Sausalito and Jack London Square

Yesterday, I went sailing with Emily and Amy out of Sausalito again, and this time I brought my friend, Sandi, and Amy brought her boyfriend, Sergei. It was a really fun group, and we had wind for a change... yeah!!!

Sandi and I were a little late arriving, and the others had the boat (the C&C 32 again) all ready to go when we got there, so we hopped on and left right away. After motoring part way out of the Sausalito harbor, we set the sails and caught a few knots of wind.

Amy and Sergei are going to BVI for a week on Monday and chartering a 40-foot sailboat by themselves. Amy has BCC certification and not much experience, and this was Sergei's first time on a sailboat, so they're a little nervous about this adventure. The good news is that Sergei has spent a lot of time on motor boats and is very mechanically inclined, so he was interested in learning and picked things up pretty quickly. It was fun teaching him how to sail and showing them both little tricks I've picked up along the way. They both seemed very grateful for my help.

Our plan was to head over to the Oakland Estuary, tie up at the guest dock at Jack London Square, and have lunch at Scott's Seafood. The fog was really thick in places and kept moving around the bay. At one point, we couldn't see the Bay Bridge or the city. A few minutes later, we could see the city but nothing in the east bay. We continued to sail downwind, though, through the fog at about 4-5 knots. We actually went through the fog bank that was by then hanging in the slot and came out into bright, warm sunshine on the other side. Now we could see the Bay Bridge perfectly but could no longer see anything north of the bridge. It was quite beautiful and eerie at the same time.

We decided to sail through the western span of the Bay Bridge, so we could see the damage done last week by the tanker that hit the bridge piling in the fog. It was awesome!

After consulting a chart, we found our way into the estuary and sailed past the enormous container ships being loaded with cargo. The wind died down quite a bit, so we decided to motor the rest of the way to our lunch destination. I wanted some experience docking a boat with a wheel and an inboard diesel engine, so I docked it first at a dock that turned out not to be a guest dock and then moved it to a guest dock. It was good experience for me, and I did ok the first time and really well the second time.

Lunch at Scott's was excellent! We all really got to know each other better over lunch and did a bunch of networking, email exchange, etc.

After lunch, we started beating upwind, but it was slow going, and Emily got concerned about getting the boat back on time. So we motored the rest of the way out of the estuary and then caught some really good wind (maybe 12-15 knots!) and sailed the rest of the way to Sausalito harbor. As we were approaching the eastern span of the Bay Bridge, we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, which made a really nice picture.

Once we were in the wind shadow of the hills, we lost the wind again, so we motored back to the marina. Emily agreed to let me drive the boat into the slip, which went very well. There was some concern that I was too close to the boats across from our slip, but I didn't hit anything and got it in in one try, so I was pleased.

All in all, it was a great day of sailing!