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US west coast >
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay, CA
Sausalito
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14 Aug 2002, Wednesday - Once in San Francisco
Bay, we headed over into Richardson Bay and stayed our
first night at Schoonmaker Marina. We all
were happy to take showers and stretch our legs. The next
morning, we moved the boat out into the harbor and have stayed
on the hook... happy to not pay for dock space! We spent a day touring downtown
Sausalito and had breakfast with John in a little cafe.
Richardson Bay is a great place to anchor and has been our
home port while exploring other parts of the bay.
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South Beach Harbor, San Francisco
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16 Aug 2002, Friday - We headed over to
South Beach Harbor near downtown San Francisco to meet the previous
owner of Rouser, Bill Fraser. We have been in contact with him
since we bought the boat, but had never met him in person. He
was as great in person as he has been through email, letters and
telephone conversations. We were as happy to hear the history
of the boat as he was to hear of its current adventures. Bill
drove Eric and John over to Berkely to let John off at a friend's house. His trip on Rouser
successfully completed, John is heading back to Olympia to take on new adventures. Once Bill
and Eric returned, Bill took us out to dinner at a cute
Italian cafe. We talked for hours! We were forced to say goodbye
later as Bill still had a long drive ahead.
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Oakland Yacht Club, Alameda
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18 Aug 2002, Sunday
- While reading Latitude 38, we saw an advertisement for an Open House event
at the Oakland Yacht Club in Alameda, offering information, food, drinks, and a
slip for the night. We decided it would be fun to check out! We
met several very nice and down-to-earth people at the Open House. We heard stories of others'
cruising adventures and learned of several new places to check out in the Bay
area. We enjoyed showers at their clubhouse and watched a movie later that night in their entertainment room called "The Insider", with
Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, a true story about the cigarette industry. Good movie,
scarey that it is based on real incidents. While there, we met
a very nice guy named George that recently bought a Beneteau 29.
He races frequently in the Bay on a Farr 40 - fast ride!
The next morning, before heading out to Angel Island, we walked around Alameda and stopped by the brokerage where we bought Rouser, Farallon
Yachts. The brokers that we dealt with, Dick and Terry - a husband and
wife team, have since retired. As cruisers themselves previously, we thought it
might have been fun to let them know that 2 and 1/2
years later, we were back in the Bay, this time heading SOUTH!!!
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Angel Island
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| Ayala Cove on Angel Island |
19-21 Aug 2002 - Angel Island is straight
inline with the Golden Gate Bridge and experiences strong winds at
the western edge. On the north side of the island
is a very protected little cove named Ayala Cove, where you can stay
for up to 7 days on moorage buoys that cost $3 per night. It is a beautiful place
to hike. On the first day, we walked up to the top of Mount
Livermore, the high point of the island at 781 feet. The hike is
gorgeous, about 4.5 miles total. From the top, you can see all
of the Bay in a complete 360 degree circle. It is fantastic!
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| Eric on hike around island |
That day, we met a
Ranger named Ken who owns a boat on the island, a Dix 32 named "Lindy Hop Sing". He
and his wife, Karen, invited us over for dinner. We had an amazing time
meeting their family and a friend of theirs, Dan, who also
works and lives there. It was great to learn about life on
the island and to share such good food with such great people!
The next day,
we hiked around the perimeter of the island, about 5 miles total.
It's a beautiful walk past an old quarantine station and military fort.
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Downtown San Francisco
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| Lombard Street in downtown San Fran |
27 Aug 2002, Tuesday - We explored downtown San
Francisco by foot with our friends from the boat Pelican, Michael
and Sara. We all had tons of fun seeing Lombard Street (right),
Chinatown (left), and many of the other classic San Fran
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| China Town in SF |
images that we had never seen in real life before. Our
favorite activity was finding winding little staircases that wove
their way up/down the hillside from street to street. It is a great city that
is easy to explore by
foot. However, make sure you're really ready to walk! There is nothing flat
about San Francisco. You are going straight up or straight down... the hills are
quite impressive. By the end of the day, we were all VERY tired and happy to be back in our
boats.
28 Aug 2002, Wednesday - The next day after we returned, there were 60 knot winds clocked
in our happy little anchorage. The marina at shore clocked a steady 58 and out in the anchorage, our
friends on Pelican had their wind gage pegged at 60 - like us only 200 yards from the windward shore! All boats surrounding us drug anchor. At one point,
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| Windy (60 kts) anchorage! |
the boat on our right AND the boat on our immediate left were dragging backwards at the same
time. It was very bizarre as it looked to us like we were dragging forward. Everything was okay,
but several people had their boats "relocated". A friend of ours, Rose, hung out in her dinghy tied to a piling
for over an hour waiting for the wind to calm. She was returning to shore (a very short distance) and her
inflatable dinghy started to flip from the force of the wind. She is a smart lady and was fine. She
realized it might not go too smoothly and had her Mustang suit on. These winds also happened to be the day of a tall
ship festival in the bay. Since we remained on our boat, we don't know how it went off, but we're sure it must have
made for some excitement. Needless to say, we were all very
happy that we chose to take the bus into San Francisco the day before the big blow. One thing is for sure in
San Francisco, you rarely need to worry about having ENOUGH wind!
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© 2002 Eric & Angela Siegel, OurDotCom