The President’s Day weekend is traditionally a Wavechaser double header,  http://wavechaser.com/ with a more protected course inside SF bay on Saturday and a more exposed course (especially the long course) on Sunday. The weather forecast for Saturday was terrible by West Coast standards: rainy and highs in the 40s. I had a cold the week before and decided to whimp out and only race Sunday. My hat is off to those that did both days (some of whom did multiple races and or paddling craft on both days)!    http://www.paddlerpix.com  

 Go to the above site for all the pics and results!

The weather on Sunday was mostly sunny, light wind, temps in the mid 50s, with a strong (3.5 knots or so) current flooding under the Golden Gate. The start was fast as usual and Carter Johnson took the lead (also as usual) and an inside line as we headed from Crissy Field to the GG bridge. Things got more interesting as we went under the bridge and hit the main current and some 2-3 foot chop. Interestingly there were also waves to ride up current and upwind- I don’t know why or how that’s just part of the mystery of paddling in San Francisco bay. Several of us were trying to draft off a 3 man closed deck kayak, like a shark with remoras clinging everywhere. They had steering trouble once the waves started hitting at an acute angle and that scattered the pack. I wanted to be on my training partner Brent Reitz’s wake ( I suspected he was going to race well based on a recent time trial ) and jockeyed back and forth with Chris Starbird. It was challenging to stay on his stem with waves knocking us around. I finally settled onto Chris’s wake while he rode Brent’s. Then Brent picked up the pace and got away from us. I could see some paddlers off closer to shore looking for an eddy but it looked like the few paddlers taking a beeline to mile rock (the turn around point) were still making good progress so I headed straight for the rock too. I had thought that all the rain runoff flowing into the bay would slow the flood a bit. Looking at the results I now think I was wrong.

As we got within a half mile of mile rock the water became more unpredictable and currents and waves pushed and pulled my boat around. I could see Kenny Howell up ahead and he went between the smaller rock and mile rock. We had been warned that it could be dangerous but it was a shorter line so I took it too and was lucky to ride a wave bouncing off and going the right way. As I passed close to the much larger rock with it’s cement cylinder/channel marker looming over me I remembered Dave Jensen’s pre race warning about the current and wind pushing towards the rock. Then I heard a huge sucking sound and the water between my carbon/ Kevlar shell and the rock started to disappear. This was not followed by a boat eating swell so I was able to sprint away unscathed. The next 3 minutes were frustrating as I tried to make headway through a lot of turbulence to catch Kenny and hopefully Steve Kaspar.( Steve is having an excellent season having suddenly jumped up from the back of the pack despite being one of our few Grand Masters).

I caught Kenny as we headed back under the Bridge and then fought to stay ahead of Steve and get ahead of Chris Starbird. The surfing was good all the way back but we had to pass the finish line and turn around a small buoy off the St Francis Yacht Club and then go back along the beach a half mile to finish. Chris whipped around the buoy like an Olympic slalom kayak. I caught a wave to the buoy but then floundered in the following trough and took forever to turn. I watched as Chris got farther away and could imagine Steve and Kenny passing me as I continued to fight around the turn. Actually Kenny yelled something encouraging (was it ” move your ass McNulty “?) and while he spoke from very close by, I did manage to stay ahead of him and Steve.  Carter Johnson won overall (again), Dave Jensen got past Don Keisling who was visiting from Seattle, and Brent Reitz finished just behind him as 2nd Master’s. Chris beat me to place 3rd Master’s but I got lucky and won the raffle for a Fenn wing paddle from Patrick and Deanne Hemmens at Ocean Paddlesports.

As usual the after race food and comraderie was great. Lets do it again next month!