Tomales camping...

 Anybody know a good place where I can park my car along Tomales Bay and then paddle across to camp? As far as camping, are permits needed? Can I camp on any beach?
 Thanks!
 Andrew

You can boat-in camp on any beach north of Indian Beach. Not sure if you're familiar with the area, but if you're on the east side of the bay in the town of Marshall there is a restaurant called Tony's. Just south of there is a stretch of road where you can pull over and fish. If you look directly east (across the bay) from there you will see Heart's Desire Beach. It's easy to identify by all the umbrellas and stuff on the beach. The next beach north of Heart's Desire is Indian Beach. You can easily identify Indian Beach (when your close or with binoculars) by the three Teepees that are located on the beach near the woods. You can camp on any beach north of Indian Beach.

So, you could technically park just south of Tony's Restaurant, unload and launch there and paddle directly across the bay and a little north and you're good to go. There is a small rock wall you'd have to carry you're yak down in Marshall, but it's totally doable. We've parked in that turn-off all night and fished from shore and never been hassled.

When my buddies and I did boat in camping in Tomales we parked our cars in the pay lot at Nick's Cove and paddled directly across the bay and set-up camp on the first beach we came across. We had the whole beach to ourselves and all of our cars were fine the next day. We had an awesome time. The one drawback was that we didn't check the tides and there was a big minus tide at night so we couldn't really fish from shore like we planned.

You do need a camping permit and a fire permit which you can get at the visitor center near Olema. I'll try and dig up some pics of the area so I can better illustrate what I'm talking about.

I highly recommend it. We had a great time.

Thanks a lot! I appreciate the help...I'll start looking into it!
 Andrew

Speaking of Tomales, anyone heard anything lately?  I took a break for the last week or so,  but ill be back!

I have boated from Nick's Cove/Miller Park ( same place ). The name changes as you zoom in on Google Maps, so I listed both.
You can leave your vehicle overnight there. I did it for 3 days with no problems at all.