Man with Too Many Countries, The Sequel

In July 2011 I wrote a blog called Man with Too Many Countries which was inspired by a project I was working on that involved identifying the best online payment methods available for most of the countries in the world.  I find myself in the unlucky position of again having to search for the 2 digit ISO codes of a large number of countries, and I have again learned something new.  That Gabon, for exampe ("GA") is actually a country and not some kind of monkey.  And that the person who assigned the country code to Morocco probably couldn't spell, because Morocco's code is MA, where as Macao's code is MO.  Go figure.

Kayaking on Tomales Bay

Acting upon an inspiration from Dan Berger two years ago, I finally booked a weekend campsite at the boat-in sites on Tomales Bay, in Point Reyes National Seashore. We took the trip with 9 friends and an assortment of sea kayaks, river kayaks, and a raft to carry all our gear.  There were lots of choices of campgrounds, and Dan secured us a nice one with easy access to Hog Island and minimal impact from the wind and tides.

Pulling into camp which was directly across from Miller Point Boat Launch

Bob, Garen, Amber, and Candace relax on the beach

 (too bad no one put on sunscreen - we all paid later)

Our camp is established

Paddling around Hog Island

The seals - best when you stay upwind, they smell horrible!

Despite Amy's threats to beat us with her paddle, Bob and I remain asleep in our kayaks

Nesting Cormorants - they were on the island but made a tremendous amount of noise which sounded like the laugh track of a sitcom.  We could hear them all day at our camp.

Dan on Sunday morning - putting up with the mist.  It drizzled from about 6 PM Saturday until we left at 10:30 AM on Sunday

Garen is cooking cajun spiced salmon for the Eggs Benedict

Amy stirs the Hollandaise sauce

Tyler assembling his Eggs Benedict

Returning what's left of the beer to the people of mystery, who left the beer and all their gear on the shore the day before, then never returned.  Maybe they got lost in the fog. The tide kept rising so we had to move their things uphill three separate times. The whole sand beach behind Garen disappeared at high tide.

Hmmm.  How did that get there?  It should have a life preserver on it, wouldn't want it to fall overboard and float to the south seas...

Tyler and Courtney head home

Taking all the gear back through the fog

End of the journey:  A trip to Hog Island Oyster Cmpany for cold Lagunitas, plates of fresh oysters, and cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery - a perfect ending to the trip!