The U.S. Coast Guard rescued a man and three children from Sebastopol from a cove in Bodega Harbor north of San Francisco Friday night after strong winds and ocean swells prevented the man from paddling his canoe out to safety, a Coast Guard lieutenant said Sunday night.
The four in the canoe found themselves stranded at Campbell Cove, about two miles south of Bodega Bay in Sonoma County, about 6:35 p.m. Friday, said Coast Guard Lt. Athena Stricker. Winds of 15 to 20 knots, and resulting high waves, trapped the four on the shore, Stricker said.
"The wind and the swells picked up significantly pretty fast, and that prevented them from paddling back out," Stricker said Sunday.
The Coast Coast deployed rescue swimmers to the scene. While these crews usually deploy from a helicopter, Stricker said, in this case they worked from a boat. A swimmer went to meet the canoe and tied a rope to it for the boat to pull it out of the cove. No one was injured.
