Boating in a tidal influenced
river offers a different challenge than your lake experience. Knowing
the tides is as important as knowing the water conditions outside our
small bay. Both are well covered by the media. Tide tables are published
with mean tide height and timing at the different stations along the
Pacific coast. The tide book that shows the water depth as a sine wave
gives a more accurate picture for charting your fishing time. Before
you head out to sea, know the water depth in the channel for your exit
and return. Bent props can get expensive.
Internet access on the Mendocino coast is very limited.
We therefore depend on the National Weather Service radio weather broadcasts
for normal weather and ocean surface conditions.
Ocean surface conditions, which are the most important to us, are updated
every three hours with wind speed, wind direction, wave height, wave
duration, and water temperature. Weather warnings and emergency conditions
are transmitted as needed. Weather buoy 14 located about 10 miles out
from Albion is used for local condition predictions. If you wish to see
the weather conditions before you come over, you can visit Fort
Bragg Weather on the net. For ocean surface conditions, visit NOAA
Coastal Waters Condition.
Two launch sites are available to get your boat into
the water. Deep draft boats are better launched in the pond near the
park entrance. Ask for launching advise from the old timers if you have
never launched here before. With a high tide your boat can be launched
and then motored out to the river. Please observe the no wake rule when
passing the docks. The pond and dock locations are shown on the camping
page. Dock spaces can be reserved for boats up to 24 feet overall
length.
The second launch site is near the bridge and directly
into the river. The river launch, however, is not very deep depending
on tide depth. Make sure that the water depth will allow you to load
or offload your boat. Heavy loads may require four wheel drive to exit
from the sandy beach. The river launch is most often used by our day
use visitors. |
