Red Rock Island.

Red Rock Island is an island in the San Francisco Bay which made me salivate and my palms sweaty every time I saw it driving over the Richmond Bridge.  One day fate intervened, and a good friend bought me a canoe. Canoes = Cowabunga.  If you ever get a canoe, I highly recommend not planning your paddles, not thinking things through, not having life jackets, and bringing only Kombucha.  All this adds greatly to the rush.

Anyways, one day my good friend Nathan and I made exhaustively unresearched plans to try and get to Red Rock Island.  Through internet searches we found that it is: 5.8 acres, the only privately owned island in the SF Bay, the guy who owns it is a "gem dealer in Thailand" (awesome job, I want it), and that there were once plans to build a casino on it.  

It would be a pretty sweet place for a casino.  Admit it, liar.

Land Ahoy!  When on a canoe and in the bay, you feel very, very small. Paddling under the bridge was terrifying and also very excellent.  Later, I found out that the island is surrounded by the deepest water in all of the bay.  Which was not an issue for Nathan and I, because we are very macho, so it was like totally not a big deal.  We didn't even bring it up or anything. Because we're men, and men don't express emotions like fear to each other, obviously.

After circumnavigating the island, my friend Nathan and I realized the only way in which to ascend the mighty peak was by trusting in a yellow rope that earlier, more experienced explorers than us had put in.  I don't want to make a big deal about it or anything, but I'm pretty sure it was Magellan.  Using the rope, we hoisted ourselves to the top.  

And at the top we discovered something marvelous- an earlier visitor, at some point in time, had put in a single row of an unidentifiable type of lily that encircled a dying Monterey Cypress, the most significant tree on the island.  Tasteful and well executed.  Land Art, I have since decided, only becomes more powerful when executed anonymously and in extremely inaccessible locations.  Doing something incredible and not telling anyone about it is fantastic. Just like this blog, wait what?