October 23, 2009

Gary Barg, Lauren's friend Lief and I sailed around TI and back on Saturday, leaving the slip at about 11:30. The wind was very light on the way out the estuary (after a fuel stop at Jack London), so we motored out. Once in the Bay we headed south and had very gentle winds of about 8 knots until we got down to the Naval Yard channel and then the winds picked up a bit and we tacked towards the Bay Bridge. We passed under the west span, between delta echo spans, and the wind gradually picked up to about 15-18 knts. We got about 1/2 way to Angel Island before having to turn back at about 3:30 so that Gary could get back for a 5pm engagement. While it was cool where the wind was blowing, by the time we got back into the estuary the winds abated and we had to go under power. We go back to the slip about 5pm, right on schedule.

October 4, 2009

The winds we forecasted to be fairly modest (for SF standards) as we left the slip on Sunday. Sandra and Doron brought lunch, wine and cosmos for our lunch and we headed out for lunch at McCovey cove in SF.

We motored up to the fuel dock, but there was a line of boats waiting to fuel, and I still had a half tank of diesel so the sail went up and the wonderful silence of getting underway under sail enveloped us. Doron was as the helm and shortly thereafter we passed Nanaimo on her way back in and had a quick exchange with Bethany and Pete. Then on to the bay.

By the time we got to the bay the winds were already pickin up. They eventually topped out at 23 knts. A far cry from the gentle 12 to 14 in the forecast. Doron kept us fairly pinched to the wind so we did nit have to reef. But the winds were strong enough that we decided to moor at South Beach Harbor's guest dock instead of anchoring out.