Rapture near TI
Rapture entering the Slot
One happy guy and some amused ladies
I told Bethany it would not fit!
Last weekend Lynne, Andrew, Catlin and I took Wildcat for a 3 day cruise around San Francisco bay. On Saturday we headed out at about noon for China Camp. We motored up the estuary and when we got to the bay we were hailed by Doron. He Sandra and their boys, Ori and Josh, were in a 40ft Caliber LRC, "Rapture" which they had chartered for the weekend. We sailed to the east of Treasure Island and soon caught up with Pete and Bethany in Nanaimo, who were also heading to China Camp.
Rapture and Wildcat headed over to Angle Island for lunch and Nanaimo headed straight up to China Camp. The wind was blowing across the slot at about 20 knots and since it was a SW wind we did not get much protection from Angle Island when we anchored.
We then headed up to China Camp. The wind was great until be got to the Richmand Bridge, then it became a bit spotty for a while before picking back up. When we got to China Camp at 1700 the wind was too high to raft up. I anchored in about 8 ft of water and Rapture was in 9.5 ft, with Nanaimo between us. At 1930 Pete came by to ferry us over to Rapture for dinner. I had our dingy ready so we got a tow over to Rapture. (see pic above). Sandra prepared a great dinner and we drank and watched Team America on Doron's laptop.
The next day we got underway at about 1200. We had heard on the weather channel that the winds were going to be howling. Well they were not. We slowly made our way accross the bay. We caught up to Rapture at the Richmand Bridge (see pics above).
Nanaimo took off for dinner at Sausalito while Rapture and Wildcat headed for a raft up at Clipper Cove. Just shy of Treasure Island, just before the rock wall on the north end, my autopilot, HAL, decided to break down so I could not disengage it and we were heading straight for the rocks. Fortunately Andrew was a great help in getting the sail down. I then was able to steer under power until we could disengage the wheel drive from the wheel. As I was taking out the screws I had this flashback to the science fiction movie, 2001, A Space Oddysey and the scene where Dave is disconnecting HAL. I kept expecting my HAL to start saying: "Look John, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over." Eventually we got to Clipper Cove and rafted up to Rapture. Nanaimo came in about 2130 and we rafted up for dinner and drinks. Drinks begat silliness as the pictures above clearly demonstrate. I was forced to try on a jacket that was obviously too small and then tested out the size of the berth in Rapture, with some pretty companions (note that I am not spilling a drop of my drink.
The next day we headed back to the slip at about 1330 and got there at about 1530 after refuelling at Jack London.
