02/28/2022
Monterey Bay Sea Kayak Paddle
February 26, 2022
Attendees: Carlisle Landel, Maggie Hetherington, Rudy Malanum, Doug Pratt, Michael O'Meara, Sandy Sproch, Michael Malone, David Collins, Sirgeo Mejia, Virgil Reimer, Jeff Sloan, Kristel Sloan, Nick Sloan, Allison Chu, and Bill Shelander
"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."
-John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
Eight vets, three vet family members, three civilian volunteers and a couple of civilian tag-alongs (a blind gentleman and his brother-in-law, invited by blind vet David Collins) gathered for the Palo Alto Chapter’s first sea kayak exploration of the Monterey harbor and waterfront. We met at Monterey Bay Kayaks where we were outfitted with tandem sit-on-top boats and associated gear before heading to the beach for an orientation and safety talk and a quick lesson in beach launches. We then loaded up and headed out, accompanied by our guide Scott.
Monterey Harbor is located in the NOAA's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and shelters marinas full of pleasure craft as well as commercial docks for working boats (primarily fishing, sportfishing and whale watching boats) and the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard Jetty forms the primary breakwater and is the location of US Coast Guard Station Monterey—the seaward face of the breakwater is a popular spot for SCUBA diving classes and training. A commercial wharf inside the harbor hosts numerous restaurants and gift shops and touring outfits while a second commercial wharf is incorporated in the seawall the protects the east side of the harbor.
We launched in on Del Monte Beach, in front of the kayak shop and just to the east of the harbor. After some initial unplanned but highly instructive practice in capsize recovery, we re-distributed paddlers between boats and continued into the harbor, where we checked out the boats in the marina, the Coast Guard’s flotilla, and got some close-up views harbor seals hauled out on the shore. Sea otters and sea lions frolicked in the waters. Scott showed us how a kayaker’s-eye-view of Fisherman’s Wharf allows you to see the evidence of the historical changes to the structure. It being low tide, the sea walls and wharf pilings were festooned with cool invertebrates including sea stars, mussels, snails, anemones, sponges and sea squirts.
At this point, Jeff’s son and his girlfriend had to head back to the beach for some meetings with their professors, so a few of the experienced folks headed back to the beach with them before rejoining the rest of the group, who had proceeded around the end of the jetty with its raucous band of young sea lions and out into the kelp beds just off Cannery Row.
Once upon a time, Monterey was the center of a huge sardine industry. As related in John Steinbeck’s novel, Cannery Row, the heart of the industry were the canneries that lined the waterfront just to the west of the harbor. The canneries are gone, along with the fishery that collapsed catastrophically in 1945, but the area has been revived as thriving tourist attraction anchored by the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium, which was built into one of the derelict canneries.
The Row still has some ruins of old canneries, but it is also home to luxury hotels and restaurants. From our point of view, though, that stuff is just background; the real action was in the waters around us. Fronds of giant kelp lays across the surface, evidence of kelp forest that lies below and that shelters a huge amount of sea life. We shared the waters not only with marine life (sea lions, otters, jellyfish, diving birds) but also scuba divers, people fishing from kayaks and small boats, and tour boats. We paddled to the front of the aquarium (beyond this point it becomes much less sheltered) before heading back to the beach.
At this point, mention must be made about Rudy’s boat. Some time ago, he acquired a Hobie fishing kayak, which can be propelled not only with a paddle but also via either a pedal-powered flapping fin system or a sail. Rudy employed all three on this trip, pedaling around the harbor, paddling out to the aquarium, and then sailing back to the beach while we the rest of us paddled that last mile.
The adventure wasn’t quite over, though. Pedestrians on the commercial wharf alerted us to a seabird, a loon, that was tangled in fishing line. We were able to snag the line it was trailing and reel it in. Scott, our guide, covered its eyes to calm it as we lifted onto his spray deck. It was badly entangled, with the line wrapped multiple times around its neck and the base of both wings. Carlisle was able to cut the bird free with his handy PFD-mounted rescue knife. Upon release it dove and swam away, surfacing some distance from us. The crowd on the wharf cheered our rescue.
After landing and returning our gear, we reconvened at a Mexican restaurant, scoring ocean view seats overlooking our paddle route. There we enjoyed a well-deserved post-trip meal.
Special kudos to TRR Palo Alto member Jeffrey Sloan, who organized the trip, Sandy Sproch for providing a ride to Michael Malone, David Collins for offering the trip to Serjio, Scott and Adam and the staff of Monterey Bay Kayaks for all their assistance, and to the unknown bystanders on the wharf who organized our bird rescue.
Team River Runner USA
