Day 13 – 
Saturday today, I left Evie in dreamland at 6am to go and watch the mighty Spurs play against West Brom! They drew 1-1, I should’ve stayed in bed! 

 
Evie and Sue went off to their fitness class at 9 so Tom and I decided to run the 3 miles into town to meet them as they finished. We hopped a couple of fences and hit the railway line, this would take us into town, don’t worry its hardly used and has no electricity running through it so was completely safe… or so we thought. Around halfway, as seems to be the norm now, we heard a dog barking, followed by a less than friendly German Shepherd chasing us down the track. Now in my minimal experience of running in this area, I have established that dogs are extremely territorial and protective of their home. With this fast learned knowledge, I have subconsciously (promise) been making sure I run ahead of Tom so that he is the bait. All for good reason though, as he seems to know how to deal with these rabid dogs. Anyway, after showing his teeth and scaring us off, he was called back by his owner, he turned out to be called ‘Diesel’, probably what he should have been doused in so he wouldn’t attack passers by again but who am I judge!?

  
The rest of the day consisted of preparation for our trip tomorrow, kayaking and camping on San Francisco bay. Toms friend Mike came up at midday and we went out to Safeway to purchase enough food and beer for a months trip. 
That night Tom smoked 2 racks of ribs and BBQ’d a whole chicken, delicious!! Toms other friend Al joined us for the evening and we were ready for our epic adventure.

  

Day 14 – 
The four of us men headed down to San Fran this morning, stopping for an all american breakfast of eggs, bacon, waffel and syrup. We drove through the city and across the golden gate bridge before we made the shores of Sausalito where we would head into the bay and out to Angel island.

 
It was as great crossing, very calm with plenty of wildlife. There were some seals that popped up for a quick look at what we were doing, a sea lion and lots of pelicans. 
Tom, being my kayak instructor, informed me before we landed on our island, to follow his lead and he would be on the beach to right me in the surf if i were to come in at a bad angle. There didn’t seem to be much surf but as it turned out, it was pretty choppy, which became apparent when Tom went into land. He was looking very professional until he disappeared and all we could see was the bottom of his boat on shore. 

  

A big wave had turned him sideways which flipped him over and into the water, scooping up half the beach as he went. Al and Mike had a less eventful landing but now it was my turn. I waited for the perfect moment between the waves and was confident that I would land well, but at the last moment I was also flipped over and into the water, following Tom’s lead as instructed. This unfortunately resulted in my iPhone becoming an ex-iPhone. Salt water is not its friend. 

After our professional landing, we lugged all of our gear up the hills from the beach to our campsite pitch. It was a tough slog, but it was more than worth it. The view was incredible, overlooking the San Francisco skyline, with Alcatraz in the foreground and the Golden Gate Bridge to our right.

  

Soon after we had pitched our tents and started some dinner, the fog had rolled in and swallowed the city and bridge in minutes. We had a few beers and were in bed by 8, crazy kids that we are.

  

After a peaceful nights sleep, only broken by the constant fog horns going off, we arose to a very heavy mist. Tom made a delicious breakfast of wild hog sausage with eggs, blooming delish. 

We decided to walk the perimeter of the island which was 5 miles. The fog hung around nearly the whole way. We broke off the track to investigate the old military bases and immigration stations. Loads of eerie, empty buildings, plenty of opportunity for Blair Witch Project style horror.

  

The sun broke through toward the end of our walk and with it came the views of the city and the bridge. A few beers were had, some homemade pizzas and then what seemed to be hours of staring at the ever-changing San Francisco skyline. We were, however, still in bed by 8:30, but tonight, there was no fog horn, so a peaceful nights sleep and no qualms over getting up in the night for a wee. A toilet with that view is worth getting out of a warm sleeping bag for. 

  
Day 15 – 
We were all up early to see the sunrise over the city. It was a little overcast but still worth getting up early for.
We were back out in the water for high tide at 9 and had a lovely trip back to Sausalito, this time we saw a dolphin passing next to us, a few more seals and a pelican who seemed to want to take Toms head off. 
We all had a 100% dry landing and were soon in Fred’s coffee shop having a well earned slap up breakfast. Anyone would think that we were deprived of food on the island, when in reality, we were far from on rations and probably ate more than normal.

  

 
When we got home, it was a brief hello and goodbye to Evie and Sue who were heading back to Sacramento for a girls trip whilst Tom, Granny and I stayed home and had swordfish steak with grilled asparagus and a few more California IPA’s whilst I try to work out how to edit 2 hours worth of kayak footage. Probably going to be Oscar winning though, so it’ll be worth it.