San Francisco
Well we're safe and sound in San Francisco and best of all there were no breakdowns on the boat during this leg. We left Newport Oregon on Saturday around noon with a forecast for 2 days of 20 – 25 knot winds out of the North and then a day of 10 – 20 knot winds before the wind went light. Initially everything looked great. The Pacific greeted us with 20 knot winds out of the North witch had us flying downwind for the first 16 hours or so. Then in the wee hours of the morning, it died all together and we had to motor. Our 3 days of moderate to strong winds had turned into 16 good hours and then nothing. No problem. Now the motor was running well and as we set off motoring South setting a pattern that would repeat the rest of the way to San Francisco. Everyday we would get a little sailing in in the mid day or afternoon and then by night there was nothing. We ended up motoring about 75% of the way from Newport to San Francisco.
Here's a pic on the way out of Newport:
The previous week had caught Greg bashing off Cape Mendicino into 40 knot winds and big head seas towing a barge of salt from San Francisco to Vancouver. I decided to head 60 – 70 miles offshore to get away from the seas developed by both Cape Blanco and Mendicino and also to get away from the fog and confused winds found inshore. We ended up with both fog and poor winds. On the bright side we were outside practically all the shipping traffic and had practically no wind waves at all rounding Cape Mendicino. We only saw one ship until we turned in towards Point Reyes and our approach to San Francisco. What we did see were lots and lots of dolphins. More often than not at night where you never saw the dolphins themselves, but instead saw these green streaks darting around under the boat with the occasional splash somewhere off to the side.
Here's the fierce seas of Cape Mendicino:
And here's the best one I got of the dolphins. They're quick little buggers and my digital camera has a horrible response time:
This morning found us off Point Reyes and Drakes Bay at 1:00 in the morning. It was too late to go in and anchor and way too early to make the 25 mile trip down to the Golden Gate. So we spent most of the night motoring slowing along the coast watching all the inbound shipping go by while we waited until dawn to hit the Bonita Channel and slide in around the shipping lanes and into San Francisco Bay. The morning found us with no wind (big surprise) and and a low gray overcast. Not the best of weather, we had to motor into the bay famous for it's wind. Oh well maybe we'll get some good sailing weather on the way out. We're going to be at the South Beach Marina for today and tomorrow and the Friday we'll be heading over to Alemeda to visit my cousin Rick who lives over there on his Gulfstar 50. On October 4th, Joe is coming down to sail to San Diego on the 5th. Until then I'll be working on a few boat projects, but hopefully it's time to kick back and get into cruising mode.
Here's the view coming in under the gate:
