Angel Island

Saturday, October 6, 2007 - I drove to Tiburon on Friday after work as this was the closest point to Angel Island.. However, I could neither 1) Find any place on that point to park near the water, and 2) I couldn't even find any place to put the kayak into the water. I ended up having to drive about 1 town further back to Belvedere in order to legally park overnight and put into the water. This meant I would 1) Have to kayak about a mile further than initially thought, and 2) I didn't get to leave until a bit later than I would have liked.

I got my tent, sleeping bag, food, water, and other necessities packed onto my kayak and headed out into the water. I had to wade a bit to get to the point where I could sit in my kayak and not get grounded. On the way out I heard something in the water next to me. I looked and saw 2 little black fins sticking out of the water. I stopped walking and it stopped, but still couldn't tell exactly what it was. I moved my foot and it bolted. When it did so, I saw that it was a small shark. That in itself didn't bother me, but what did bother me was that where there's a baby shark, there's a mama shark.

So I kayaked about a mile out from Belvedere and made it into the main channel area of the bay. Here, ferries, large ships, speedboats, sailboats, etc were running every which way which, though I knew would be an existing task, was still something to keep an eye out for. As long as you're paying attention, it really wasn't that big of a deal though.

So after about 1.5 hours of kayaking I made it to Angel Island - a great feeling, as this was definitely the most rigorous kayak outing I've done. I didn't exactly know what to expect on the island, so was a little surprised when I arrived.. Apparently Angel Island was used by the US Army during the Civil War and their main houses, barracks, and such are still standing and in great shape. This, as well as tons of deer, were my first views as I walked onto the island.

I didn't arrive onto the island until about 7:00PM. Technically I was supposed to walk about 2 miles to my campsite, however since I arrived at the "Kayak Camp" portion of the island and nobody was there, I decided to just set up my camp there. On one side of my tent was a view of the Golden Gate bridge lit up, on the other side was a view of the downtown San Fransisco skyline. Not bad.

I woke up with a rude awakening. A, uhh, not very nice (being diplomatic) park ranger came to my tent -

"Sir, can I ask what you're doing here?"
"Is this not the kayak camp?"
"It is."
"Uhh, well, I'm a kayaker...... And I'm camping?"

Long story short he literally told me to get off the island immediately because I wasn't in the right spot. I didn't let that ruin my experience though - it was still very cool. Just make sure if you ever go that you camp in your designated spot so as not to offend Park Ranger McPowertrip.

The biggest problem with this was that I'd be leaving at about 8:30AM and it was still easily in the 50s outside. This would make for a cold ride back since I don't have a wetsuit. But the trip back actually was a bit easier than going out. The waters were a lot smoother, there wasn't much of a wind. And I saw numerous sea lions - each of them was hilarious. They would slowly pop their head out of the water, stare at me for 10 or 15 seconds, then slowly submerge back into the water. At one point as I was kayaking I looked behind me and just several feet back was a sea lion, again, simply staring at me as I kayaked past him. Do they want you to converse with them? I don't know, but I laughed everytime one of them did this.

The Civil War barracks and some deer out on the grass in front of them	Sun setting behind a Civil War warehouse
Sun setting over Sausalito	North side sunset
Dinner in front of the Golden Gate bridge	The Golden Gate lit up at night