a cool/cold November day. He and his mom met us at a wind-swept, sand duned beach which was occupied by our small group of surf kayakers/waveskiers and the few occasional beach walkers. Alex had on an ill fitting 3 mm wetsuit and his mom was bundled up in a coat and had some beach blankets with her to sit on and wrap up with. I was still using a drysuit then and surfing the Venom. I stuck close to and kept an eye on him most of the session because I worried whether his wetsuit was sufficient for the temps. He didn’t have a roll yet but had a fast remount, powered by youthful exuberance and energy. But, every time he remounted, his wetsuit would “ballooned” because of the water that got swept in because of the loose fitting neck collar. Young Alexander did fine and never showed any sign of hypothermia. Of course, he rarely stopped and was constantly sprinting for a wave or paddling quickly out through 4-5’ waves (I had pictures of that day posted on that old defunct pic sharing site that since went kapoot). I remembered feeling chilled myself whenever I just sat on the outside of the break zone. I only had a thin fleece layer underneath the "dry"suit but was soaked in sweat from the sprinting. Whenever I stopped moving, the wind would do a number in chilling me.
Anyway, the session sticks in my mind because it led me to giving up on on drysuits for better fitting wetsuits when it comes to the surf venue.
My wife and I did test rides of Hobie Outback and Hobie Revolution 13 kayaks on such a day and the ride was much smoother with the hull of the Revolution 13 which we bought for ourselves.
Good to know he is “all grown up.”