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Napa Valley and the Delta
Napa Valley and the San Francisco Bay Delta
Anniversary at the Embarcadero
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| Our 3rd anniversary! |
5 Sep 2002 - On our way up towards the delta, we stopped off in downtown San Francisco
at the South Beach Harbor Marina for a night. We celebrated our 3rd anniversary
at a wonderful Mediterranean restaurant on the Embarcadero called Lavash. The
food was excellent and we were given complimentary hors d'ouvres and champagne to
help us celebrate our 3rd year of marriage.
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Napa Valley Wine Tasting
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| Eric checks out grapes |
10 Sep 2002 - En route to the delta, we stopped off for a night in Vallejo Marina.
While there, we ran into our friends from Pelican, Michael and Sara, who had been
gone for a week picking up their two cats from their parents' house in Washington via
a rental car. They had one day left on the car and invited us to come along for a land-based
adventure in the Napa Valley. We visited several vineyards and tasted a few wines.
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| Napa Valley winery |
Afterwards, for the sake of irony, we went to Trader Joe's and bought some Charles Shaw wine for $1.98 a bottle.
Yes, that's right, LESS than $2 per bottle! And actually okay... we heard that the price was so low because they lost
the contract with the airlines now that they are requiring non-corked wines to avoid the need for those
incredibly dangerous corkscrews. If you have TJ's near you, give it a whirl. We are obviously wine snobs! :)
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The Delta: Potato Slough
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| Sunset in the Delta |
12-19 Sep 2002 - Our boat's first dip in fresh water! We mosied our way up the delta
into fresher and fresher water. We finally found a perfect place to stop in Potato Slough.
The water was totally fresh and quite nice! Several friends were up that way as well on the
boats Tillicum, Piquod, Grasal and more! Our friends Sasha and Robert on Piquod had a wind
surfer and kayak which kept us all out of trouble (or in it, depending on perspective) for the
next several days.
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| A bath in the dinghy |
It was SO FUN to be able to take a freshwater shower whenever we wanted to.
Since living on board, we've never had a bath tub of course, and a funny phrase started to spread
that we "hadn't had a bath in three years." One of Angela's more missed items, we filled up the
dinghy with water from the slough and let it heat up in the sun. In the end, we also heated up some
extra in the kettle to help the sun out a bit. Aaahhh... very nice! The sun shower (bag with water that
dribbles out slowly on your head) works just fine, but this is a much better way to go!
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| Rouser from half underwater |
The sunsets were spectacular and the time there very relaxing. Several people from
the area kept houseboats tucked up at anchor in the delta and used them as cabins for
weekend get-aways. Definitely a fun way to go! You don't have any neighbors to worry about and
there are not any roads or houses near great places to anchor. We spent most of our time
in the water. Eric played with the underwater housing for our camera, trying to get the perfect
half-underwater half-above shot.
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Vallejo Marina
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| Aground in a marina?!? |
20 Sep 2002 - If you look really closely at this photo, you will see that Eric is in a marina holding a lead line to measure the
depth of the water... our first time running aground ever with Rouser was in Vallejo Marina, right in the middle
of the fairway. We were going to pull in to get some diesel when the depth gage started displaying lower and lower numbers.
Eric called the marina on the VHF radio and we were told it should be "just fine." It was near low tide, so we kept going slowly.
When we finally hit bottom (a thick sludgy muck), we were really stuck. Eric stayed on board and read a magazine after we lowered the
dinghy. Angela pushed the dinghy the 10 feet to the dock and then walked up to the marina to get some mail that had been sent their for
us - the real reason we were stopping. While in the office, the woman running the marina showed Angela the depth chart of their marina and
their was one spot (in the path of the only route to the fuel dock) that "needed to be dredged still." At low tide, this spot was only
3.4 feet deep!!!
When we were done getting the mail, we pulled an anchor out behind us and then hoisted the dinghy up out of the water so that it helped tip the boat
over a bit on its side. We pulled in on the anchor and off we went... floating once more.
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Back in Sausalito: Beach Cleanup
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| Sausalito Beach Cleanup |
21 Sep 2002, National Beach Cleanup Day - Since we are now spending most of our time on the water, we thought it would be
prudent to find a location to help out with the California Beach Cleanup. We found a spot in Sausalito near where we were anchored that
we could walk to. At first no one showed up, but eventually there was a large enough group gathered to make a fair impact. This is the first beach cleanup that
either of us have ever done that wasn't actually on a beach. The spot we were assigned to was about a half block from the beach, upwind of the beach in a region
with a ton of garbage to keep us busy. Between us, we filled four garbage bags in four hours. The Lions Club put on a barbecue (with veggie burgers too!)
at the Bay Model for all the volunteers. It was a very good day... we met some wonderful people.
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New Inspection Ports & a Tank Cleaning
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| Cleaning the diesel tank! |
24 Sep 2002 - On our trip south from Washington we found that we had a lot of junk loose in our diesel tank. Our fuel filters were
clogging frequently. Before leaving San Francisco, we emptied the diesel, drilled 4-inch inspection ports into the aluminum tank, and scrubbed
and polished the inside of the tank until you could eat off of it. We were quoted $600 for the new ports and cleaning. Eric was up to his elbows
in the diesel tank, but we managed to do at least as good a job for free as if we had paid buco bucks. Our good friend and machinist in Olympia,
Mike Colyar, did us a HUGE favor by making the inspection port covers and mailing them to us in Sausalito. (THANK YOU MIKE!)
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© 2002 Eric & Angela Siegel, OurDotCom
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