Rendezvous on the Mendocino Coast

I spent the Labor Day weekend with some friends in Mendocino Coast. I've never been north of Point Reyes on Highway 1, so it was nice to finally explore Mendocino's coastline.

On Saturday (09/04) we left the Bay Area early to beat the Labor Day traffic. We arrived in Gualala around 1PM, checked in, and took-off right away to catch our 2:30PM train ride in Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is about 45 miles north of Gualala.

The Skunk Train ride took us through a Redwood forest where we passed by several camps, several bridges, a dark tunnel, and a 1,000 year old Redwood. The afternoon train was diesel-powered, while the morning train was steam powered. It would have been nice to ride a steam train, but the diesel train was fun as well. The trip was kinda long, as it took 3.5 hours to get back to Fort Bragg. My friend described the ride as "hiking without walking", which is an accurate description, as we passed scenic route. The train was originally used to tranport logs from the forest to a saw mill in Mendocino County.

On Sunday we went to Little River for a guided ocean kayak. The tour was a lot of fun. We explored several caves along the coast and navigated our way around rocks. A couple of seals even joined us! I've gone kayaking before, but I think this was better because the scenery was nice, and exploring dark caves on a kayak is more fun than just trying to flip-over your friend's kayak. It was also more exciting as the waves were unpredictable, and a couple of times a waved carried me and I rammed on huge rocks head-on. At one point, I didn't know I was right on top of a rock when the water receded, and I ended up waiting for a wave to carry me away from the rock. I thought my kayak was going to flip over, but gladly it didn't, so I didn't have to test the stinky helmet they had us wear. One of my friend also saw a news about shark attack along the Mendocino coast a couple of weeks ago. So we were looking out for sharks while kayaking.

The cabin we stayed at was also nice. It had a great view of the ocean and the island just off the coast. We spent Sunday afternoon relaxing on the deck of the cabin and watched the beautiful sunset. That nite, we put on face masks and peeled it off, and I even let a couple of friends paint my nails after I had some wine.

On Monday we went to a beach nearby, and just relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather before driving back to the Bay Area. The weekend was fun, the cabin was nice, and the food my friends cooked were yummy.


Beautiful sunset from our cabin in Gualala.


View of Mendocino coastline.


View of Mendocino coastline.