Duxbury Reef - Bolinas, CA and their Crunchy Locals - 02.20.23

More patrols of California before I depart next week…

This is the sleepy and quirky surf town of Bolinas, CA. The locals have torn down all of the signs that lead to thier town because they don’t want to be found. There’s a water meter moratorium that was adopted in 1971 so new homes and structures could not be built. Basically, to keep things as they are. Cool? I suppose… but… I got plenty of side-eye attitude walking and driving through, and scoffs when I said “hello,” to passing humans.

Now… I can respect not wanting the town to be over built… and I was quite happy to see a quaint town that wasn’t a tourist circus sideshow… but the shtty attitude? ummm everyone is white… and there looked like plenty of wealth floating around there… and I’m guessing that the First Nations peoples of Northern California would love for things to return to the way they were, and the entire water meter holding population of Bolinas can kindly go back to where they came from. I vote for that. So…maybe lighten up a touch. My 2 cents.

I’ll be returning in the future with a wetsuit and a surfboard… and a sack lunch i bought two towns over.

Anywho, I walked the cold water reef area to the north. Funky formations and not too many people… rocks were constantly falling from the eroding cliff. I thought for a second that grumpy locals were shoveling over rocks on my head… but i circled around to walk the trails on top of the cliff to find no one. I was standing on the edge… and yup, i could hear and feel it giving way. That thing is crumbling. I didn’t push it and decided to go to beach on the South end. (Check out the pic… you can see a crack in the ground)

Google sent me through a one way maze through town to the beach access with next to no parking. I had to go to the far access just to find parking and there was one left. It looks like a great place to surf but I don’t know… much of the West coast is just awesome and there are thousands of miles of beaches and I’m quite happy in all of the places I’ve kicked up sand.

I did a short hike inland near one of the state parks. There was an accident on the HWY 1 and I rerouted to go over the Panoramic Highway and through Mill Valley to get back to Berkeley. To my surprise… the Highway 101 and 580/80 and Richmond bridge were clear… during rush hour (and it’s always rush hour) and I blasted home in 40 minutes. Wow! That’s a first. I couldn’t believe that traffic was so light. It’s a good day. A good day indeed. I hope things never change… let’s take down ALL of the signs now. boop. 🙃