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!

Weather monitor - wind indicator

I have a West Marine model Weather Base 20 which works perfectly well and tells the temperature, humidity, time, and most important to me as a sailor, it tells the wind speed and wind direction.  That is, it did until one of the 3 cups on the external wind indicator broke off.  With only 2 cups left they balanced each other out and the monitor no longer spun/rotated in the wind – so I no longer got the wind speed.

I thought I would be able to dismantle the wind indicator, remove the offending piece, and replace it with a new piece with the requisite 3 cups.  The weather base is made by West Marine so off I went to WM to buy a replacement part.  I entered the WM store and headed straight for an assistant at the counter.

I explained my problem and the assistant looked dubious.  He said he thought that WM sold the entire base as one unit and that spare parts were not available.

At this time the gentleman standing next to me piped up helpfully.  Why not just stick a bottle cap in the place of the missing cup and it will work just fine, he offered.  And Coca Cola caps work perfectly, he added.

The mere thought of an ugly Coke cap glued onto any part of  my beautiful boat was about as attractive as a boil on a baby’s bottom.  I turned and gave the man a withering “You stay out of this!” glare.  He shrugged.

The attendant and I went thru the WM catalog.  Turns out that WM no longer makes that particular model, however, for just $549 I can buy a whole new latest-and-greatest weather base.  Excluding the cost of an electrician to remove the old weather station and fit the newest contraption, of course..

There are a lot of things I need for the boat right now, and a new weather base is not one of them, so I left the store.

Once I got back to the boat I studied the non-spinning wind indicator and pondered the problem.  The more I thought about the man’s suggestion of a Coke bottle cap, the more it made sense.  Eventually I decided it was worth a try, especially since the stupid indicator was not working anyway…  And there are no spare parts for it…  And I didn’t feel like buying a new one.

So off I went to the store and bought a 6-pack of Cokes.  I noticed that the bottle caps are a bright red so I decided to paint them black.  I picked up a cheap bottle of nail polish – black nail polish like people use on Halloween to enhance their witch costumes.

Then back to the boat.  Over the weekend I drank the cokes and kept the lids which I painted black.  Then I mixed up a batch of marine glue, climbed up on the roof of the dodger, leaned over the davits precariously, and glued a now-black cup in the spot of the missing cup.  I waited expectantly for the indicator to start spinning happily in the 10-knot wind but it just sat there.

Its the little fella below the big wind generator

I sat and watched the movement of the indicator – or non.movement in this case – and it seemed that since the other 2 cups were on extended arms and my Coke cup was glued straight to the mounting base, it was preventing a rotation from starting.  If I knocked it with my hand then it spun away and continued to spin, but once I stopped it again, it couldn’t restart its spin.  Obviously I must have slept thru the lesson about wind dynamics in school.

So I thought if I glued another 2 cups to the mounting then the new 3 cups would generate the start speed needed to get it spinning.  So I did that.  Now I had 5 cups on the indicator – 3 Coke caps (painted Halloween black) glued directly to the monitor, and 2 originals on their extended arms.

By this time the wind had picked up so I sat back waiting for the vroooom that would indicate my monitor was spinning wildly – but it didn’t move.  All I had done was counter balance the stupid thing again.  As I watched, the wind would catch the cup on the extended arm and shove it clockwise.  Then the wind would catch the other extended cup and shove it anti-clockwise.  So the indicator wobbled back and forth, but did not fully rotate.

Obviously I needed to replace a-cup-on-an-extended-arm like the one that broke off.  I know, I know, I shouldn’t have second guessed the original designer – but who knew 5 cups would not do the trick?!

Back to the drawing board….  I cut up an expired credit card into thin strips to use as the arm extension and glued the strips together to get rigidity.  And painted it black.  Then I glued the (4^th) cup to the extension, and glued the extension in the missing place on the indicator.

The thing started spinning madly – at last.  I bolted downstairs and my weather base showed the wind at 15 knots.  Oh joy!

Tah-DAAHHHH

So now instead of a neat wind indicator on my davit with 3 neat cups on extensions, now I have the thing bristling with Coke bottle caps – all painted Halloween black.

The next time someone comes up with a simple fix to an expensive problem, I hope I have the good sense to ask some in-depth questions instead of dishing out a snotty look.  To the man in WM that received The Look, I humbly apologize.

Cost to replace:                    Newest weather base $549         + handyman electrician at $65 p/hr

Cost to fix:

6-pack of Cokes           $2.99

1 black nail polish      $1.99

TOTAL =       $5 (I already had the marine glue)

The weather station on my Navigation station

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.

Interior of FastAlley

The East Coast of the USA is definitely the place to be if you want to buy a multihull because the shallow draft of multihulls is perfect for the Bahamas and Caribbean islands.  But my son had precipitously returned to Los Angeles from South Africa so I schlepped across country from DC to LA to be near my granddaughters.

For a number of months I had seen FastAlley (or Savannah as she was called at the time) advertised on the internet.  The boat was in Mexico and was advertised at a price that was double my budget – but Wow, what a boat.  The owners had been cruising around Mexico for 6 years and she was in Bristol condition.

A few months after first seeing her on the internet, I noticed that her selling price had dropped $20,000.  A while later the price dropped $20,000 again.  It was still outside my budget but out of curiosity I called the broker.  At the time you could buy a boat in international waters, and if you kept it outside the USA for 90+ days then you could avoid paying Sales Tax on the purchase price.  However, the government had just upped the anty from 90-days to 1-year.  So if you wanted to buy this boat and save the Sales Tax then you had to leave it outside the country for 1+ year.  Most buyers did not want to be deprived of their boat for so long.  And so the boat lanquished.

A few months later the price dropped $20,000 again. I called the boat broker and asked “What’s wrong with this boat?”.  The broker said that the trimaran had an outside hot/cold deck shower and this was putting off the women who, for the price, wanted an inside shower.  That didnt bother me unduly – I figured when I finally retired in tropical climes I will probably be grateful for an outside deck shower.

A little later it popped up on my search again and this time the price had dropped another $20,000.  I called the broker again and asked, “What is wrong with this boat?”. The broker said that the boat itself is beautiful, but it is in Mexico and most Americans consider that “international” which puts them off.   Since I was originally from South Africa and had been hunting for a multihull in Australia, the Mediterranean, and the Caribbean, I considered Mexico just another American “State” due to its proximity.  However, the price was still outside my budget, so I moved on.

Then the price dropped significantly again.  It was now approaching my price range!!  I called the broker yet again.  She said that the owner’s wife had had a baby and they just wanted out of the boat.  I made an offer.  They accepted.

I had my dream boat.

BUYING IN MEXICO…..

It is a relatively costly experience buying in Mexico – for starters the USA levies a Sales Tax on the purchase price even though you bought it outside the country.

Then you have the initial flight from the USA to La Paz, MX to see the boat.  So its the cost of a flight.  And the hotel fees there.  And restaurants.  And cabs.  Etc.   So you are out $1000 just to view the boat.

The marine survey is another $2000 on top of that – $1000 for the haulout and $1000 to the surveyor.  So by the end of the week you are out $3000 – and hopefully the boat passed the test otherwise its a sunk cost!

I was financing the boat thru the bank that had financed the current owners.  Because the boat is a non-production boat, finding financing is harder than a commercial production boat.  But I had the approval for financing and was committed now so I flew down to La Paz on Jan 18th 2008 to view the boat and do the marine survey.  I had asked to do a moisture test on the boat so that any non-visible rot below the glass would show up.

The surveyor was extremely thorough and went over the trimaran with a fine tooth comb.  The boat was in excellent condition and all accessories, like the dingly, dinghy engine, generator, etc all were also in excellent condition.  The boat is just beautiful.  And covered in GORGEOUS bird’s eye maple.  She is a magnificent trimaran, with so many loving touches that the owner/husband put in place for his wife.  I considered myself abundantly blessed to own this fabulous boat.

LOOKING BACK…..

Looking back I can see there are a number of reasons the trimaran did not sell quickly

• When they initially put it on the market the complaint from the wives of the buyers was that it did not have an indoor shower.
• When they first listed the boat, you had to leave the boat in MX for 1 year if you wanted to avoid sales tax.
• It costs about $1000 to view the boat in Mexico with airfare and hotels and food etc – and you dont know if you really want it yet!
• You need a skipper to deliver it usually (unless you have the time and skills) – about $5000 for the skipper expenses (his flight, food, etc) to bring the boat from La Paz to Long Beach, CA.
• And if you want to be crew, you are looking at yet another flight to MX to join the boat.  And $300 stocking up with enough food and snacks for a 2-week trip is yet another cost.
• You cannot SAIL from the Baja up the coast to California because the wind is directly on your nose, so you are looking at another $900 in fuel costs as you motor the boat all the way up.
• The boat is 22ft wide so it has to have an end-tie.  There is a FIVE YEAR waiting list for an end-tie anywhere in southern California – five years!!  I suspect this was a big issue for buyers – where to put the thing?
• Financing is hard to find because it is a custom boat and the Tier 1 banks cant find a comparable boat for pricing it – no comp, no financing – so I eventually financed thru the bank that held the original loan.