We stopped at Mendocino to kayak the Big River esturary there, a possibly long paddle up the Big River which has tidal influences up to about 4.5-5 miles. We pulled up and cooked breakfast in the parking lot while building the boats.
This was
a nice paddle, we had a gentle push from the rising tide going up and saw many
herons, hawks, vultures, an osprey, and a few fish cruising around. We got
past the usual 3.5 mile turn-around and kept going while we had water. At
around 4.5-5 miles we finally ran out of easily passable water and found a nice
beach to lunch on.
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We knew the paddle back was going to be a bit tougher since we still had a rising tide against us and, worse yet, we had a wind picking up off the coast blowing into us. We feathered the paddles and took off going down river but feeling like we were paddling upstream.
Part way down we had a big thrill in the form of a river otter who was just climbing up onto the beach when we spotted him. Luckily he hung out on the beach for a bit, cleaning himself and not seeming to mind us about 10 yards away watching. We were so taken by it that we never even reached for the camera.
We paddled up past the launch to Catch-a-Canoe, the local rental place and got a map of the river from them. I was tempted to go up to the breakers but the wind and current was pretty strong right there just 30 yards or so from the mouth of the river and the start of the bay.
After breaking up the boats we took off in search of a good surfperch beach and found a very private, small beach south of Westport where I fished a bit and we had a great dinner of salad and tuna fish before heading back to our bungalow for the night.
