Gaviota Kayak Trip Takes Unexpected Turn

September 30, 2025

By Tracey Calhoun, Outdoors Program

Last weekend, the Fall Outdoors program hosted the annual Gaviota Coast kayaking trip. Usually this trip is an overnight expedition in which we put in at Refugio State Beach, paddle along the coast to the mouth of Las Varas Canyon, where we come ashore and camp on the sand, and then wake up and paddle again the next day through the Naples Marine Conservation Area, taking out at Haskell’s Beach.

But that’s not what happened.

This year, we started receiving reports of a potentially sizable swell from a late-season hurricane off the coast of Baja California. The swell was projected to arrive Sunday afternoon, right when we were planning to land our boats, so after much consternation and double- and triple-checking of forecast models, we decided to book a backup campsite at Gaviota State Park and modify the trip from an overnight on the sand to two day paddle options.

On the morning of Saturday, September 27, a group of 13 students (Flora Adair, Rosita Power, Evangeline Little, Chloe Chen, Samuel Young, Caroline Held, Lixin Peng, Kimy Zhang, Kirra Tanaka, Alice Zhang, Jenny Feng, Piper Hartigan, and Lily Kadonoff) and 2 adult chaperones (Tracey Calhoun and Lisa Rockel) departed Cate with hopes of bringing a Plan B trip to light. We drove north to Haskell’s Beach with an aim to paddle up the coast to Las Varas Canyon, where we would eat lunch and then return to our starting point. However, on launching, one student rolled their kayak and snapped a paddle; since we hadn’t packed any extras, we decided in the moment to leave a small group at the beach while others paddled out to the preserve at Naples.

Conditions were pretty grey from the lingering marine layer, but the water was glassy, providing an excellent opportunity for wildlife viewing as we paddled through the kelp forest in the protected cove. We encountered seals, schools of sardines, so many sea birds, and even got a visit from a pod of dolphins before it was time to head back to join the others for lunch. However, just as we decided to turn around, the wind picked up and offered us an incredible workout.

It took us about twice as long to paddle back as it did to paddle out, and by the time we returned to the beach, Hurricane Narda’s arrival seemed imminent. With storm clouds creeping in over the coastal range and thunder rolling in the distance, we scrapped the plan to camp at Gaviota and instead decided it was time to head to In-N-Out for lunch before returning to Cate.

It was far from the Gaviota trip of our Outdoors Program dreams, but spirits were high, and everyone felt that they had earned their milkshake order.