This past week I took my blow-up kayak down to Newport Beach and went for a paddle in the Back Bay. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for over 40 years. It’s a large inland bay with a marshy wetlands and little rivulets snaking through it.
The nice thing about this paddle is that right about when your arms have had enough you’ll be at a good spot to take a break and glide, watching shorebirds.
Most of the birds you’re likely to see are coots – chubby duck-like birds that need to get a running start to get airborne. There are also plenty of avocets, least terns, and large birds like herons and egrets. I caught a brief glimpse of a black skimmer.
Where to Put In
If you want to head up to the wetlands, put in at Northstar Beach. There’s free parking in a large sandy lot by the aquatic center. If you’re lucky you can park close enough to the beach that you won’t have to drag your boat too far. Note that some articles say there are public restrooms available, but if there are, they are hidden around back of the Aquatic Center.
If you’d rather paddle in the marina, you can head to Lower Castaways Park. It’s also free to park but no restrooms here. From here you can set out toward Balboa Island.
Where to Go
There were a dozen other paddlers and stand up paddle boarders on the water when I put in. None of them headed up to the back bay. Most likely they were heading for the lower bay and Balboa Island.
But if you head North from the beach you’ll enter the large wetlands area that is dotted with islands and sandbars. If you move out of the center of the channel the water is quite shallow…in places it’s only about eight inches deep when you’re some 30 feet from shore.
Paddling guidelines, which are posted on buoys along the channel, warn you to stay out of the upper part of the bay and to avoid paddling up side channels. Regrettably I didn’t read the guidelines until after I got home, meaning that I did take a side trip up one of the mini-rivers and wound up paddling backwards maybe a quarter mile because the channel was too narrow to come about.
On my return to North Star Beach I was facing a headwind, but I didn’t feel it. With the tide going out there was a nice current that made the paddle home quite enjoyable.
See Also
Other small adventures in Southern California.
