I'd love to go out there sometime, but this week isn't looking good for more than a short crab trip for me. What day are you looking at?

Yeah Albion gets a lot of fishing pressure. I think there's less powerboat traffic at Caspar or Mendocino. Caspar is a pretty small inlet so it could get crabbed-out before too long. Mendocino Bay is much larger, trickier to get into though. Both offer excellent prospects for rockfish around the points.
Navarro is another possibility, but I need more experience before tackling that shore break.

Wow, what a great day!
How many feet of water were you in?
I gotta get a fishfinder.

I went in at Caspar beach. Set a couple of crab rings and paddled out to the north point. Fished the back side of the rocks for about an hour, caught nothing but blacks! Kept three nice ones and headed back in. Four big Dungies in one ring! Pretty good day for me, though I would have liked a Ling.

I'll never forget the experience of going out the Gate on a 50-foot yacht with a drunk Captain at the wrong tide and wrong time of day... The current grabbed that boat and swung it from the center of the channel over to one of the towers in seconds. There was an honest-to-God whirlpool sucking at the back end of the boat, with the engines at full throttle it just sat there for a few seconds... man those concrete piers are HUGE up close! Then the eddy abated just enough and the boat jumped free and out we went, into the Potato Patch in the teeth of the wind. Within minutes almost everyone was seasick.

I've read that the amount of water that passes through the Gate every day (in both directions) is equal to the fourth-largest river in the world. Tidal currents there are immense.

But when the tidal range is small, and the wind is light, and with some experienced friends, I bet it would be great fun to do what Marin Schoolie talked about.

Thanks for the report. I'm waiting out the wind and seas, and looking for someone to go out with since my buddy injured his shoulder. Flat seas and no wind forecast for Friday through Monday up here...

Where in Mendo? I'm on the coast, waiting out the wind.

Try filling up that kayak with hot water  for the oil canning.  Good luck.  Maybe post a cuple pix of the problem see what the great minds here come up with..

And welcome!


Bushy

Why didn't I think of that? Would take a lot of hot water, but maybe I can combine my other favorite hobby - brewing - and use the big kettle... hmmm...

Right now I've got some wooden struts in there to push it back out, was thinking of using a heat gun to get it to re-set in position.