Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Santa Ana day in Morro Bay

Saturday, October 5 was an unusually warm day at the central coast. When the thermometer on the shady side of the house read 70 degrees at 8:15 in the morning, I assumed it had broken. I was wrong. The Santa Ana winds came to the central coast and made for a different kind of kayaking. There were two main differences: the winds were from the east, and they were warm. Lorelei, Ron and I paddled from the dock the marina on the embarcadero in Morro Bay, hitting the water at around 9:30 AM. The tide was heading toward a high of 4.6' that peaked at 11:14, so we headed south on the incoming tide. Our plan was to paddle to the back bay and hang out until the tide turned and then paddle back. We paddled slowly along the sand spit and kept our southerly heading where the spit goes SSW. This put us a few hundred yards offshore. The winds really picked up, and we had 1-2' wind waves on our port side, which made for some nice rolling and splashing; also requiring close attention to position. After a bit, we decided to head down-wind (west) and take out on the spit for a short hike to view the ocean side. With the winds from the east, the breakers would spray back up and behind the waves, an interesting look. We took our time and enjoyed Lorelei's home-grown apples. When we returned to our boats, the tide had started going back out, and the wind had died down. We crossed the bay to the eastern side and then continued north past the museum and back to the dock.