Here's something that costs almost nothing, requires zero permits, and doesn't involve a single city bureaucrat: paddleboarding Richardson Bay on a weekday morning.

While San Francisco debates how to spend another few billion dollars it doesn't have, and Marin County supervisors find new ways to make everything require a feasibility study, the bay itself just sits there — flat, stunning, and mercifully free of government interference.

One local paddler recently documented a trip that started at Brickyard Park in Tiburon, wound past Harbor Point through some modest chop, hugged the Belvedere cliffs, and landed near the Sausalito ferry terminal — all before lunch. The highlight reel included harbor seal mothers with their pups, gentle swells in the deeper water, and a pit stop at Lappert's for a double scoop of cookie dough on a waffle cone. Not a bad morning by any standard.

The only government interaction? A brief tsunami siren test that, as our paddler noted, produced a genuine "butt pucker moment" before the all-clear. Which, honestly, is about the right amount of government involvement in anyone's recreation — a brief scare followed by confirmation that everything is fine and they should carry on.

There's a broader point here. The Bay Area has become synonymous with expensive everything — $18 sandwiches, $3,500 studios, toll increases that seem to arrive quarterly. But the actual bay, the geological marvel that gives this region its name and its absurd property values, remains one of the most accessible natural playgrounds on the West Coast. You need a board, a paddle, and the good sense to check the tide charts.

No app required. No reservation system. No $47 "experience fee."

Mount Tam looming overhead, seals cruising alongside, flat water on the slack tide — this is the Bay Area that existed before anyone decided it needed to be optimized, monetized, or regulated into submission. Long may it last.

Grab a board. The bay's not going to paddle itself.