My wife and I traveled to Cayucos for the weekend to celebrate our 20th anniversary, so I brought my kayak along to do a little Central Coast paddling. This is the first time I have paddled in this area, and the scenery is really spectacular with large numbers of sea critters just about everywhere. Our hotel was across the street from the beach, and very close to the pier in Cayucos, so all I had to do was pull my boat off my vehicle and walk across the beach to launch next to the pier.

After a leisurely breakfast on Saturday, I launched at about 10:00 am from a sparsely populated beach, and had a great time paddling toward Morro Bay first, and then reversing direction and paddling North towards Cambria. After a couple hours of paddling, I headed back toward my launch point next to the pier, but there was now a line of swimmers and boogieboarders spread across the water down the beach for a good distance. The surf next to the pier is fairly calm, with about 2 foot waves forming about 25 feet from the beach.

After all the recent e-mails about problems landing on beaches with swimmers/boogie boarders, I wanted to make sure that I did not have the same problems. The area right next to the pier looked the most promising as there were only two boogieboarders (about 14 yrs old) who were approximately 15 feet apart, and then a group of small kids about 20 feet away from the boarders. I did not want to get near the small kids, so I slowly paddled to within 10 ft of the boogieboarders and called out "hey guys, do you mind if I scoot in between you two and land this boat." Both kids immediately yelled back "sure, no problem, go ahead!" So, I started paddling very fast to shoot between them and get on the beach ASAP. As soon as I was exactly between them, I could feel a wave start to lift the back of my boat, and to my horror, both boys immediately turned toward shore and started paddling furiously to catch the same wave that had already caught me. So...now there were 3 of us all sharing the same wave, with my vessel far larger than theirs. The wave quickly broached my boat, and I was shocked to see the bow of my boat now immediately in front of the kid to the right of me, who was surfing inches from the bow of my boat. I was so dis-com-bob-boo-lated about the whole state of affairs that I forgot to brace into the wave and was quickly capsized and washed out of my boat. I came to the surface expecting to see a couple of mangled boogieboarders, when I heard the kid on the right call out, "hey Mister, are you ok?" I was very relieved the lads had survived, and thankful that I did not break my own neck because I had smacked my head on the bottom fairly hard.

Lessons learned years ago, but obviously forgotten:
I have 3 kids, and I learned long ago that when it comes to matters of safety, you must give children very precise instructions, say exactly what you mean, and be certain they understand what you have just said. When I asked if I could "scoot between them and land my boat", what I meant was "please stay where you are until I get on the beach!" When they said "sure, go ahead", they obviously meant "sure dude, you can surf with us!" Anyway, nobody was hurt and I'll be a lot more careful next time.

A couple side notes:
My wife and I stopped for lunch on the way home at a restaurant called "Olde Port Inn", which is at the end of the pier at Port San Luis in Avila Beach. The seafood was EXCELLENT, and is mostly from the local waters. Some of the tables have glass tops, which are over holes in the pier so you can see the water below the pier. Very cool place.

You may recall earlier this year a woman swimming in the harbor at Avila Beach was attacked and killed by a shark. The story goes that she was swimming with the seals/sea lions, and the sharks probably assumed she was a wounded seal and attacked. I recall a number of comments from kayakers about her lack of good judgment for swimming with seals in the sea, and I felt the same way. We asked the waiter at the Olde Port Inn to point out the area where the attack took place, and I was very surprised to see how BUSY the area is. There are boats moored everywhere, and swimmers on the nearby beach and lots of sit-on-top kayaks paddling all around. The harbor is filled with seals and/or sea lions, and anybody swimming in that area would naturally be swimming with the seals. Anyway, I no longer believe the woman exercised poor judgment because I can't think of many safer looking places in the ocean to take a swim. I believe it was just really bad luck to be in that spot on that day when a hungry shark just happened to be in the same place.

Happy Paddling!
Mike Kory