Saturday October 29^th 2011

It was a busy week prepping the boat for its trip from the SF Bay down to Long Beach.  I had lists of things to do and every evening after work I would work on clearing the lists.  The last thing to do on the boat list was to pick up my skipper at SF airport at 2:00pm Saturday afternoon.

Back at the boat I left Nikolay checking over the boat while I had a final hot shower and then we set off around 3:00pm.  We had the outgoing tide in our favor and scooted up the bay at around 8 knots.  The closer we got to the Golden Gate Bridge the more the tide surged us out and I watched the knot meter steadily climb.  8.6 knots.  9.2 knots.  9.8  10.5  11.3  And we topped out at 11.4 as we shot out under the bridge and into open waters.  The strange thing was that I expected to feel like we were zooming along but FastAlley felt the same as doing 5 knots.  Just stable, solid, and sedate.

With the current behind us and no wind we headed down the coast and motored thru the night at around 9 knots.  I told Nikolay that come early evening my body typically wanted to shut down and sleep – I was never a late night owl.  So if it was okay with him, I would go to sleep early and stand the midnight watch.  That was fine with the skipper.  When I came up around 11pm Nikolay had raised the sails and killed the engine and we were ripping along in good winds at around 8 knots, and surfing the ocean swells.  It was exhilarating.

It was also very cold and I had on 4 layers of clothes as I settled down on my watch.  It was a black night.  Black seas.  Black skies.  No stars.  No moon.  Just pitch black.  The deck glowed a pale white in the running lights.  I figured I didn’t have to be on full alert for traffic because if any other boat was out there its light would stick out in the night like a lighthouse.  And so I daydreamed as I stood watch.

One thing about being out on a boat rushing through the dark night with the water gurgling over the hulls, it makes one introspective.  I seldom take the time to sit and think about the meaning of Life (the answer to which is 42, according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), but there is very little else to do out there.  Every fifteen minutes I would check we were still sailing on course, check the read out on the various instruments, and settle down again to watch the seas, or more accurately, feel the seas since it was so black I couldn’t actually see anything.

And so Saturday and Sunday passed inexorably as we sailed down the coast about 15 miles out to sea.  On Sunday night I was on the midnight watch again and staring towards land.  Before turning in Nikolay suggested we run the engine to charge the batteries because all the instruments were taking a lot of power.  And so we motorsailed along during my watch.  Once again the night was pitch black with just the faintest line where the black sky met the black sea.  There was a ton of bioluminescence and FastAlley left a wide luminous green glowing streak in the sea as we surfed down the waves.  I was daydreaming how incredible it would look if a submarine moved silently passed us glowing and outlined beneath the waters in a shimmer of green luminosity.  Then I remembered the sub that surfaced suddenly in Hawaii a while back, flattening a small fishing vessel and killing all 6 fishermen on board.  I decided to skip the submarine daydream and substituted a whale instead.  Then I remembered the angry whale that leapt out of the water in the South African Cape Bay and breached on top of a small sailing vessel almost ripping the back off the boat.  I decided to skip daydreaming altogether until I could come up with something more pleasant.

It was around 3am and really cold as I gazed out into the darkness.  Suddenly 5 tubes of light came streaking towards the boat.  Dolphins!  I was delighted.  More dolphins streaked towards FastAlley attracted by the sound of the engine.  They leapt, and jumped, and raced around the boat delighting in the bow waves.  With 3 hulls they had a lot of bow waves to choose from.  I was entranced.  I watched the dolphins cavorting as they streaked through the water in long bright tubes of luminescence, playing and surfing as they chased each other with unabashed joy.  I couldn’t actually see the dolphins, I could just see the streaks of glowing green light they left in their wake.  I thrilled to the spectacular display of Lights taking place in the dark water around my boat.  I wished I could capture the delightful moment forever.

Monday morning dawned grey and overcast with no wind.  The weather reports, however, were ominous.  A huge storm out in the Pacific was sending large waves our way.  We were to expect high seas and high winds around Point Conception, which is considered one of the most dangerous areas along the California coast line.  Countless boats have been demasted, rolled, and just plain sunk off Pt. Conception and now the Weather Station was warning boats to beware.  The same conditions would prevail in the Santa Barbara Channel making conditions hazardous.  Great.  I went to sleep as Nikolay took over, knowing that when I awoke for my watch we would be right in the middle of that maelstrom.

I had been watching the weather for the past 3 weeks and storm after storm had marched across the Pacific.  NOAA websites had been forecasting heavy weather for weeks.  I decided to call my mother and get some insurance.  My mother is a prayer warrior and whenever I need protection I call her and ask her to get on the Hotline to God.  She tells me that God answers my prayers too but I have noticed that if there is Fabulous Option 1 or Crappy Option 2 then God answers my prayers alright, but with crappy #2.

So I engaged my prayer warrior mom.  She said of course she would pray for good weather.  I said I wanted not just good weather, but FLAT seas.  I wanted a smooth, calm run down the coast with zero damage to the boat and the skipper and myself.  I figured flat seas was Fabulous Option 1 and asked her to pray for that.  My mother agreed.  I wanted to hear her engage God so I stayed on the line while she prayed.  Just before we left SF I checked with my mother that God was aware of my “flat seas” request.  She assured me she had passed on my appeal.

As I prepared to leave the dock my son (a budding prayer warrior) and my grandson (a baby prayer warrior) said they would pray over me for a safe journey.  “And for flat seas”, I added which my grandson dutifully tacked onto the end of his prayer.

Armed with my 3 prayers, I listened to the very alarming weather report but was not unduly perturbed.  However, in light of the ferocity of the expected weather I did assure God that if flat seas were difficult to achieve, then I would accept 3ft swells as compensation.  I went to bed in what I thought was a generous spirit.

I awoke some hours later knowing we should be at, or near, Point Conception.  I dressed and went on deck and stared out over the seas, awestruck!  The sea was flat.  Flat.  Flat.  Glassy flat.  I turned to the skipper – “This is Point Conception?”, I asked incredulously.  He grinned hugely.  “Yes”, he replied as he lounged back reading a book.  I turned a slow 360 – the sea was glassy flat in every direction.  Nothing moved.  Not a ripple.  Not a bump.  As undisturbed as a quiet, still pond.  I burst out laughing.  “This is Point Conception?” I asked again as I turned another 360, just stunned.  “Check the charts”, said the skipper.  I walked over to the glowing electronic chart and sure enough, there we were, right off the Point.

Point Conception

Nikolay went below as I took over the watch.  I couldn’t help laughing with delight as I gazed out over the calm seas.  I could just see an amused God sitting up in Heaven saying “You snot nosed human, negotiating 3 ft swells.  Don’t patronize me, you shrimp!”.

On Monday we passed through the calm Santa Barbara channel, and crossed the gentle Santa Monica Bay.  Nikolay told me to wake him a mile from the Long Beach harbor entrance, which I was happy to do.  We approached the entrance surrounded by at least 8 container ships, 2 of which were actively heading for the same entrance as us.  We were out of fuel and I didn’t want to leave the boat with empty tanks over winter, so once we were safely inside the harbor we headed for a general anchorage, dropped anchor, and settled down for the rest of the night.  It was 3:00am on Tuesday morning.

In the morning light we were readying the boat for our trip to the fuel dock when we were approached by the Coast Guard.  AGAIN?!  The sweetest young man said, “Have you ever been boarded by the Coast Guard?”.  I said, “Yes, often!”.  He was a little disconcerted.  “Are you doing training?” I asked, “Would you like to come aboard”.  Yes he would, and they did.

They went through their check list, with the trainee doing all the writing while the trainer asked the questions.  By this time I am a dab hand at Coast Guard boardings so I knew what they wanted and where it all was.  Like Annie said in SF Bay, if a Coastie has to pick a boat to board, they will pick FastAlley because she is different from the norm.  So I get boarded all the time.

Afterwards we raised anchor and approached the fuel station.  It had 2 stubby docks sticking out into the channel and was not a dock that I would be happy approaching.  Nikolay said we should back into the dock.  I thought he was kidding.  “FastAlley doesn’t have steerage going backwards,” I pointed out, “she simply goes backwards in any direction she cares to go.  She only has forwards steerage”.  That’s what the previous owner told me and that is what I had found in the 3 years I had her.  FastAlley has a vicious starboard prop walk that I find useful for turning her in a tight circle, but which makes going backwards in a straight line just impossible.

Nikolay said that nevertheless we would back into the dock.  I said that if he dinged FastAlley I would throttle him.  He was unconcerned.  He turned my boat around and started backing gently towards the dock.  We went straight back as though tethered to a shore line that was reeling us in.  I watched fascinated as he brought us smoothly alongside the dock.  Not a bump.  Not a grind.  We just slid alongside backwards.  “How did you do that?!!”, I wanted to know.  He explained the technique and I’m going to practice it until I get it right – although I’ll practice with something softer than a solid dock.  It was a pleasure to watch.

When we approached my new slip I didn’t even argue – I just turned over the wheel to Nikolay.  Once again he docked FastAlley gently and smoothly and I stepped calmly off the boat and tied us off.  I have no idea how I am supposed to dock FastAlley in this tiny spot in future?!  I share an end tie with a power boat and have just 2 or 3 feet from my bowsprit to his stern.  I think docking here will be somewhat more exciting with me steering.  None of that “stepping calmly off the boat” when I am at the wheel.

My son and his family were waiting at the dock and were all excited to see that I had arrived safely.  Kevin had offered to drive Nikolay back to San Diego where he lived with his wife and baby daughter.  On the way I had a last chance to pick his brains on boat handling tips.  He had spent his watch hours examining FastAlley and had a list of about 20 incremental improvements I could make to ready the boat for an ocean crossing.  I jotted them all down.  He also got my fridge working on battery power again – it had stopped working after an electrician did some other work for me.  Of course, Nikolay  said that if I had mentioned the problem with the fridge when we left SF instead of when we arrived at LB then we could have used it to keep the milk and cheese cold, instead of having them float around in the melting ice in the cooler box.

After dropping Nikolay we all returned to the boat and the family stayed until around 7pm.  Then I had a glorious hot shower in the marina, crawled into bed, and put on a Clint Eastwood cowboy movie.  After 20 minutes I was fast asleep and slept like the dead until the sun rose.

The list of small improvements Nikolay gave me will cost less than $200 and will make a big difference to the safety of my vessel.  The big ticket items – that I already know about – are new solar panels and a new battery bank.  However, Nikolay had some excellent suggestions on both aspects.  For example, I was going to mount the new solar panels on the roof but Nikolay said that if I don’t flush mount them then the mainsheet will rip them right off during an accidental jybe.  I hadn’t even thought of that but as soon as he said it I knew he was right because I have seen the mainsheet whipping across the roof before as I practiced singlehanding and didn’t get to the sheet fast enough.

Nikolay also tested my new batteries and declared the starter battery defective.  The problem is that the electrician had mixed battery types when he replaced my burned out battery charger, which in turned had fried all my batteries.  The new charger has 4 settings, and when charging it had defaulted to the lowest type battery setting (the house bank) so that the higher quality starter battery had suffered over the past year.  Since the electrician had both installed the charger and replaced the batteries, I should have thought that at $65 per hour he would know not to mix battery types.  Apparently not.  So my new expensive starter battery is now ruined.

Anyway, we have arrived safely in Long Beach and I have a list of things to do before attempting any deep ocean crossing, although FastAlley could go as she currently stands if I wanted to leave tomorrow.  Which I don’t.  He suggested that I implement the changes he recommends then he would drive up from San Diego some time and go over the boat with me to ensure I had her ship shape.

Hawaii – here we come!

Bryan with yet another leopard shark - catch and release

For the 2011 July 4th Annie and I decided to go back to Sausalito and anchor out next to Tiburon, as we did last year.  At the last minute my son Bryan called from Los Angeles and said he would be joining us for a few days, so Annie bought enough food for an army – aka one tall, hungry man.  Annie couldn’t find a babysitter for Gidget, her little dog, so we got another passenger.

Gidget - showing off on the foredeck

Hank and Sandy said they would buddy boat up with us, so the two boats set off on Saturday 2nd around noon, heading for the San Mateo Bridge.  The weather was less than pleasant.  Usually we put FastAlley on autopilot and sit up front with coffee, cheese and biscuits and watch the Bay go slowly by as we motor decorously up the Bay.  But today the wind was howling and kicking up substantial chop that flung spray all over the decks and sent FastAlley airborne as we struggled up the bay.  Obviously I can’t see how FastAlley performs in bad weather, because I’m a part of it and her, but with Hank’s catamaran behind me I could watch fascinated as Shibumi flew skywards over the waves.  I was taking photos of Hank’s boat as he flew along behind us, and he was taking pictures of us flying and covered in spray.  We had a mutual gawk fest.  With the tide against us and foul weather, our speed was down to 4 knots.

When I move my boat around the Bay I stick close to the buoys – I’m not brave enough to carve out my own route because I have bad visions of a 30-foot submerged mast, or 10-foot sunken rebar, sticking out of the mud and impaling FastAlley as I take a mistimed shortcut.  So I stick to the marked channels.

Buddy boating with Shibumi - a Gemini 105 all tricked out

As I left the final channel buoy and set course for the Bay Bridge buoy my way was blocked by 7 behemoth container/cargo ships anchored, and lined up sideways to me, for their turn at the docks.  As I slowly approached them I tried to decide if one goes in front of these anchored monsters, or behind them?

I remember once when I was making my way down the Long Beach Channel, I obliquely passed a tug boat at some distance.  But even though I was quite far away from the prop wash of the tug, it nevertheless sent FastAlley into a tailspin.  I watched fascinated as the autopilot did a 90-degree spin to port, tried to correct, and spun to port again.  I decided the prop wash of a container ship starting up suddenly would be more than FastAlley should bear, so I chose to pass in front of the anchored ships.  I figured if it suddenly lifted anchor then I would do a 180 and run back down the channel.  Annie assured me there would be nothing “sudden” about lifting anchor!  Any up-anchor of a container ship is a major production including tugs, horns, and whistles, and lots of busy activity for at least 30 minutes before anything actually moved.  So we passed uneventfully in front of the ships.  It is quite daunting as you pass by to realize that my whole boat is probably the same size as just their anchor!  Hank said he had fallen asleep and Sandy was steering and when he woke up he found himself surrounded by monster ships!

We moved along the waterfront then turned for Richardson Bay which took us west of Alcatraz.  Every time we cross The Slot – the strip of channel running from the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz – we get hit by high waves as the wind howls in from the open sea and funnels into the Bay at ferocious speeds.  Today was no exception, if anything it was the worst wave conditions I have hit in the Bay so far.  We struggled forward but even though our speed was good I could see that relative to our bearing on Alcatraz, we had not moved forward at all in the last 5 minutes.  Our forward motion matched the push back from the high waves, so our motion was stalled.

Bryan was watching Hank behind us getting all beat up, as were we.  Looking back at Shibumi, we were very impressed that Sandy was brave enough to sit right upfront in those high seas.  Earlier Sandy had gone forward to sit on the seat on the nose but, she said later, that with the high seas she got stuck there because it was too dangerous to crawl back along the bucking deck to the cockpit.  Eventually Hank came over the radio and said he was turning back for the lee side of Alcatraz and I followed.  Annie, Gidget and Bryan were equally grateful to be out of the turmoil of that washing machine.

Its a Mother thing... you have to give advice even if you have never removed a hook from anything before

When we reached Richardson Bay, we both anchored at Cove Rock where it is shallow and thus Far from the Madding Crowd.

Bryan settled down to fish with his stinky bait, while Annie made dinner.  I had bought the banjo minnow fishing set and was sure I would catch dinner.  I explained to Bryan how the wrist action on the plastic minnow on my line simulated a dying fish, which was irresistible to any passing fish who was genetically disposed to attack the “dying” fish and swallow my hook.  I also pointed out that plastic fish did not smell or stink up my fingers.  Bryan was not convinced and stuck to his stinky bait and pretty soon was fighting some huge fish.  He fought it for 15 minutes before it broke the line and took off.

Bryan disrespectful of my plastic minnow

Then he caught a 4ft leopard shark.  Annie said that Tiburon means shark and that Richardson Bay is known as a leopard shark nursery and haven.  Bryan wrestled his newest shark onto the deck for a photo shoot before releasing it.  Meanwhile the entire stock of fish in the Bay ignored my plastic minnow.

Fish are ignoring my banjo minnow

In the quiet bouts between catching leopard sharks, Bryan would muse on my banjo minnow.  Maybe it was my wrist action, he said with a wicked grin.  I assured him I was doing exactly what the instruction DVD said; it was simply that the fish were too dumb to notice my superior fishing skill.  Bryan suggested that maybe I should soak my plastic banjo minnow in bait pheromones?  I pointed out that the whole idea of plastic fish meant I didn’t have to have stinky hands.

Five hours of minnow wrist action later, Bryan was admiring my tenacity as yet another shark leapt on his line.  I pointed out that I was fishing for our supper, whereas all he got was photos.

I should have pointed out that some mothers eat their young!

Mother and Son

Sausalito's houseboat community - c/o Google Earth

The 4-corners houseboat

Sunday morning dawned so Bryan and I enthusiastically manhandled the dinghy into the water, and dropped the engine onto its transom.  While there were no waves in Richardson Bay, there was a considerable swell running and it took some coordination between us not to drop the outboard in the Bay!  Annie watched from the deck with misgivings.  At one point I was nearly decapitated as the engine propelled us under FastAlley between the starboard ama and central hull.  At the same time the swell hurled us up under FastAlley and I flung myself backwards into the bottom of the dinghy to avoid having my head crushed on the underside of the deck, with the sudden upward swoop.

The Pirate House

I wanted to do a tour of the houseboats of Sausalito but Annie refused to get into the dinghy.  She said this was Gidget’s first time on the water and she didn’t want to subject her dog to yet another new experience.  Gidget meanwhile was digging a hole in the deck trying to get under the stanchions and leap into the dinghy to join us.  That little dog was ready to go-go.  Personally I think Annie wouldn’t get into the dinghy because decapitation was not high on her Bucket List.

Bryan and I set off across Richardson Bay heading for the houseboat section.  The little houseboat community is magical with floating homes of every shape and size from multi-level mansions to modest little colorful shacks.  We motored around slowly while I happily snapped away.  Eventually I ran out of memory space on my camera card and had to regretfully delete some pics as I saw yet another floating home that I just had to snap.  Bryan waited patiently as mother (me) ruefully paged thru my new pics, deleting some, then he started up the engine again for more touring after I had freed up some memory.  Sometimes technology can be so annoying.  Bryan reassured me it was the tool that was at fault and not the user.  Brat.

The Hippie Commune - with its flotilla of dinks

I was specifically searching for the Taj Mahal houseboat that I had read about in the Architectural Digest.  We explored every nook and cranny of the houseboat village but didn’t see it.  Eventually we stopped to ask directions and the friendly man told us where to go.  As we made our way back down the channel towards the Taj Mahal we passed the building that housed the Bay Model – which happily was on my List of ThingsToDo.  So we found a rickety public dock, chained the dinghy to the dock, and walked back towards the building.  As we walked, we passed a chatty couple who kept pace with us and told us about an organic ice cream shop that we just had to try.

The Bay Model - Red Rock and the Richmond Bridge

The Bay Model building is under construction so there is no water in the model at the moment, but it is still a worthwhile visit.  It is the size of two football fields and encompasses the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Delta.  It is HUGE!!!  And fascinating.  It was built by the Corps of Engineers as a way to test “bright ideas” before inflicting them for real on the Estuary.  Apparently many “bright ideas” never saw the light of day – fortunately – when the model highlighted their awful impact.  The model was continuously in use for decades as scientists used it for R&D.  Today it is used for educational purposes.  It is well worth a visit – with or without its water.

The Bay Model - the Golden Gate Bridge with its 500ft deep channel that the sea has carved out

As we walked back to the dinghy we detoured past CIBO, the organic ice cream shop.  For $20 we got 2 small lemonades, 2 small ice creams, and some small change.  I’m guessing that an early retirement is on the CIBO owners’ Bucket List!!

Once back on the dinghy we resumed our search down the channel for the Taj Mahal.  It is less of a houseboat and more of a beautifully restored home on a barge, really.  It stands alone in a marina with a fabulous front-and-center view of the Sausalito Bay and protected by the wash of the bay by a breakwater.  I had to delete more pics, this time of the Bay Model, to fit in 3 shots of the Taj.

The Taj Mahal houseboat

Then back to the boat.  I resumed fishing with my plastic fish – with its realistic dying action – but again failed to catch anything.  Clearly the fish in Richardson Bay are not genetically disposed to attack dying small fry, as the infomercial so confidently claimed.  Bryan said he had pretty much run out of sardonic comments except that at least someone caught something, even if it was only the infomercial that caught me at 2:00 in the morning.

I ignored him.   Annie made supermarket shrimp for lunch.

Hank and Sandy came by to ask if we wanted to dinghy tour the houses on the waterfront on the Tiburon side.  So we clambered back into our dinghy, and once again Annie watched us bouncing up and down as we hung on fiercely to FastAlley’s swimsteps…  and declined to join us.  Hank was trying out a borrowed 2hp outboard so we spent a leisurely hour side-tied to Hank’s dinghy as we motored slowly past the fabulous homes on the Tiburon shore.   This group of homes is in a different pay grade to the floating houseboats community!  Afterwards we untied from Hank and Sandy, and after such a gentle meander with Hank’s borrowed 2hp motor, Bryan just had to open up our outboard and carve and surf thru the swell on the way back to our boat!    It was fun.

Monday July 4th dawned – all blustery again.  Hank dinghied over and said he was going to move his catamaran closer to the Sausalito Channel where there was very little swell, and it was closer to the restaurants.  He also wanted to see the parade and stay for the fireworks show that evening.  I had to work Tuesday so I couldn’t stay for the fireworks otherwise we would get back to our dock at 2:00am – just in time for another infomercial.   Maybe its time for a Infomercial Intervention!

Besides, we wanted to go back down the channel and fish at the Shoal.  I was sure the sturgeon hanging out at the shoal would love dying plastic minnows.  We upped anchor and turned for home.

By the time we reached the shoal the wind was howling and there was a Small Craft Warning out.  We decided to skip the fishing and detoured to Coyote Point for fuel instead, then headed home.

We had a marvelous time over the holiday.  Gidget very definitely has sea legs and showed off by running around all over the deck.  She wouldn’t poop on her poop pads that Annie laid on the deck, and simply ignored them.  Then Gidget found the air vent for the marine head up front, sniffed at the vent, recognized the smell, and pooped happily on the foredeck.   A quick bucket of sea water and that solved that problem.

I asked Annie if she had refused to go on the dinghy because she wanted me to have alone time with my son?   Hell No, she said.  Actually the word she used was more expressive than Hell.  She just wasn’t getting into any dinghy that zoomed up above FastAlley’s decks on the swell, then disappeared under the boat in the troughs.  Maybe next time.

Historic downtown

We planned to visit Petaluma over Memorial Day weekend.  Monday 30^th was the official holiday and Annie and I made it a 4-day weekend by taking Friday 27^th off as well.  We slept on the boat Thursday night, threw off the dock lines early Friday morning, and headed north up the Bay.  We passed under the San Mateo Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the Richmond Bridge and then veered north across San Pablo Bay towards the Petaluma Channel. The buoys marking the Petaluma channel are close together with the chart showing 0 and 2 feet depth on either side, which is a strong incentive not to stray out of the narrow channel.

Eventually we entered the Petaluma River and within minutes Annie’s allergies kicked in from the myriad of plants that clogged the riverbank.  Miles of mustard seed, fennel, and grasses swayed in the wind and liberally disgorged their pollen so that Annie spent the next 2 ½ hours down below bathing her swollen eyes – and bored.

The countryside along the river is beautiful with rolling hills and farmlands, but with a surprising lack of animals.  I didn’t see any cows, or sheep, or horses – or even chickens for which historic Petaluma is so famous.  Just rolling hills.  One after the other.  The river curves back and forth constantly so I sat at the wheel for the next 2 ½ hours steering with no one to talk to – and bored.

We finally reached the bridge that blocks entry to the Petaluma turning basin and when it lifted we entered the basin expecting it to be somewhat empty since this was a non-holiday, but the dock on the west bank was already jammed with power boats.  So we docked on the east side of the river.  A very sweet, very drunk hobo insisted on helping us tie up and was so unsteady on his feet that he very nearly fell off the dock.  I was afraid to give him a tip in case he hung around – like a stray cat that won’t leave if you feed it.

The policeman manning the bridge walked over after we had docked and handed us the “secret” code for gate access to the west dock.  We found out that the code has not changed in the last few years and is a somewhat open “secret”.  Since our East dock was pretty quiet Annie and I decided to walk over and see if there was any party action on the West dock.  It was a beautiful evening and the boaters were out and about and spoiling for a party.  One boater had put down tape on the dock with USA written on the one side and MEXICO on the other.  He claimed it was the border and he had MX decorations and food ready on his side.  Everyone was very friendly and in a jovial mood but we were tired after a day at the wheel so we decided to hit the sack early and party on Saturday night instead.

Med moored

Saturday dawned overcast and raining – so much for the Weather Channel bragging about a sunny Memorial weekend with temperatures in the 70’s.  It was FREEZING.  And WET.  While sipping my early morning coffee I glanced into my dinghy and noticed that the line I had fastened to reduce swaying on the davit had chafed the paint off the dinghy seat.  I made a mental note to buy a piece of leather to place under the rope as a chafe guard.

Notwithstanding the weather, we decided to explore in the rain.  Well, I was eager to explore historic downtown and Annie was resigned to her fate.  During the previous week I had printed off a number of walking tours around Petaluma so we set off to do the Historic Petaluma walk.

Iron building - rediscovered when they pulled off the ratty old siding

Olde town Petaluma has some beautiful old buildings and we traipsed from one building to the next, with me shooting photos indiscriminately while Annie kept disappearing into the nearest shop.  I spied a short leather skirt on a mannequin at the door of a thrift store and Annie looked at me askance thinking I meant the cute little cowgirl skirt with cheeky fringe for myself.  But I was thinking how perfect it would work as a chafe guard for my dinghy, so I talked the price down to $5 and walked away clutching my prize.  It worked really well in the dink although Annie was concerned that the brown dye would stain the hypalon.

Meanwhile on the east dock more and more boats had arrived all day and had side-tied to me and every other boat unlucky enough to be first at the dock, so by mid-afternoon we were rafted 4 deep in the turning basin.  I was afraid that my regular dock lines were not strong enough against the jerking loads exerted on FastAlley, so we tied extra lines to ensure that FastAlley did not break loose with her flotilla of 3-rafted boats.  As I tied down the extra lines, I noticed the cleats on the dock moved and jiggled, so then I was concerned instead that the cleats would pop loose and hurl my 4-boat raft, which was weaving and jiving in the high winds, into the clot of surrounding boats.

By Saturday night the high wind and rain had dampened even the enthusiasm of the West dock and all was quiet on the western front.  Even the party in the yacht club looked uninspiring.  Since the balmy 70degree temps had never materialized, we had the heater blasting away in the cabin and pretty soon it was pretty toasty.  We had dinner, watched a movie, and settled down in our respective bunks for the night.

Sunday dawned clear so I grabbed my Tours of Petaluma printouts and off we went.  We headed in the direction of the Petaluma Victorian Homes tour – with Annie disappearing into every store we passed.  Petaluma has a wonderful selection of stores selling everything from funky pop-top jewelry to rusty chicken farm antiques.  I have always wanted to own a glass house with lots of glass art backlit by the sun so every time I saw a pretty glass piece I would also abandon our tour and dive into the shop to examine it.  But I guess California’s earthquakes would make short work of my glass house with glass art, so it remains just a dream.

Mini-cathedral

On the Victorian tour we visited a delightful catholic church from the late 1800’s.  Annie was brought up Catholic so she explained the beautiful contents of the church and their significance to me.  The church has gorgeous stained glass windows, marching columns of marble, three Rose windows, and an intricately carved marble baptismal font.  Along the walls of the tiny cathedral are a series of carved reliefs illustrating the last hours of Jesus, from Pilate to the Cross.  This little gem is a must see.

Walls of stained glass

As we drifted back to town, we lacked the enthusiasm to do the Hollywood Walking Tour, but then Annie heard blaring rock music so we followed our ears.  We came across an American Graffiti function complete with a diner surrounded by beautifully restored vintage cars.  The rock band played to a motley crowd of 50’s car enthusiasts and we ate delicious garlic fries as I snapped away happily.  I really am an incorrigible tourist.

Vintage cars lined up

Monday dawned cloudy but dry and we made leaving noises.  The Petaluma River is tidal and at 9:30am it was low tide.  There were already boats stuck in the mud of the basin as some boaters had tried to exit early.  FastAlley only draws 2 feet but the remaining boat rafted to me was on the mud.  I thought we were stuck at the dock for 2 hours until they floated free but it turned out that they had a retractable keel, so they raised their keel and they were free.

Unfortunately I was still surrounded by rafted boats 4 deep on all sides, with maybe 6 feet clearance at my bow and 3 feet at my stern for maneuvering.  Annie suggested asking a boat circling in the basin to pull our bow around and tow us out but I was nervous about giving motion control of my boat to anyone else, especially when I was so closely and deeply packed in by other docked boats.

FastAlley buried in a 4-deep raft up

Getting away from the dock was interesting.  There just wasn’t enough space, forward or backwards, to turn a 41ft boat at the slip.  I had to go forward a few feet, then the bow was grabbed by a boater and walked forward 2 feet along his deck, then reverse 3 feet, then forward till my bow was grabbed and walked forward along a deck, then reverse again for a few feet.  Annie’s suggestion of being towed out by the bow looked better and better.  Man, it was tight.  Imagine a car parked in a tight spot doing a 10-point turn to extricate itself – that was me and FastAlley.    Amazingly we got out without even tippy-touching any of the rafted boats that clogged the basin.

We exited past the boats stuck in the mud, the policeman opened the bridge for us, and we were headed down the river and homeward bound on Memorial Day.  Our 4-day holiday was coming to an end.

Pretty Petaluma in Pollen season had been quite the experience!  Within hours of docking in the basin FastAlley was submerged under a layer of pollen.  Pollen clumped and congealed around the cleats and filmed over my dock lines.  Pollen coated our clothes and hair, plugged up our noses, and clogged our eyes.  Clouds of pollen choked us and made us sneeze… if you have even a minor allergic reaction to pollen you don’t want to visit Petaluma in the Spring.

The ladies of Petaluma in the late 1800s erected a drinking fountain to discourage the drinking of alcohol - I thought this was the fountain

I have never been allergic to anything but even my skin itched from the constant coating of pollen.  And I awoke each morning with my eyes clumped shut.  On the way back downriver, Annie disappeared below for the next 2 ½ hours to bathe her eyes and relieve their allergic swelling with ice.  It was wonderful to finally reach the Bay and have the fresh sea breezes blowing in our faces and blasting the pollen off us and FastAlley.

..... It is not this fountain either

On our way up the Bay I had been at the helm – and a lousy job I did of that.  I just ASSUMED that a huge ship ahead was anchored because I didn’t see a bow wave so I ignored it.  Imagine my horror 10 minutes later when I looked up and the leviathon passed within 300 feet of us.  Then I was so busy taking pictures of Red Rock that I had us headed straight for the Richmond Bridge buttress.  Over the summer one works up a vigilant attitude from being on the water all the time – but I guess the extended Winter eliminated my watchfulness.

THIS is the fountain the ladies erected with its LOUD AND CLEAR message!

So with Annie at the helm we passed under Richmond Bridge homeward bound and noticed the Coast Guard in the Bay.  They were doing maneuvers and practicing retrieval and boat handling.  They paced us for about 10 minutes and I thought – Oh No, Not Again.  FastAlley got boarded on our last trip out when we went up to the Waterfront to watch the Blue Angels air show.  Annie explained the obvious… that if you are a Coast Guard on maneuvers and you have to pick a boat to board for the practice, you would pick something unusual.  And my trimaran FastAlley is unusual.

Eventually a zodiac detached itself from the mother ship and zoomed towards us with 4 young, eager Coast Guards on board.  They approached and asked; “Have you ever been boarded by the Coast Guard?”

I replied, Yes.

They asked, When?

I said, During the air show last October.

This caused some discussion as the young men debated whether or not they should board us again so soon after the last boarding, but eventually their curiosity to see the boat exceeded their caution about intruding yet again.  So they zoomed up and 3 of them climbed aboard while the 4^th followed in the zodiac.

The 3 men were very young, maybe baby 20’s and very sweet, polite, and friendly.  The leader was disarmingly honest and said happily – I’ve never been on a trimaran before!!  Which is why we got boarded, I guess.  One of the young men was obviously being trained by his equally young leader and as they worked their way steadily thru their checklist, they asked to see everything and examined the boat from front to back.  They were just darling, and intrigued with FastAlley.  After 30 minutes they assured us that they would log their inspection with the Coast Guard so that we would not have to be boarded again.

As the young men left, Annie said we should just resign ourselves to being boarded throughout the summer because if a young Coastie has a choice of boarding yet another monohull or FastAlley, they would probably choose FastAlley because she is different from the norm.  They were so curious and so darling that I really didn’t mind.

Annie was in control of the boat so I went below to doze for a few hours.  She roused me as she turned FastAlley into Redwood City Slough and we docked 10 hours after leaving Petaluma that morning.

The small city of Petaluma is beautifully restored.  They have a variety of stores that sell a vast collection of goodies.  Their restaurants are reasonably priced, the food is tasty, and the beers are inexpensive during Happy Hour.

Stud muffin - literally

The locals are exceptionally friendly and helpful, and everyone we stopped took the trouble to pause and point us in the right direction.

I highly recommend a visit to Petaluma.  If you don’t have a boat, then drive up there on the 101 freeway, and stay in a B&B for the weekend.  It’s a lovely little city.  You will enjoy your stay.

FLEET WEEK – THE AIR SHOW

Fleet Week has been a tradition since 1981 and is a highly anticipated event in San Francisco. With an estimated audience of 1 million, spectators crowd the city’s waterfront to be awed by a parade of Navy ships, along with a spectacular aerial show that includes the Navy’s Blue Angels. The air show is without a doubt the premiere event of the day featuring incredible aerial stunts guaranteed to make you gawk and gasp. This was my first air show ever, so I was eager to get there.

Annie and I left the dock Saturday morning around 9:30am in dead calm conditions. It was a gorgeous morning. Not a breath of wind to ripple the glassy surface of the bay.  I put the boat on autopilot and we sat up front on the bow enjoying the quiet, peaceful conditions.  Every 1/2 hour I would walk back and reset the autopilot to keep us on course, but other than that FastAlley just toddled along happily.  We were the only ones out there.

We missed the ship parade because we got on site too late to watch it. We saw a few tall ships with all sails flying go by in the distance, but missed the main parade.

Then the air show started, and man, what a show that was.

http://blogs.oracle.com

I was awed by the pilot in a red acrobatic biplane executing dizzying stunts over, under, and around the Golden Gate bridge and to and fro between Alcatraz and the bridge.. His solo performance was spectacular and the most endearing thing of his incredible aerial display was that it was so very obvious to the viewer that he was just plain having FUN. You could imagine him thinking…. man, how lucky am I that they pay me to do this!   He looped, climbed, dove, and hovered all with apparent equal ease.   He did a kind of tail hover which took my breath away.   Just a few hundred feet off the water he put the plane into a vertical nose up stance of about 75 degrees, that is, about 15 degrees off perpendicular to the sea.   And he hovered there!   He never moved forward, nor downward, nor upward, nor sideways. He simply hovered in place for a moment… and a moment… and a moment… and a moment… which seemed to last at least a minute.   I didn’t know you could do that with a plane!   The eye-hand-foot coordination required to keep a biplane in a stationary hover must be jaw dropping.   Unbelievable.   I would like to shake that man’s hand.   Of all the events of the day, that nose up unmoving hover enthralled me the most.

http://www.fly.faa.gov - their signature formation

Then the Blue Angels show started suddenly and I didn’t know how LOUD those jet engines are!   Scared the hell out of me.   And the boat shook as they flew by.

Blue Angels over the Golden Gate bridge

The Blue Angels started with their signature diamond formation.   I must admit if I was the mother of one of those fly boys I would want him to find a nice quiet desk job.   Those jets hurtled past at such stunning speeds with their wings and tails almost touching each other during their four-jet formation.   They flew so close to each other that you couldn’t see sky between the planes.   Then just in case you blinked and missed the formation, they repeated the stunt upside down and zoomed along at sea level.   With the water so close, and the Golden Gate Bridge in front of them, there is not much room for error.

The “mother” in me surfaced and I kept praying that one of them would not even sneeze because any sudden micro-adjustment of their joystick would create a ghastly mid-air disaster.   At least the acrobatic pilot had the whole sky all to himself and was obviously so skilled that even if something went awry, you knew he would recover.   But those Blue Angels leave ZERO margin for error.   Its quite terrifying to watch.

http://tinypic.com fly by

The Blue Angels zoomed towards each other, trailing red white and blue smoke trails, and you could see by the smoke trails that they fly incredibly close to each other, requiring remarkable accuracy.   My depth perception absolutely sucks so I need a passing zone of 55 feet at least, never mind mere inches!   And that’s at a speed of 5 knots not 500 mph.   As I gaped at the Blue Angels stunts, my stomach would still be recovering from the last fly by, when they would come zooming past again upside down, or sideways, almost touching.    In my youth I was a gymnast, played basketball right thru school, was a very fast sprinter, and I played Wing for the varsity hockey team from the age of 13 to 18… lots of sports requiring good speed-eye-hand-foot coordination – but I just cannot comprehend the skills required to execute those stunning aerial maneuvers.   The mind boggles.

I think the head-on fly bys are for me the most jaw dropping although that might be their easiest stunt.   For me, watching a plane hurtling towards me while trying to focus on my instruments, would just unnerve me completely.   That head-on stunt made me hold my breath.   I heard that there are only 12 Blue Angles in the Navy worldwide that do the air shows.   I asked Annie why so few pilots existed and her response was basically, I’ll give you one guess.   See! the mother in me was right to be worried.

The jets hurtle by at such high speed that I didn’t manage to get one decent photo.  I got lots of pics of empty blue sky crisscrossed with smoke trails, so all these pics are copied off the internet.

THE FLEET WEEK EXPERIENCE

The Air Show was fantastic. However, the actual experience of being on a boat during the show was horrible in the extreme.

I was told by many of the skippers in my marina that I should stick to the waterfront and drive my boat up and down with the other mass of boats.   They also said that the vast majority of people on the water should never even hold a car drivers license, never mind be in control of a boat.  This was an understatement.

I must admit that sailors are polite and know the rules of the road.   And sailboats typically crawl along at about 3 knots.   Power boaters on the other hand, zoom back and forth, they think they own the waterways, and they clearly have zero regard for anyone else.   And judging by their bad behavior, they have already had 4 beers too many.

When we first arrived I noticed a large party boat stationary under the Bay Bridge so I decided that they looked like they knew where to go and I motored over and hung out behind them.   They sat unmoving in the water.   Then a sailboat with 2 men came up and hung out with us.   Then a dinghy with 3 men and beers joined us.   And a powerboat hovered nearby.

A police boat circled us and came over to me. “Keep moving”, the young cop in blue yelled at me.   I started forward but noticed that he didnt go over to the party boat, nor the powerboat, nor the dinghy, nor the sailboat – so I circled up and down slowly but didnt move too far.

I said to Annie – How come he yelled at me but has ignored all those other boats??

Annie said succinctly – Two women on a boat.

I laughed thinking she was kidding.

Its Bug The Bitches Day.

I circled a little trying to avoid the other stationary boats, but mostly hung out behind the large party boat.   After about 10 minutes the police boat of young cops – San Francisco’s finest boys in blue – returned and zoomed up to me again, circled aggressively, and yelled at me to keep moving.   They then roared off again ignoring all the stationary boats around me.

Again I said to Annie – How come he yelled at me but has ignored all those other boats again??

Annie said succinctly – Two women on a BIG boat.

I didn’t laugh that time.

Its Harass the Ho’s Day.

So instead of sitting stationary behind the party boat I moved slowly up and down and around it – always keeping as close to it as possible.   Annie figured that when it moved we should follow and let it cut a path for us thru the chaos of boats on the waterfront.   I was circling slowly when the cops returned, ran around us aggressively, and yelled angrily for me to move faster.   Then roared off again.   The party boat sat there unmoving.

I looked over at Annie and shrugged.

Annie said succinctly – Two women on a BIG boat with no man in sight.

Its Damn the Dykes Day.

Clearly the all-female boat was a huge affront to SF’s finest.   How dare all that oestrogen come to a testosterone event!   How dare we come without a solid set of gonads on board!!

Then the party boat moved and I gratefully got into convoy behind it.   We followed it up the waterfront then turned and followed a tourist boat back down the waterfront.   Then we followed another large tourist boat back up the waterfront, and down again.   Let me not write as though this was an easy feat.   Dinghy’s overloaded with men (not wearing life jackets) squatted stationary in the water forcing everyone to maneuver around them.   Powerboats with morons at the wheel cut in front me forcing me to back up suddenly to avoid a collision.   A-holes in powerboats cut in front of the party boat forcing them to a sudden stop with me right behind back peddling furiously.   Fishing boats full of extremely rude and drunk people zoomed about – in and out of the crowds – shouting obscenities.   And we two women on a big boat certainly got the testosterone flowing.   Frankly I was stunned.

And the cop boat spent a lot of time tailing us, as we tailed the party barges.

Catch the Cows Day.

This went on for FIVE hours.  It was a ghastly ghastly ghastly ghastly ghastly ghastly experience.   Never again.   Is this how women are treated if they dare to venture out without a man?   Or is it that SF being such a Gay city, they thought we were lesbians and therefore it really irked their male pride to see us out on the water??   Is this how gays are treated on a regular basis?  Is this how gays are harassed all the time?  Who knows!  All I know is that it was a sad eye-opener for me.

And my previous high estimation of SF’s finest boys in blue did a dump.

I cannot imagine that I would ever be insane enough to go to Fleet Week again, but if I do then I will

(a) hang a large banner from my mast saying “HETEROSEXUALS”

(b) buy an inflatable man doll and sit it in the cockpit with a beer duct taped to its fist.

Maybe then we wont be so harassed on the water by every yahoo with nothing better to do between events!

The afternoon’s entertainment was almost over as we turned for home when the police boat zoomed up again, circled us, and demanded we follow them.   At the time we were tucked in behind a large tourist boat returning to its home dock and slowly making our way to the Bay Bridge.   I didn’t question the cop, I figured it had taken them 5 hours to decide to ticket us for “loitering” earlier, so I obediently followed them into a tiny area where they indicated a dock they wanted me to tie up to.   I circled around trying to figure out the best way to approach the badly angled dock, and finally approached carefully.   The 3 young cops were standing on the dock, legs firmly planted, and arms folded across their chests.   They had no intention of being helpful.   As I pulled alongside the dock they stood stolidly and stared belligerently at us making no attempt to grab the rope that Annie threw at them.   Annie then jumped onto the dock and tied down the bow while I jumped off the back and tied down the stern.   The aggressive young cops suddenly disappeared to be replaced by 4 embarrassed young coast guards.

The young coast guards asked me – Why are you here?

I wasn’t going to admit to “loitering” 5 hours earlier so I said – I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?

They didn’t know.

They said – Did you perhaps go into the Security Zone?

I said – No, not me, I was following the tourist boats.

They said – Did the Coast Guard approach you and tell you to leave the Security Zone?

I said – No, not me, you must have me confused with someone else.

At this stage you could see by their faces that one had to have the IQ of a frog to confuse 2 women on a BIG trimaran with any other boat out there.   They all moved off down the docks en masse and went into a huddle.   Clearly they had no clue as to why we were there – and the cops who had brought us in and watched smugly as I docked while they refused to lend a hand, had bolted back to their boat and shot off out of there.

Its Lampoon the Lesbians Day.

The young Coast Guards returned. Well I guess we will have to board you, they said.

I was fine with that. Cool, I said, I have never been boarded so I’ll get my camera and take pics.

Faced with my obvious enthusiasm to undergo the novel experience of a CG boarding, they backed down.

They decided instead to stay on the dock and do a safety check. They asked for the usual… fire extinguishers, PFDs, vessel papers which showed I was the owner, throwables, etc.   After every request they huddled again clearly perplexed as to what to do or say next.

Finally they abandoned the pretense of doing anything, said their polite goodbyes, and bolted.

Up until this point I had been pretty mellow about the whole day – but now I was incensed.   Especially as SF’s finest boys in blue brought us into that tiny space with the awkward dock, and then watched smugly with their legs planted and their arms folded across their chests as I moved slowly and carefully up to the indicated dock in those blustering conditions.   SF’s finest.   Lovely.

IN SUMMARY

The air show was fabulous.

The acrobat biplane pilot was amazing.

The Blue Angels were spectacular.

The SF police were obnoxious little boys.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com

The weekend before I had put my newly repaired dinghy in the water and ran the dink around the marina and the channel for an hour getting the feel of it and how it handled.  I have never had a dinghy before so I thought I should try it out before committing someone else to a ride in it.  I figured, how hard can it be?

My ride started off badly because when I put the 4-stroke outboard into gear that first time I forgot to throttle down from the rabbit icon to the turtle icon, so the dink reared up – obscuring my view – and took off at high speed.  I shot out of my slip, ricocheted off the guest dock, bounced back into the channel, roared off towards an expensive looking yacht, and did a few frantic wheelies until I managed to kill the engine.  Not a very auspicious start.  However, after about an hour of alternating between careening and stalling, I figured I had the hang of it and returned my dink to my dock.  I was ready to run around Alameda over the coming weekend.

I had previously asked a delivery skipper in my marina for local advice on entering Ballena Bay and we went over the charts together.  He indicated my route and said I had to hug the outside of the breakwater all the way down the channel until I could turn into the marina.  That was the safest way because of shallow waters all around that bay.

I called the Ballena Bay marina on Friday to get my assigned slip and the harbormaster said I should head straight down the main channel, pass the first 4 docks, and we were the end-tie on the fifth dock to port. She said if I hit the fuel dock then I had gone too far.

Ballena Bay marina - Google Earth

Annie arrived Friday night and we carefully went over my NOAA nautical charts, examining our intended route and studying a satellite photo of the Ballena Bay marina that I found on Google Earth.  I am always extremely cautious when traveling somewhere that I have never been, and always carefully examine my charts.  I also like everyone on board to know where we are going and how to get there and back using the official NOAA charts.  Careful navigation is critical whether you are out to sea, coastal cruising, or running around the San Francisco Bay.  At any rate, I take it very seriously.

SATURDAY

We slept on the boat and were up early Saturday morning.  Well, we meant to be up very early but only roused ourselves around 9:00am.  Typically the mornings are wonderful in the south bay, with gentle morning light and absolute calm weather.  And getting out of the slip in the early morning is usually pretty simple – untie the boat, give the boat a gentle shove backwards and out of the slip she glides.  Not this morning – the wind was blowing hard enough that Annie couldn’t hold the boat against the port dock finger.  I cant back out when the boat is against the starboard finger because the solar panels – which the previous owner extended 2 feet off starboard – would bash into the piling at the end of the dock and be smashed as I back out, so I have to back out as close to the port finger as possible.

Annie couldn’t hold the boat against the port finger with the wind trying to knock her off her feet, so I jumped off the boat to help, but even with 2 of us we were struggling to hold the boat.  Eventually with lots of semi-helpful suggestions yelled back and forth we got the boat going backwards against the port finger enough so that we could both leap on board, and I hit reverse.  We were free.

We motored up the bay with the wind howling thru the rigging.  As we approached the San Mateo Bridge heading for the Bay Bridge, it didn’t ease my tension any when the Coast Guard came on the radio and put out a high winds alert for the area and warned – All Mariners exercise extreme caution in the region of the San Mateo Bridge.  Any warm fuzzy feeling I had about Freedom and being Out On The Bay promptly evaporated.

It took 3½ hours to motor against the current and against the winds to Ballena Bay.  The winds were still so high as we approached the marina that I decided that we should anchor outside the marina until the winds abated.  I was reluctant to go into an unknown marina in a fat trimaran with high winds blowing me around.  But incredibly the winds suddenly died to nothing as we approached the marina buoys and by the time we turned down the marina’s main channel, it was dead calm.  We counted off the docks and identified our berth.  I continued down the channel to the fuel dock, did a pirouette, came back up the channel and docked facing the exit with my starboard against the dock.  Annie jumped off and secured the bow while I leapt off the stern and tied that off.  It was around 1:00pm Saturday and we were safely docked.

We only had Saturday and Sunday for our adventure, so without much ado we grabbed money, camera, sweaters, and drinks… locked up the boat and headed out for the afternoon to see Alameda’s famous Victorian homes.

ALAMEDA’s  VICTORIANS

Well, this is art decor - but a beautiful example

The city of Alameda was founded in 1853 and has a population of around 73,000 living on the island today.  A Victorian home should have a minimum of 7 colors, they say, and Alameda has the highest concentration of Victorian homes with over 3000 Painted Ladies built during the 1800s. It is said that Alameda has more pre-1906 earthquake era homes than any other city in the Bay Area.

(Alameda is also famous for its Fourth of July parade which is one of the largest and longest in the country.  It features homemade floats, classic cars, motorized living room furniture, fire breathing dragons, marching bands and lots of enthusiastic people. The parade route is about 3 miles long.  This parade is going on my list of places to visit for next year’s July 4^th).

We went by the harbormaster’s office and picked up a flier that had a rough map of Alameda about the size of a postcard with the borders of the flier taken up with advertising… you know, the kind they give tourists.  The harbormaster marked the map with various places of interest and we walked out of the marina up to Central Ave and turned right towards Alameda’s historic downtown following the route marked on our trusty map.  Having a digital camera means you can be trigger happy and I snapped every lovely home we came across.  We saw whole streets of gorgeous homes, all beautifully painted, with intricate and delicate embellishments.  I snapped away happily.  I had done some research online and I specifically wanted to see a special house that looked stunning online.  We walked and walked until we reached the Meyer House in Alameda Ave.  Aaaaaarrrggh – that wasn’t it – how did I mess that up??  The Meyer House is all white!!!  Well, maybe it is 7 shades of white, but who can tell white from white in stark sunlight.  Annie said that maybe they were base painting the house with primer getting it ready for its 7+ colors…..  but I would not be mollified.

Annie sitting on a carriage stop - with ring for tying horses

We continued on down Alameda Ave until we reached the historic city section.  By this time we had been walking for over 3 hours and we were hungry and thirsty.  We stopped for falafels at a little Mediterranean eatery and the food was delicious.  Then Annie spotted a museum which we visited.  They had a wonderful collection of Victorian artifacts as well as a glass cabinet displaying beautifully beaded women’s purses.  Grandma’s beaded purse used to be tossed out as too old fashioned but today they cost a fortune on eBay.

Grandma's beaded purses

The woman in the store suggested we walk down to San Jose and Willow where a stunning example of a Victorian home stood on the corner. We followed her suggestion and after another half hour of walking there it was!!!  The beauty I had seen on the internet.  What a gorgeous gorgeous example of a Victorian home – covered in color, resplendent in embellishments, and standing tall and proud on the corner.  All the exquisite homes on Alameda pale in comparison to this one.  I stood and stared in wonder.  After four hours of walking my feet ached, my back ached… actually my whole body ached, but it was all worth it.  This is a fabulous example of a Painted Lady and a must see for any visitor to the island.

close up detail

more exquisite detail

By now the sun was low, the pain in my feet was high, my digital camera’s battery was running low and I was ready to head for the boat at high speed.  Neither of us relished the 5 mile walk back to the marina and so it was that by some miracle Annie spotted a taxi just then.  We hailed it and to our great relief it stopped.  Within 10 minutes we were back on the boat and I was flat on my back with my aching feet held in the air, draining the engorged blood out of them.  Oh my god but they hurt.  I keep forgetting that at my age I should be wrapped in a shawl, sitting on a rocker watching the sun set every evening.  Well almost….

Annie and I had talked earlier about crashing the party that night at the yacht club around the corner and checking out the sailors, but just the thought of putting any further pressure on my aching, swollen soles was enough to put me off.  I lay flat on the bunk, feet in the air, and complained until Annie shoved 2 Ibuprofen at me to shut me up.

ALAMEDA  ISLAND  CIRCUMNAVIGATION

SUNDAY

Sunday morning dawned beautiful and calm.  My feet didn’t hurt anymore!!!  What bliss.  I sat in the cockpit watching the morning’s activity as Annie cooked up a mouthwatering breakfast.  It’s a busy little marina where they obviously have a training school on Boat Handling because boats went up and down the channels, backing up, docking, turning, and maneuvering busily.

A monohull came down the channel towards me and someone called out for a 160 degree turn.  160 degrees, I mused, such a precise metric?  Not 180 or 360 but 160?  How peculiar.  I watched interestedly to see what would happen.  The helmsman executed a neat 360 and everyone hi-fived him.  I’m guessing that all of the crew on that boat failed Geometry at school.

Then a mature woman and her man came down the channel in a dinghy, the kind of dinghy that has seats and a steering column in the center of the boat (as opposed to mine where you steer the boat by turning the outboard’s handle).  She was in the seat with both hands on the wheel giving the impression that she was steering.  However, husband was sitting on the port pontoon with his right arm extended holding the steering wheel.  He was making very forceful turning moves and was clearly in control of the dinghy.  Suddenly she threw up her hands, said some choice words to hubby, gave up fighting his overbearing control, and released the wheel.  Unfortunately she lost that round because he simply took over control of the wheel which is what he wanted all along.  Why do men do that to women?  More to the point, why do women let men do that to them??  Assuming she can steer a car down a busy freeway at 65mph, why would he think she is incapable of steering a dinghy down a quiet channel at 3mph?  In fact, she is probably also capable of doing a perfect 160.

The kids on the boat next to mine are having such fun swinging around in the bosun’s chair that their dad rigged for them.  Their happy laughter is such a delight.  I must remember the bosun chair trick the next time my grandchildren visit me on my boat.

The channel looked much wider this morning than when I came in yesterday until I realized that all the catamarans and trimarans that clogged the channel yesterday were all out sailing.  When you have multihulls on the end-ties of the docks, each extending 25 to 30 feet into the channel, then your nice wide channel suddenly becomes very constricted as you lose 60ft.  This marina has an astonishing amount of mulithulls in it.  A 40ft Norseman came by and the skipper yelled out that the boat went to weather very well for a catamaran.  I immediately experienced severe pangs of “go-to-weather” envy.  My trimaran thinks that “go to weather” means find a sunny spot on the Bay and anchor!

The start of our circumnavigation of Alameda island

Around Sunday noon Annie and I pored over my NOAA charts examining the island.  According to the chart the channel was deep enough all along its length such that we could circumnavigate the island in the dinghy if we wanted to.  We decided to try.   Little did we both realize at the time, but the circumnavigation distance is over 18 miles!

As I placed my precious Charts back into the navigation station Annie laughingly picked up the tourist flier we used yesterday with the rough map of Alameda.  The map is not drawn to scale, and is not drawn very precisely in general outline either, but Annie said that it would be our chart as she laughingly tucked it into her pocket.

Map of Alameda, credits:  http://gotoes.org/kayaktours/20070128_CircumnavigateAlameda/

We dropped the dinghy in the water at which point I noticed that I hadn’t pumped the pontoons very firmly, or they had lost air.  In any case they were not as taut as I would have liked.  I dug out my foot pump that had never been used and found the obvious reason for this – I couldn’t find the connector that joined the pump hose to the pontoon valve.  Annie said, What are we going to do about this?  And I said, Nothing, just don’t sit on the pontoons.  And I flung the oars in the dinghy for good measure.

Annie insisted that we visit the fuel dock and fill the gasoline canister.  I was sure we would have enough gas for the afternoon but Annie was insistent.  As we dinghied down to the fuel dock I mentioned casually that I didn’t have much experience with dinghies and so she should be prepared for unexpected maneuverings.

We came up to the fuel dock calmly enough giving the false impression that I had the dinghy under control.  Annie crouched ready to exit the dinghy in a dignified way, and tie up.  I put the outboard into neutral but unfortunately I pushed the handle too far back and it clicked into reverse.  The dinghy started backwards.  Realizing my mistake I quickly pulled the lever forward but over-corrected again and the dinghy lurched forward in gear and t-boned the dock heavily.  I quickly rammed the lever into reverse again.  The sudden forward jolt coupled with the rapid backwards movement caused Annie to squawk and fall over backwards into the dinghy.  I did the only logical thing – I clutched my sides and rolled around hooting with laughter.

At the next attempt to dock Annie had completely lost faith in my dinghy handling ability and flung herself out of the dinghy before we even made contact with the dock.  We tied up, filled the gasoline container, and took off again down the channel somewhat more sedately I thought, with Annie firmly wedged up front not trusting me to get us down even the main channel unscathed.

In my defense I said contritely, Well I did warn you that I didn’t have much dinghy experience.  Last week was the first time I ever handled a dinghy but I did run around the marina for at least an hour, I asserted.

Annie said, One lousy hour?!  When you mentioned you had just a little experience I thought you were being self-deprecating and humble.  I didn’t know you meant you REALLY didn’t know what the hell you were doing.

I am claiming absolute innocence on this one…. In the interests of full disclosure I did mention it, albeit vaguely, up front.

Annie said she hoped no one was filming our fuel dock fiasco because otherwise we would be on YouTube by evening and viral by tomorrow with 2 million viewings.  Not to mention them winning $10,000 for their entry of us in America’s Funniest Home Videos.

We exited the marina and began our circumnavigation in an anti-clockwise direction.  We decided we would head for the first bridge that marked the beginning (or end?) of the Oakland Channel.  At that point we would see how long it took and decide to go forward or turn back.  The bridge seemed a long way away but we reached it in 30 minutes and decided to proceed.

We would go to Coast Guard Island and then decide if we wanted to turn back or proceed.  We reached the CGI in the next 30 minutes and decided to proceed.

We would go to Jack London Square and then decide if we wanted to proceed or turn back.  When we got to JLS we had been in the dink for about 1½ hours.  Annie hauled out her postcard sized tourist map of the island and we decided that as close as we could tell from that particular map, we were more or less half way around the island.  At this point we could go forward or retrace our steps to the marina.  We palpated the pontoons gently and decided to go forward.

As we made our way down the Oakland Channel towards the open Bay the chop increased significantly to the point where Annie suggested we don our life jackets, which we did.  Water was slopping into the dinghy at the rate of about a ½ a bucket per splash and very soon I was sitting in 6 inches of water.  However, the buoy to the entrance of the channel was just ahead egging us onwards so we decided that we would round the buoy/point and then decide if we would proceed or turn and run back down the channel.

At this stage we also decided we should start bailing.  Annie was wearing a baseball cap which I considered using as a bailing cup over protestations from Annie.  We were both wearing bras which gave us another 4 cups to bail with, but then Annie pulled out her little water bottle and we decided to try that first.  Annie couldn’t help because she couldn’t reach behind me so I steered with one hand and bailed with the other.  I was almost up to my waist in water and the gas tank was semi-submerged.  With the water coming in at the rate of ½ a bucket per splash and me bailing at the rate of one little water bottle at a time, it was a bit of a losing battle.  But I persisted.

I was hugging the shoreline so I figured we weren’t really in deathly danger.  Absolute worst case would be that the dinghy sank and we had to swim for the shore 40ft away.  And then we would use my iPhone which was sealed in a plastic bag to call 911.  No problem.

Eventually we rounded the point and were now in the open Bay.  Now the chop had turned to swells that hit us broadside as we turned south.  The good news was that the sea wasn’t pouring into the dinghy anymore.  The bad news was that we were rolling sideways over the swells which could tip the dinghy.

Annie suggested we “run like hell” for the marina.  I palpated the pontoons again which felt to me somewhat limper than 2 hours ago – but maybe it was just my overactive imagination.  The dinghy’s “run-like-hell” flat-out speed was rather more of a waddle as we rolled over the swells, which considering my lack of skills was probably just as well.

Note to self:  buy a hand pump for the dinghy, with all appropriate connections.

Since we were so near the shoreline, Annie was crouched in the front of the dinghy keeping a watch for submarine pipelines, sunken hazards, submerged rocks, and sandbars – or more accurately, mud bars.  I continued to bail and steer.

We saw another point up ahead and decided that must be the final point and then we would see the marina.  The broadside swells were somewhat unnerving as we flopped over them.

We rounded the point and saw another point up ahead and decided that that must be the final point before the marina.

We rounded that point and saw yet another point up ahead and decided that that absolutely must be the final point before the marina.

I had managed to get ahead with the bailing and was down to just 2 inches and decided I could tolerate sitting in that for another hour. My skin was all crinkly with sitting in sea water for so long, so I can now categorically state without a shadow of doubt that the southern regions do not like being submerged in sea water for extended periods.

We rounded the point and saw yet another f%#$ing point up ahead.  There was no sign of the elusive breakwater.  We were nonplussed – the distance from buoy to breakwater hadn’t looked so great on the NOAA chart this morning?

I mused aloud, I wonder where we are right now?  At this stage Annie pulled out her now incredibly soaked tatty tourist map that we had used as our “chart”, pointed to a soggy spot and declared firmly – We are right here!  It was such a ludicrous gesture that we both burst out laughing and couldn’t stop.  We laughed until the tears ran down our cheeks and we thought we would wet ourselves.  I was fine with that since I had been sitting in a pool of sea water for hours anyway, so who would be able to tell the difference?!

We dinghied onward in our now stalwart fashion, but every time we looked at each other we would lose control and clutching our sides we would roll with laughter all over again.  The contrast between our careful perusal of the NOAA charts this morning, and the incredibly soggy tourist map that Annie held was so vast that we couldn’t stop laughing.

We finally rounded a point and there was the marina in the distance!  What a welcome sight.  We cut across Ballena Bay heading directly for the marina – no fussing around following the breakwater this time!

Once we were well out and angling across Ballena Bay, the swells became fairly large following seas – relative to a dinghy’s size anyway.  We were doing some serious surfing.  Annie was looking behind to warn me of large swells while I concentrated on the front so that we didn’t get tipped over since it was now a very long swim to shore.  Then Annie raised the question of me dumping us in the drink by mistake.  I pooh-poohed that on the grounds that I had so much experience in dinghy handling by now that I was practically an expert.  Annie snorted – You have already admitted to only 1 hour last week and 2 hours today giving you a total of 3 hours experience.  Expert my ass!  Its just plain dumb luck that you haven’t tipped us into the sea already.  But I staunchly defended my Expert label and refused to concede on that point.

There were 2 yachts further out into the bay and as we surfed past them they both turned and followed us.  I maintained that they had been lost and were only too pleased to see someone who obviously knew the way and could lead them back to the marina.  Annie maintained that they were so shocked to see 2 women in a dinghy come surfing past them, that they decided to follow us and render assistance when I dunked us in the sea.  Well, I might have to concede that point to Annie, albeit reluctantly, because they followed us to the marina and then fell off when we were safely inside.

All in all it took over 3½ hours to circumnavigate Alameda Island in the dinghy.  It is an 18 mile circuit and an exciting adventure but not recommended for the fainthearted.

HOMEWARD BOUND

We got back to the boat around 4pm Sunday afternoon, hauled up the dinghy, cast off, and headed out while we were still both soaking wet.  During the trip back home we took turns to go below and clean up.

We got back to my home marina around 8pm Sunday night, exhausted but exhilarated.

It was a fabulous weekend.  Huge fun.  And Annie and I got on like a house on fire.  We found we are both Geminis we were born just one day apart, she on the 25^th and me on the 26^th.  I want it to go on record here that Annie is the older of the two of us – okay, its only by 24 hours but details like that are important to a woman.

Annie and I have the same sense of humor, and we laughed a lot.  We like the same music, and she can cook like a dream!  And both of us were happy to exit unwise marriages – good solid common ground there.

Annie is a good foil for me – I seldom think before I leap.  Annie wisely suggested filling up the dinghy gas tank, which never even occurred to me, and we would definitely have run out of fuel when surfing out in the bay had we not filled up.  That tank had just a few cups of gas left over when we got back home… although we did have the oars… and a very long row home.

She also suggested putting on our PFDs rather than wait until I dumped us in the drink and we had to swim for them.

And rather than motor majestically down the center of the channel in my little dink, she suggested I should hug the shoreline to minimize our swim to shore should I sink us.

And to seal my iPhone in a plastic bag should we need it at any time during the afternoon – it’s not as though we had an EPIRB handy in the dink.

I know that I tend to carefully study my charts for ages, and review my route with local experienced skippers, listen to their advice and take all the precautions they suggest – but otherwise I tend to live in the moment.  Annie is more practical than me.  I am boat safety conscious, and Annie is people safety conscious.

I asked Annie to write down a few of her thoughts on the weekend for my blog.  She said that any invitation from me to go boating for a weekend can be covered in just 5 words….. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Fireworks in the Bay

INDEPENDENCE DAY – and a long weekend – Sat, Sun, and Monday.

There are various sites in San Francisco Bay where you can anchor overnight that will give you an excellent view of the spectacular fireworks displays along the various waterfronts on Sunday night, the 4^th of July.

Annie and Darlene said they were available to anchor out with me, so the long weekend was a Go.  Annie was in charge of the menu, while I spent the week preparing the boat.

I checked that the anchor and windlass worked, checked the batteries, filled the water tanks, emptied the toilet holding tank, cleared off the stuff cluttering the guest bed, cleaned the windscreens, got new batteries for the portable radio, bought a ton of Cokes, fetched my Mac so that we could play DVDs, and just generally puttered around.

I also dropped the dinghy onto the dock intending to inflate the slackened pontoons but once I had the dinghy down where I could see it properly, I noticed that the transom had come away from the port pontoon.  I visited West Marine for friendly advice on how I could repair and re-glue the separation.  The glue alone was $128 but the advice was free – they suggested I take it to an inflatable repair facility.  That was a blow – I was expecting us to have a runabout for the weekend.

Transom coming unglued from the pontoon

Annie and Darlene arrived early Saturday morning and we cast off the dock lines and motored into a clear, warm, calm day.  No wind.  But then again, there is never any wind early in the morning in the Bay, however, around noon up comes a howling banshee of a wind as regular as clockwork.  Well, maybe “howling” is overstating it somewhat, but a solid 20 knots with sharp gusts blows thru.

Under the Bay Bridge, Darlene, and San Francisco in the background

We motored calmly up the Bay and Annie mentioned that the SFWeather said that there would be a Small Craft Warning in the afternoon.  Darlene made a joke to the effect that we weren’t a small craft so we didn’t have to worry.  Right.  As we motored under the Bay Bridge and moved out from the protection of the highrise buildings of the City to our left, we were quite suddenly slammed with high wind and sloppy waves that splashed over the bow and onto my clean windscreen utterly obliterating our view.  Darlene did a rapid disappearing trick behind cover to avoid being soaked through.

We weren’t sailing so we didn’t have to rush to reduce sail and we weren’t in any real danger, but the radio crackled on and on with Pan-Pan calls from the Coast Guard asking sailors to look out for a craft overturned near Berkeley, or a boat taking on water near the island, or a vessel sinking near….   Seems that if you were a small craft, you were in real trouble.

Alcatraz coming up

We bounced thru the bay being doused in spray.  We passed Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate Bridge to our left, and finally after a total of 4 hours of motoring we reached Richardson Bay.  I had been told to anchor near Cove Rock because with my shallow draft we would comfortably manage the 7ft depth.  We entered the Sausalito bay eagerly looking out for the rock.  It turns out that Cove Rock is actually a lump below the water and all you can see is a very large bouy marking the spot.

The Golden Gate bridge to port

Since I was the only one who sort of knew how the windlass worked, I put Darlene on the helm and we went thru our hand signals – Stop, go left, go right, go forward, go back, and power back hard to check the holding.  You have to have hand signals to impress the watching masses.  It doesn’t matter how badly you mess up, but if you hold up a fist (the military equivalent of Stop) and the helmsman responds by putting the boat in neutral, then everyone watching goes Aaaaah!  You just look professional – even when you aren’t.

Then Annie and I went forward to drop the anchor.  The first time we dropped it and Darlene powered back the boat, the anchor did not bite and we hopped backwards.  We lifted the anchor and tried again.  This time the anchor bit and held under full reverse power.

Then Annie and I tried to connect the bridle to the anchor rode with mixed success.  The anchor hangs off the middle ama which puts strain on the bow and windlass and also allows FastAlley to twirl around freely – putting further strain on the bow.  To reduce the twirling there is a bridle contraption which is a long, thick line with clips at each end another clip in the middle.  The middle clip is hanked onto the anchor chain hanging off the bow, and the two ends are connected, one each, to the port and starboard amas.  This v-shaped effect reduces twirling.  Of course it does nothing for the windage – you’re stuck with that.

Eventually Darlene at the helm got bored watching us struggling away and came up to see what the fuss was all about.  All three of us offered advice to each other on how to tie the bridle properly.  It was a hoot and I’m sure everyone watching from the houses on shore were vastly entertained with our Anchoring By Committee.  .  Eventually we got the bridle connected to the anchor, but we also had 50ft of chain out in just 7ft of water.  Basically that gave us enough scope for a hurricane!  There was no denying we were holding firm so we called it a day, retreated to the cockpit, killed the engine, and made coffee.

Sausalito with its mantle of cloud

Considering the Small Craft Warning just one mile away in the Bay, it was beautifully calm at the anchorage and the views were spectacular.  Sausalito nestles on the side of hills, and a mantle of cloud gently covered the tops.  We watched the sun set and chatted into the evening.  After dinner and a movie, I left some soft track lighting on so that we could see our way should we have to get up during the night, and we all hit the sack.

Sunday morning dawned and I shot out of bed to check my batteries.  There had been no wind during the night and so the wind generator hadn’t charged the batteries and the track lighting had run them down to a little over 12.  I switched from the wind generator to solar power and slowly my batteries came back up again.  Around noon high winds buffeted us at anchor and I gleefully switched on the wind generator and watched it rapidly top off my batteries.  Sometimes I like wind.

Annie whipping up a gourmet meal

Annie had a great menu planned and we ate generously.  We could hear the parade trumpeting thru the streets of Sausalito but we were stuck on the boat with no dinghy.

Still it was very relaxing.  Darlene bravely tried the solar shower and declared it marginal.

Anne and Darlene got energetic and started doing yoga on the tossing deck while I tried not to feel guilty at my lack of enthusiasm for exercise.

Boats started arriving in their hordes but avoided anchoring anywhere near us – because we were in such shallow water.  It was great having the waters at Cove Rock all to ourselves and not having to worry about a boat dragging into us.  Or us twirling into someone on our 50ft swing.  It got pretty crowded in the cheap seats as more and more boats arrived throughout the afternoon and anchored – way over there!

The other major consideration with a trimaran is that it is twirled around at anchor by the wind.  Monohulls with their deep keels are moved by the tides.  The bridle on my anchor stops any great swings, but the winds still have quite an impact on a shallow draft vessel with such high freeboard as my trimaran has.  So at any one time you would see all the monohulls sedately facing into the tide, and FastAlley doing a dance thru 60 degrees as the wind clocked around constantly, back and forth.  So much for the “prevailing” wind – it was gusting all over the place.

Around 9:30pm it was dark enough for the fireworks show and the skies over Sausalito lit up with color and sparkle.  Of course, my finger is somewhat slower on the camera shutter than my eye, so I got a lot of pictures of fuzzy dots on a black background.  But the show was fun to watch – it is years since I saw fireworks.

Then the two San Francisco fireworks shows started along the city waterfront but it was pretty distant and the fireworks exploded high enough that they were obscured by the marine layer.  All we could see was the rocket streaking towards the low cloud….. then nothing, just a loud bang as it exploded and the clouds turned red, green, or gold.  And the racket from the finale was something to hear – but not to see.

It was pretty cold by the end of the show so we retreated below, crawled into our snug beds, and watched a movie – The Last of the Mohicans.  It is my favorite film but I was asleep 20 minutes into the show.

This time the wind blew all night, powering up my batteries as the track lighting flattened them.  It’s a beautiful thing.

Homeward bound buoy

Monday morning dawned cold and foggy.  We lifted the anchor, un-tethered the bridle, and got underway around 9:30am.  I expected the trip back to be a hard slog against the current but there was no wind, the water was flat calm, and FastAlley flew along.  We were back at the dock by 2:00pm.

I have two wishes – I wish I had had my dinghy so that we could have run around the waterfront and followed the parade, and maybe visited all the houseboats that Sausalito is so famous for.  And I wish I had my new cockpit enclosures in place already for the long weekend.  It would have been nice to have a cozy cockpit.

…..so that just means that we will have to do this again some time!

Bay Bridge and the city

FastAlley ready for her crew to arrive

I decided to spend a few days in the Sacramento Delta and shanghai’ed a friend into coming along.   We didn’t deliberately choose this time of year, namely late Fall; it was more or less decided for us by circumstances. But the weather forecast was for calm days, highs in the mid 60’s, and most importantly, no mosquitoes because it is too late in the season for the little body snatchers.

DAY 1 We decided to travel from the marina in the south of the Bay to the Benicia Marina on the first day.  It looked do-able on the chart, but paper charts and reality are two vastly different things. We left the dock at 8:30am in incredibly calm conditions – zero wind, clear skies, flat waters.  It started out a beautiful morning.  However, it didn’t stay that way for long.   We exited the Slough and turned into the main channel of the Bay for San Francisco and pretty soon we ran into fog.  Initially we could see a few hundred yards ahead as I went downstairs to start up the radar.  But by 10:00am we were in dense fog and having to rely on the radar and horns, but it seemed we were the only ones out there!  Nevertheless we crept along because we had bridges to go under and buttresses to avoid.  We were also fighting the incoming tide and lost nearly 2 knots to the current.   With our reduced speed and the 2 knots against us, we were making poor time. As we neared San Francisco the tide turned and was going out.   Also the fog had lifted and it was now a beautiful day.  Also the tide was in our favor and we roared along as we gained +2 knots.  At noon we passed under the Oakland Bay Bridge and made our way to the San Pablo Bay – where the outgoing current was now against us again.  Our speed dropped from 9 knots to 3.8 as we clawed our way to Benicia. The Benicia Marina closed at 4:30pm and I called at 3:00pm to warn them that we would not reach them in time.  They said we should dock at their fuel dock and they would leave a key to the showers in a key slot in their office door.

Docked in Benicia Marina

We docked at Benicia Marina after 5:00pm, were showered by 6:00, and making dinner by 7:00pm.  Dinner was salmon and homemade tartar sauce, and couscous, with a mixed salad,.  It was delicious.  We decide to watch the movie Phenomenon with John Travolta, but 1/3 of the way thru the movie we switched it off and were asleep by 9:00pm. It was a long first day – I wouldn’t recommend it.  We should have broken our trip at Berkeley, or San Francisco, or Sausalito.  Anywhere would have been preferable to 9 hours slogging against the current.

DAY 2 We left the Benicia Marina dock at 10:30am.  A Delta regular walking along the docks recommended that our next stop be Rio Vista, then Walnut Grove, and then back via the Georgianna Slough. We thought we might sail calmly along the Delta in blissful silence, because we always seem to use the engine.  But the rivers in the Delta are too narrow for a 41ft boat to sail; we would be tacking every 100ft until the rig gave in or we gave in – whichever happened first.  So we motored yet again. The tide was in our favor (thank heavens) and we gained nearly 3 knots, so we were roaring along at over 9 kn.  As we neared Rio Vista we noticed tons of spiders around – flying spiders I guess because rows and rows of strands of spider web were streaming off our shrouds – actually the strands of webs were flying off anything that they connected with presumably as the spider whistled past.  And there were little spiders crawling around all over the deck – hopefully they are not poisonous or in any way unfriendly.  It feels strange, quite unnerving really, to walk around the deck and get spider webs all over your body.

Rio Vista bridge being raised 60ft to accommodate our 50ft mast

The entrance to the marina in Rio Vista is very narrow and from what we could see as we did a drive-by, it looked very narrow inside too.  FastAlley is a wide batmobile so I was nervous that we wouldn’t be able to turn and/or rotate once we were inside.  However, after crawling carefully thru the narrow entrance, we found that the transient docking area was quite substantial.

Standing next to FastAlley on the transient dock looking back at the narrow entrance to the marina

Once the boat was safely tied up, we walked the 10 minutes into downtown historic Rio Vista for dinner at Lucy’s.

Safely tied up in the transient slips of Rio Vista marina

As we strolled the area, we saw a young man from the marina restaurant setting a raccoon trap because he said a little tribe of raccoons were climbing in the restaurant garbage during the night and causing damage.  We examined his trap as he explained how he thought it would work.

Racoon cage

The next morning while my friend was in the marina gift shop they were discussing the big raccoon they had caught.  The young man had threatened to kill it when he caught it, but now that he was eyeball to eyeball with the creature, he had lost his lust to kill.  My friend suggested relocating the raccoon to a competitor’s restaurant instead – which they thought was a pretty good idea. I met a small boy about 7 years old riding his bicycle in the marina and he gave me an angelic smile as he paused to say Hello.  He added shyly, “Its been years since I’ve been here (too cute!) so I’m taking a drive down memory lane”.  I kept a straight face with some difficulty.  No doubt he was quoting his grandmother’s parting words as he rode off on his bike earlier. The marina had a tiny area for walking the dog.  It had all a male dogs favorite pee-related things – a fire hydrant, a tree stump, and a sand layer.

Self explanatory

Dog's fire hydrant

dog's tree stump

DAY 3 Left Rio Vista for Walnut Grove and again the tide is in our favor shoving us along.  We passed the town of Isleton and decided that we would visit it on our way back.  We called ahead to the Ryde Hotel for overnighting on their guest dock (with power) but we missed the hotel in our enthusiasm to reach Walnut Grove.  We went all the way to Walnut Grove and under the bridge, only to discover we had missed it 3 miles earlier.  We had to turn around, go back under the bridge, and 3 miles down the Sacramento River again.  It was a little embarrassing because the batmobile is a pretty obvious boat, and I called to the bridge asking them to open up for FastAlley.  The traffic was stopped, bells rang, the bridge lifted ponderously and we went thru.  Then we discovered we had missed the hotel and had to go back to the bridge, request they lift it, traffic was stopped, bells rang, the bridge lifted reluctantly, and we squirmed our way thru again.

1930's Ryde Hotel

It was worth it though because the Hotel is just gorgeous, and although it was closed for the winter they let us tie up to the dock for $31 and have hot showers. Because the hotel was closed, the receptionist handed us the key to the front door of the hotel and told us to make sure we locked up after we were finished showering.  Gotta love the Honor System!  The hotel has 42 rooms, a 9-hole golf course, and near enough to the historic city of Locke so that we can motor up first thing in the morning and grab a spot on the free public dock. Gorgeous gorgeous evening – warm enough for summer t-shirts, shorts.  No wind, ZERO mosquitoes, slack tide, and my friend making steak and baked potato on the BBQ.  My contribution is to hack up some tomatoes for salad.  I hate cooking.

DAY 4 Left the Ryde Hotel and made our way back upriver again to Walnut Grove and stopped at the free public dock.  Ww walked the 500-yards to the historic city of Locke which is an old city first occupied by the Chinese during the 1910’s.  The Chinese helped build the levees of the Sacramento Delta, and also farmed the land.

Building in historic Locke

Now the city of one-block is very quaint but falling down.

The main street (and only block) of Locke

I almost wish that the Locke Foundation was more active in repairing and rejuvenating Locke.  But the city may have been continuously occupied by the Chinese for the last 100 years but their wonderful architectural influence is utterly absent.  No swooping rooftops, no manicured gardens, no bright red paintwork.  Really, it just looks like any other old wooden city.  But quaint enough to be worth a visit.

ok, I know this is just too touristy for words!

We bought a delicious ice cream in the store opposite the public dock, then returned to the boat.  On the dock we passed a couple who were eating hamburgers that they said tasted fine but were overpriced – $6 for a burger and fries.   She said the hamburger hut had just opened and they were their very first customer!  They had mixed feelings about that, especially the $6.  They suggested that we should take the time to continue upriver to Sacramento old town, rather than turn around and visit Isleton.  Apparently the crime in Isleton is pretty high and its not even safe to leave the marina.

Homes lining the banks of the Sacramento River

So we cast off and continued upriver to Sacramento – but with the tide against up AGAIN it took nearly 6 hours to reach our marina where we had booked an overnight stay.  The harbormaster sounded very young – my friend on the radio asked how much it would cost and the harbormaster responded, “$1 per foot, what is your length?”  My friend responded, “41 feet”.  After a long silence the harbormaster said, “Is $1/ft too expensive?”  (So cute).  I nodded vigorously but my friend just said into the radio, “No, that’s fine”.  Gotta teach that man the value of a $1.00!  Turns out the harbormaster is very young, perhaps not even 20 yet. I must say they had the BEST showers of all the marinas I have visited so far.  The only downside was that their fuel dock where we overnighted had evenly spaced cement poles along its length, which were a real problem for the 41ft trimaran.  It was obvious that the poles were going to wreak havoc on the paintwork as the trimaran bulged out just at the point of the pole placement, and the fenders just curled around the posts and exposed the boat topsides to the cement poles.  We spent about an hour tying our fenders to the poles instead of to the boat.  It was a long tiring day – it took over 6 hours up the Sacramento River which twists and turns over and over, and over and over.  You have to be very aware of logs in the water and various obstructions.  Toddling along at 5 knots because of the 2 knot current against us, was very tiring.  And boring.  There is just so much excitement you can generate from miles of homes on the river bank.  And miles of bushes.  And trees.  And boat wrecks.

Yet another wreck on the river bank....

We were hurrying – as much as the current would allow us – to get to Sacramento before 5:00pm because we knew we had to go under 2 low bridges to our marina, and the bridge operators all go home at 5:00pm.  We called ahead when the bridges were in sight and the (first) lift bridge lifted 60 feet and we went under then scooted along to the swing bridge.  The operator there kindly opened for us and as we exited the clock said 5:01pm – made it!  I thanked the operator for staying late for us and he waved.

Swing bridge starting to open....

..... and swing bridge open

DAY 5

We used that fabulous shower again this morning – I couldn’t resist.  Today we will tie up at the Sacramento old town public dock and explore the historic city. We are both exhausted so we will stay over another night at the dock and move on tomorrow – with the tide !! But then we revisited the boat logs and discovered that we didnt have time to spend a day in Sacramento if we wanted to get back home by Sunday night.  In fact, according to our calculations we would be travelling for most of the next 3 days. So we turned back for home – motoring steadily along – with the tide sometimes in our favor and sometimes shoving us backwards. Sacramento was too far to travel – it took all of the day to reach it from Walnut Grove, and then all of the next day to get back to WG.

DAY 6

We overnighted at the Ryde Hotel again, then headed downriver again, giving Rio Vista a miss and heading for Benicia.

DAY 7

 We overnighted at Benicia and then headed for San Francisco and the south of the Bay. We should have taken the advice of the local that we met on the Benicia docks that first day in the Delta – and turned at Walnut Grove and returned via the Georgina Slough – rather than taking the hamburger couple’s advice and wasting 2 days slogging to Sacramento.  If you have a limited timeframe for touring the Delta, you dont want to travel from Walnut Grove to Sacramento – it is just too time consuming.

SUMMARY

Travelling the Delta in late Fall/early Winter is the perfect time to visit.  It is not staggeringly hot, but mildly sunny.  There are no mosquitoes.  Fewer crowds in the towns.  Open and available docks for overnighting.  And very little traffic on the river.  If you can delay your trip till the latter part of the year, you will enjoy it more.  Well, we did. And the river is usually 12- to 15-feet deep so most sailboats can travel the rivers without too much fear of running aground.   Of course if you have a high speed power boat then you can travel the full length of the Sacramento River and many of the Sloughs and still have time for a detour to San Francisco.  However, for the owners of waddling sailboats, you dont want to travel more than 3 hours a day before stopping. This was definitely a fun one-week trip.  I highly recommend it.  

AN INTERESTING POINT OF VIEW…. We noticed that the marinas in the Sacramento Delta have floating docks with the poles standing about 30 feet high.  Says a lot about how high the Sacramento River gets when subjected to lots of rain and flooding.  Maybe that contributes to all those wrecks along the river?

Note the 30-ft floating docks - got to be quite unnerving to visit your boat and see it floating that high up the pole.

I got a new contract in San Jose so I moved my boat from Long Beach up to its new berth in the San Francisco Bay.  I hired a skipper, Nikolay, because (a) I have never done the trip and (b) it is September and the weather forecasts were for hazardous weather, and (c) I am conservative when it comes to putting my boat out there – I like to know that at least someone knows where we are going besides the autopilot.

I also convinced a friend to act as crew.  Been-there done-that with the the 3-hours on and 3-hours off shifts.  I prefer the 3-hours on and 6-hours off type of shift.

The Skipper arrived late Thursday night and slept on the boat, as did we 2 crew.  We were up at 5:00am  making coffee and we threw off the dock lines around 6:00am Friday morning, September 25^th 2009.  We left the dock on a perfectly still morning, the water calm, the weather clear.

Skipper and crew in the cockpit watching out for traffic

Nikolay wanted to get a very early start in order to round Pt. Conception 22 hours later, around 3:00am Saturday morning when the weather is calmest, especially in light of the storm warnings from NOAA.  The early hour would also avoid the vicious Santa Ana winds that blow this time of year, further complicating the weather.

Once outside the harbor I decided to make breakfast of scrambled egg and bacon.  I think the bacon was a little off because a few hours after eating, and on calm seas, I got pretty squeamish.  I developed a low grade headache and lay down to sleep.  Much to my chagrin I slept most of the day away only waking in the very late afternoon.

We took turns standing watch Friday night and I was on at 1:00am when we were just an hour off Pt. Conception.  We had been hugging the coast all the way up, just 2 to 3 miles offshore because Nikolay said that with the topography of the land, the seas were calmest close to shore.  I woke Nikolay an hour away from Pt. Conception for the rounding.  Since the weather reports were still for high winds and high seas, I decided to hit the sack and sleep off the next few hours.

Pt. Conception was a dud – thank heavens!!  Low wind, low waves – and again we were hugging the shore.

Close inshore. And the land rolls by.....

On Saturday my stomach was considerably settled but my riend was suffering from a low grade headache and squeamishness.  He said he had felt sick on Friday but since I was down and out, he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to burden Nikolay with being the only person available for Watch.  So he had stayed on his feet Friday while I slept it off.  So Saturday night I started the evening watch, handed over to Nikolay around 9:00pm, and Nikolay called me again around 2:00am, and I stood watch and let my friend/crew sleep thru the night.  Tit for tat.

It was a gorgeous night, with almost no wind, and only 2ft swells.  The luminescence in the sea left a glowing tail stretching out behind the boat.  When Nikolay handed over the watch to me he said that he saw some dolphins come streaking toward the boat and he thought for a moment that the boat had snagged a fisherman’s net and was dragging it along.  He was relieved it was just dolphins.

I spent my watch peering into the darkness anticipating dolphins and I wasn’t disappointed.  Soon I saw 4 tubes of light streaking towards the bow, looking for all the world like we were being attacked by multiple torpedoes.   I was dying to go upfront and peer down from the bow at the tubes of light that were the dolphins playing in the bow wave, but since I was alone on watch in the middle of the night, and my deck has no lifelines, I thought I would stay in the safety of the cockpit and just peer over the side.

Once the dolphins got tired of playing and streaked off in their luminescent tubes of light, I saw a large fish come cruising alongside the boat.  It was about 10ft long, it could have been a shark.  Its large body shape was clearly outlined in the luminescence as it moved thru the water alongside the boat.  We were doing 7 knots at the time, but the fish cruised next to the boat as though we were standing still.  It seemed to be assessing us.  Then it accelerated off into the darkness – again like we were standing still.  Quite an eerie encounter.

Standing watch as the sun sets

The next morning as the sun rose I saw dolphin coming in from every direction.  Pretty soon I was surrounded by about 50 to 60 dolphin playing in the bow wave.  It was enchanting.  I watched for some time then decided that even if  my friend was feeling sick, he really should see this so I went below to wake him up.  He was already awake and getting dressed so we went upstairs and sat on the bow and watched the dolphin. We must have sat there for about an hour in the morning sun, on the gentle sea, watching frolicking dolphins.

Later that day as we neared San Francisco the sea turned red and I noticed hordes of huge jellyfish and Man of War in the water.  The skipper said their numbers were concentrated because they were feeding on the algae or bacteria (I forget which) that was turning the sea red.  Fascinating.

Outside the Golden Gate the wind was low and the sea calm, but once we passed under the bridge the wind screamed by and the wave chop was considerable.

Approaching the Golden Gate bridge (note the container ship)

Also you are competing for space with multiple large container ships, so that is unnerving if it’s the first time.  Fortunately Long Beach has a container ship at every turn in the channel so I am used to their incredible size – still you don’t want to be run down by one.  We maneuvered carefully around them.

San Francisco to starboard

Once we were inside the Bay we turned and headed for our marina.  We were hoping that we would reach the marina in daylight but the sun set just 30 minutes before we reached the marina so we were left maneuvering in the pitch dark.  This was not such an issue in the main channel that was clearly marked, however, once we reached the side channel in which my marina was located, the channel markers were few and far between.  And since I had never been to the marina before, we were riding blind.  I was very grateful that we were there at high tide because we needed the extra water under the keel.  We saw a blinking red light down the side channel and went carefully towards it, but at times there was only 3ft of water under us!!  Fortunately my trimaran only draws 2 ft, but you never know what may be sticking up out of the sand that could poke a hole in the boat.  It was a harrowing and a verrrrrry slow and careful drive down the channel to the marina entrance.

We reached the dock on Sunday night at 8:45pm.

White's Island

Long Beach harbor presents a variety of Places To Go and Things To Do.  My favorite ToDo is anchoring at White’s Island for the day or the weekend.

Docked as I was at the top of the main (Cerritos) Channel near the Henry Ford Bridge, it was a 45 minute motor down the channel to the harbor wall.  But what a fascinating trip – a variety of sights and sounds to intrigue and awe the grandkids.

Most importantly I tied the grandkids to the boat as soon as they boarded.  The tie was attached to their life jackets and to jacklines on the deck, especially necessary on my trimaran that has a 41 by 22 ft deck upon which the kids kept running around at high speed.  I could just see one of them launching overboard…..

Tied to the jacklines

Exhausting trying to keep track of each running kid – eventually I gave up and declared their safety the responsibility of the parents and I would take care of the boat.

As we move away from the dock and down the channel there are huge container ships on the port side.  My sailboat looks so teeny as we motor past and the kids stand agog.

The cruise ships that leave from Long Beach tower 10-stories above us as we continue motoring down the channel towards the fish factory where the seals hang out.

The seals mistakenly thought that we had food for them, so they packed the sides of the boat barking incessantly as they demanded fish.  When they discovered we lacked what they wanted they lost interest and returned to barking at the fishermen who were working on the wharf.

The seals are enormous – much larger than the little harbor seals we typically see swimming around.  The kids loved the size of them.  The current in the channel pushed us down, so I had to turn the boat around about 6 times, and drive up the channel a short distance so that the kids could gawk at the seals some more.

Near the mouth of the harbor is the bait shop, a floating barge anchored conveniently for fishermen near the exit from the harbor to the open seas.  We stopped and picked up a load of live fish which we put into a cooler box I had borrowed from a friend.  My friend was not amused to hear that his cooler box had been reassigned The Bait Box.

The anchored Bait Barge

The grandkids were enthralled with the little fish swimming around in the (new) bait box and kept dipping their hands in and grabbing them.  By the time Bryan looked in the box to start fishing, all the fish were almost dead.  He cut them up as bait but Bryan had entertained fond thoughts of fishing with Live bait.  Oh well, we dont always get what we want.

After the bait barge we followed the harbor wall southwards around Terminal Island, heading for White’s Island.  This part is rather boring for kids because it takes about an hour to reach the island.

Once we were anchored the kids could untie themselves from the jacklines while on the deck.  The large deck presented a fabulous runaround field – huge by kids standards with ladders up to the “roof”, hatches they can jump thru into the interior of the boat only to emerge moments later as they pop out the companionway.  I figured if they went over the side then their yelling would alert us, and they still had their life jackets on.  The kids had a ball running all over the boat exploring every inch.

Kevin and Bryan primed the BBQ while we girls put out the snacks and salads.  The kids were so excited that we abandoned trying to get food down them in any kind of formal way.  We just let them gallop past and handed them their food as they ran by.

The huge deck of the trimaran

Bryan got tired of fishing so Kevin cut the bait into small pieces and the grandkids threw the pieces to the hovering seagulls.  Within moments we were surrounded by screeching squawking gulls demanding attention – and fish!  Once again the grandkids were enthralled as they tossed pieces of fish to the hovering gulls.

Gulls diving for bait bits

We upped anchor around 4:00pm and took the shortcut around the inside of Terminal Island, passing under the Henry Ford Bridge back to our dock.

Approaching Henry Ford Bridge

Back at the dock, Bryan tried his hand at fishing again and caught a 8-inch bony fish.  He tossed it back after the kids had examined it minutely, and I had assured him the fish in the channel probably glowed in the dark as they peer out their third eye!  Back it went.

By the time my sons and their family left the boat, I was pooped.  I crawled into bed and slept like the dead.  The next day Bryan told me that Samuel had slept over and the kids were so hyper that they kept bouncing off the walls until nearly midnight.  By that time Bryan and Alex had lost their sense of humor completely.

Glad I was snoring happily in a quiet bed.

Sundry photos from the day on the water….

Zoe protecting (some) of dad's back with SPF cream

Kevin, Heather, and baby Judah

Bryan with his catch

The cockpit is roomy enough to place 2 large reclining chairs

Heather, with Samuel and Genesus