When we started off from Ballena Bay on Friday at 1930 the winds were howling at about 25-30 knts. In many parts of the country that would be good cause to head back to the yacht club and start pounding down a few brewskis (or martini's depending on the type of club you belong to). But here in San Francisco it is just another opportunity to go out and pound away at some good waves.
Because we were on a certification sail we had to take care of a few administrative matters. We motored up to the Alameda Estuary where we ran the mile to check the accuracy of the boat's log meter (it was very accurate). We then raised the sails and checked them to make sure they were in ship shape before "turning" the boat to create a deviation chart for the compass on the binnacle. We next sailed over to Ayala cove and took a mooring for the night. Ayala cove requires all boats to attach bow and stern to two mooring balls so that the boats do not swing on the mooring. We used the mooring technique where you back the boat to the first mooring, attach a long bow line to the mooring, walk the mooring up to the front and then back down to the stern mooring. This makes it easier to attach to the mooring because you are able to pass the mooring line through the mooring collar while standing on the swim step (within hands reach) instead of trying to pass the line through the mooring collar from the bow of the boat (5 ft off the water) and hooking it with the boat hook.
Sandra, Doron's good lookin and good cookin wife, had prepared a great meal of stuffed peppers, eggplant and a great bread that was a cross between a pita and focaccia. We had some good wine (David Bruce Sarah) provided by Ricardo. After telling a few tall tales while drinking our wine, as men are apt to do, we called it an evening about midnight.
The next day we got underway at 0630 and headed over to Horizon's restaurant dock in Sausalito to pick up Deb. While at the dock I made breakfast and Deb brought all of us coffee from a local coffee shop (much better than the perk on board). We were at the Golden Gate by 0830 and on our way to Half Moon Bay. Winds were blowing at about 20-25 with higher gusts coming over our starboard quarter. We decided to sail down on a jib only so that we would not have to worry about an accidental gybe with the main. The other boats had reefed mains and jibs, which made them a bit faster, but meant that they had to be more careful about keeping track of the main in high seas. As a result of the other boats having a bit more sail up than we did, we were the slowest boat in the flotilla, but we also probably had the most relaxing sail to HMB. When we arrived our TAG boat, Belle Collette with the instructor (Capt'n Scott), was doing drills. We followed the other boats into HMB. The boat with the instructor on board, Belle Collette radioed over to us and the instructor, Dave Scott, told us he wanted us to raft up to his boat. Rafting up is a skill that you have to demonstrate proficiency at in order to pass CPM. When they finally had their anchor set we motored over to raft up to them. The winds were still blowing quite hard in the harbor, so rafting up was a little bit of a challenge. But with my experience crew it turned out to be a piece of cake. We gently glided over to Belle Collette and rafted up without a problem. Dave Scott came over to our boat, checked out our charts and log book and gave us a thumbs up. As we disengaged from Belle Collette its life ring got loose so we circled back and picked it up for them. We then headed over to our slip for the night. That evening we had dinner at the Princeton Brew Pub and ended the evening with wine and snacks back at the boat.
The next morning we got an early start 0630, because we needed to pump out the holding tank and we knew that we would have to beat into the wind the whole way back to San Francisco. The wind had been blowing pretty hard all night so we also knew that we would have pretty high sea swells as well. By the time we got out into the ocean the winds were already at 20-25 knts. We started off sailing on a reefed main and jib, but soon realized that the wind direction and leeway was pushing us too close to shore. We tacked back out for 30 minutes and then tacked back north. But again we found ourselves heading too close to shore. Also the waves were building and some were beginning to break. So we took in the jib and began to motor sail. That way we were able to point higher into the wind and make good speed back. The winds continued to build and at one point were probably close to 35 knts. We also had a wave break on the boat and a fair amount of water was washed down into the boat. But all and all it was an enjoyable sail (see pictures below). By the time we got back to the Golden Gate, however, the winds were almost non-existent. We finally passed though the golden gate and then did a few Crew Overboard drills while waiting for Belle Collette to come in. Somehow they passed us while we were doing our drills, so we had to motor sail to catch up to them. Just west of Alcatraz Doron and I saw a whale.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. When we got back to the south bay we once again did a Crew Overboard drill so Dave Scott could confirm that we knew how to do it (again another CPM requirement), and then headed in. We were at the dock at about 1445. Dave came in about an hour later and told me that I had passed and we put the US Sailing CPM sticker in my log book (picture below).
