Kayaking Hunters Point

With the nicer weather and a long weekend I tempted by the bay and pulled the kayak out of storage and headed over to Islias channel in SF to take the kayak out for few hours on the water. I circled the small bay getting my bearings and expecting my left foot to fall asleep (it always does). So after about 15 minutes of paddling I had to put in and let the blood get back into my leg again

After I could feel my foot again I headed straight out of Islais channel, past piers 80, 90 and 94, pulling south past pier 96 where the US navy parks SS Petersburg (reserve fleet). I've pasted this ship once before about a ear ago and I've never seen anyone on board. I did keep my minimum distance away as I pasted it. But I did stop to take a few photos from the new to me Nikonos. From what I've read, the SS Petersburg is a refueling ship that the Navy has owned since the mid 60's.

The next leg of the trip took me across Lash Lighter and Indian Basin. I'm not that fond of this part of the paddle generally due to the west to east winds that take toll on my paddling. But I guess I was lucky as the winds were not that strong as a whole and about 20 minutes later I had passed across and rounded into the old SF Bay Navy yards.

At the very norther end of the base is a set of 3 dry docks that used to handle repairs on Destroyer, cruisers and submarines. None of the dry docks are in great shape these days and the long caisson that would normally have been in front of the three docks looks to have sunk with noticeable holes in it. Oh well. After exploring the larger of the three I had a near mile paddle to Point Avisadero to explore another set of dry docks

The Point Avisadero dry docks (a pair of them) are tad bit older and larger then the three I had passed earlier having been build around the time of WWI. The sizes of the two dry docks are noticeably larger as they were built with battle ships and large liners in mind. Architecturally they are also different. They are built almost as reversed pyramids with large steps along each side of the dock. I'd visited these two about a year ago and had planned this time around to try and exit the kayak and do a little bit of exploring. Unfortunately i had timed my visit badly and the tide hadn't rolled in as much as I need it too and I couldn't tie the boat off and exit without swimming. Ugh.

The next leg of the paddle would take me to the last of the Hunter point dry docks and past the large Gantry crane that looms above the base. This wasn't quite another mile of paddling, but did open me up to some of those west to east winds I hate so much when I paddle. I made my way around the large docks that straddle the last of the big dry docks. Back in the day you could park aircraft carriers on these docks and park a Enterprise in the dry dock in question. But today they long abandoned and kind of lonely

The caisson for this lat dry dock was actually located at the rear and it looked like tide was far enough in that I could leave the kayak and start to explore. After finding a spot to tie of and exit the boat I poked my head above edge of the dock I caught what I was afraid to see, about a 100 yards away was a small parking lot filled with cars and trucks. If I had left I would easily have been seen and caught. Ugh. Anyway, dropped back down and used the time to reload the camera. I also used the stop to fill back up on water.

The reverse trip back to Islais channel was rather uneventful, other then reversal in the wind around pier 94 which pushed me back into the SS Petersburg. So by the time I was back at the landing exhaustion was pretty the point of order. It took me another 30 minutes to load up the boat to the Element and I was off to find some food and caffeine. The paddle took me about 3 hours and was just less then 8 miles of paddling.