Back Bay Beauty, Pt. 1
Since my brother and I finished the Huntington Beach Harbor area, although some of the marshland is still left to explore, we thought it was a good time to get onto the Newport Beach Harbor.
Newport Beach Harbor is 13 miles south of Huntington, straight down the famous PCH road, with some neighborhood streets in between. The difference between the two harbors is quite a contrast. The Huntington Beach harbor is quiet and pretty lifeless, aside from the few workers you’ll see cleaning the never-moving yachts or construction workers building a new home alongside ones that for the last few months have been empty. Once in a while, you’ll see an older couple take their little duffy boat out for a ride around the harbor, otherwise nothing.
Newport, however, is a bustling harbor with boats of all sizes darting through the water, heading this way and that. Out to sea, across the channel way to take people and cars on the ferry. Laying on your stomach in this harbor next to these giant vessels is like riding a louge skateboard next to a big rig.
Like Huntington Harbor, Newport has a beautiful back-bay nature preserve. A winding snake-like route leads to it, and it takes you three miles into upper Newport and Irvine.
My brother and I take off from the lower castaway parking lot. The morning has already set on, and a small group of fishermen line the sandy shore under the bridge. We in pack the board and kayak. The sun is bright, and a feel of the wind is ready on; it is barely 8:30 in the morning.
The water has a slight chill to it as I dip my hands into it for the first strokes, but it feels good to take off and glide. The wind speeds me along into the bay. Paddling past a small grass island, we come to the first set of docked boats. a cliff-type mass comes out of the land and catches my eye. I decide to paddle out to check the area out. There is a small lagoon that I’ll have to come back and explore another time. I’ve got a plan to follow, so I want to stick to it.
Paddling over near the docking ramp, I see a large black object floating in the water, caught up on a branch. Part of you always suspects it’s something like a head in a bag, but of course that would be ridiculous cause a head wouldn’t float. It turns out to be a jacket someone lost. I’m able to pull it out of the water and carry it up the loading ramp.
We’re back in the water, heading back into the bay. We start leaving the more “civilized” part of the bay. Freeways and home and giving way to cliffs and small marsh islands. The last building before entering the “wilderness” is the Newport Aquatic Center. A facility built many decades ago to accommodate the growing sailing and rowing community of Newport Beach, CA.
The journey back into the bay is beautiful and peaceful. It feels like a ride in Frontierland at Disneyland. Brown dirt and tumbleweed-like grass surround the waters. There is more trash in that part of the bay. My brother fills his kayak’s cockpit with little and big pieces alike.
It’s trips like this that make me fall in love with prone paddle boarding every time. The quiet sensation of flying. No noise of motor or paddle. Just above the water’s surface. Nature is as untouched as it can get in this area. This is peaceful perfection.
we make it to a bout. No one beyond this point. A slice of peaceful seclusion surrounded the bustle of Orange County life. It’s funny how, while in nature, the noise is absorbed by the grass and soil. Surfing in the ocean, I find the same thing happens. The sounds of the land is absorbed by the oceans roar and rumble.
We decided to turn back. My brother has a kayak full of trash and didn’t object much to the decision. We now also have the wind to paddle against, and as the morning moves on and the sun rises, it’ll get stronger. The whole way had, to NAC I have to put my head down and paddle paddle paddle. The wind is strong enough that it makes it look and feel like I’m going nowhere. I can’t stop, though, or the wind will shove me backward. If I want to cross the channel, it’ll be much harder than this, so I must continue.
Coming into the last turn, before I can see NAC I hear the pressure release of breath. And for a split second, you get to see a large sea lion swimming through the water. The fact that one could travel so far into the harbor and this part of the bay has me wondering if the creature is lost somehow. I don’t focus on it too long; I’ve got to paddle.
I finally make it back to some land, running up on shore to throw some trash ways. I take the chance to wait for my brother to show up. A kayak is not the most streamlined watercraft, and in a good wind, it’s even worse. A little boy is playing on the shore, he couldn’t be more than 4 or 5. He tells me I’ve got to get out of the water, I tell him I’m waiting for my brother, pointing in to the bay at the orange boat coming my way, then jump on my board and take off.
The rest of the way is nice and peaceful with a more sideways wind. More personal crafts are finally motoring up and heading out for a day on the water. We pack up and head back to our home a little more inland.
