Boatpost_004 - Tomales Bay is Still Beautiful and Seals Are Hilarious Little Creeps

I've been wanting to go back to Tomales Bay ever since my boatpacking trip last August, so last month I decided to head that way, with a casual goal of seeing how many miles I could do in a day.

I woke up on a cold as fuck morning to start ye olde 3.5 hour transit odyssey to Inverness. There was frost on the ground in the valley, and it was still in the 40s. By the time we made it to town, the ice was starting to evaporate in the sunlight.

I paddled up the west side of the bay to Heart's Desire Beach, and had lunch at Tomales Bay State Park. After eating and warming up a little, I kept paddling up the bay. My goal was to make it to Hog Island (yes, the place from the oysters). Hog Island doesn't seem all that exciting but reaching it would be like a 15-mile round trip. I knew I could not make it that far yet but I wanted to see how close I got.

The following situation happened repeatedly for like my entire trip

Tomales Bay is full of harbor seals, who are basically dogs. They hang out upright in the water with their heads sticking out during the day and they're very curious.

Below is a scientific diagram of an encounter I had over and over from the moment I was in water deep enough for seals.

It starts when you make eye contact with a seal. The seal will then disappear...

...and then: you have an entourage. You are now being followed by 3-5 harbor seals. They are watching you.

They always seem FASCINATED by whatever my whole deal is (am I just like a big weird-looking seal to them? do they understand that my boat and my body are separate things or do they perceive us as an Entity?)

They move surprisingly quietly for being a large fat tube with flippers. I'd be completely unaware of any seal presence and then suddenly, a huge splash, or the loud snort of a seal clearing water from its nose. Sometimes very close to my boat!

I tried so many times to photograph the little creeps but the little creeps are very photo-shy. I feel like someone who totally saw a their local water cryptid (trust me bro!) and has a handful of the most vague and blurry photos humanly possible to prove it.

The Moon Jelly Vortex

While I'd hoped to see another otter this trip, I was excited to get to see my other favorite animal from my last trip: the moon jellies. I'm not sure what combination of geography or hydrodynamics is at play here but there seems to consistently be a massive gyre of moon jellies in the middle of the bay right around Heart's Desire Beach.

They float just below the water's surface, and there were so many that I kind of stopped paddling and let the tide pull me through, because I didn't want to slice anyone in half!

There were so many, and I saw some the size of a large dinner plate. Like the seals, they are also hard to photograph. I have no control over my movement when I'm holding my phone to take a picture and they have no control over their movement because they are jellyfish. One day I will figure out some kind of GoPro on a stick type situation and try to get some decent video.

I ended up making it as far as Laird's Landing. I could've kept going, but I decided to head back in time to catch the bus before its infamous 3 hour gap from 4pm - 7pm. Too chilly of a day to want to be on the water after dark.

Laird's Landing has a long strip of land that appears at low tide, and is a massive gathering spot for waterbirds. The land was mostly underwater when I was there but there were tons of birds feeding in groups out in the open water.

There was also the largest group I'd ever seen of what I thought were harbor seals, but realized might have been sea lions. They all kind of lined up in a row on a little strip of exposed land. One of them made... this sound, and they all dove in the water in unison. I have no idea what this was! Were they heading out to the ocean in a big group; safety in numbers? The mouth of Tomales Bay and the surrounding coast are a known great white shark hotspot.

Or maybe they were having a swim meet! I cannot pretend to understand pinniped society.