Navigating Around the Monterey Peninsula

For me, San Carlos Beach is the best attraction on Monterey’s Cannery Row.  It’s an easy place to launch a paddle, no matter the swell. There could be a pounding shorebreak in Carmel, but San Carlos Beach will nevertheless deliver. The diving community knows this: it’s a popular weekend splash, year round. 

Smile, and pretend to not be nervous.

Speaking of diving, Mike McDaniel made the comparison depicted with captions below:

Paddling: minimal equipment

 Diving: WAAAAY too much equipment!

I have paddled with friends from this beach up to Lover’s Point and surfed the bumps all the way back. And several years ago, I paddled with Paul Wetterau from Carmel Beach to Spanish Bay – a paddle we both enjoyed immensely but have not actively sought to repeat. Today, we were going to go the whole distance around the Monterey Peninsula and into Carmel Beach, about 14 miles.
Predictions for conditions were promising: light northwest winds, modest 2-4 foot northwest swell, incoming tide.  In the small park overlooking the beach, Mike McDaniel, Nick Bryson and I readied our paddleboards amid the divers and their carefully laid-out equipment. We took a few extra precautions, including cellphones packed in drybags. Our launch occurred around 7:15 a.m. in glassy waters under gray skies.

"Let's do this!"

And they're off ...

Hey, what are those dorks doing?

And that was the last we saw of them, officer....

Well, that's the end of the photos. Mike didn't take the camera on board, and DeeAnn understandably left the scene.

It turned into a rough water paddle, and it got more challenging as we pressed on.  I had been hopeful that we would be catching swell after rounding Point Piños (Monterey Bay’s southernmost tip), but instead we were going cross-swell rather than downswell much of the way.

No matter. I’d do it again tomorrow in the right conditions and with the right paddlers. It was magnificent.  I have often run this entire route on land, through Pebble Beach, Asilomar, Pacific Grove, all the way into Cannery Row. I have run the Big Sur Half Marathon (Monterey through Pacific Grove and Asilomar) six years in a row. I have surfed out there, too. It’s one thing to see this spectacular coastline from roads and trails, but quite another from sea. It was very interesting to sort out familiar landmarks from the perspective of being in the water. And all of the sea creatures were benign, at least the ones we could see.

That modest northwest swell interacted with the bays and points in ways that caused cross-chop and currents. We got our first real taste as we approached Point Piños. There’s a buoy out in front of the point, and it’s a good idea to stay outside of that – inside, there’s no telling where a rock will jump up out of the water. I found myself imagining that, with very little research effort, any number of documented shipwrecks through the remainder of our route could be found. (check http://shipwrecks.slc.ca.gov/ShipwrecksDatabase/Shipwrecks_Database.asp) Whatever is down there was interacting with waves and currents in ways that slowed forward progress.

I was expecting Point Joe to be the worst. Pebble Beach Company has thoughtfully constructed and maintained a lookout there. A sign describes: “the restless sea.” That’s poetic, but, on most days, a brief glance in the direction of the actual ocean at Point Joe will reveal its very dark mood. The reef is shallow, it extends very far out, and it magnifies swell and backwash from what must be something very close to 300° on the compass. In other words, it’s a mess. But today, its mood was more favorable than usual.

It was Cypress Point that dished up the worst. Nick noticed a large circular current. I noticed that I needed to sit up for a moment to ward off seasickness. I also got bucked off my board, but was able to maintain hand contact until I could climb back on.

Once beyond Cypress Point, the swell began to line up for us. But by then, I wasn’t quite up to surfing it. As we progressed, the surface improved. Pescadero Point came into sight, and as we rounded it, things really smoothed out. Our last two miles turned into an easy and fun ending, and the sun even broke through.  Finally, we could knee-paddle again.

In the end, we didn't go fast, but I felt this one for days afterward. I have a whole new appreciation for my home waters, Carmel Bay.

Thanks to DeeAnn for the pictures and to Mike McDaniel for those great captions!