San Francisco

We really enjoyed our time in the San Francisco Bay Area. We managed to get a few boat projects done, caught up with friends and family, and had fun playing tourist.

Sausalito

We spent a fair bit of time anchored in Richardson Bay off the city of Sausalito. It was our first stop nearly two weeks ago. We have family here and it was great to catch up with them.

Clipper Cove, Treasure Island

From Sausalito we moved over to Clipper Cove. It was the calmest anchorage we had in the Bay Area but there wasn’t much to do on shore. There is currently a lot of construction going on. We found it hard to find roads and sidewalks that weren’t torn apart or closed. In time it may be quite nice but there wasn’t much for us to do on shore.

San Francisco

We anchored in Aquatic Park which is right in the centre of the action. Being raised in a tourist town I have an aversion to doing touristy things, but I swallowed my pride and got on the Big Bus Tour. I’m glad I did. The bus winds its way through the busy streets of the city with a recorded message that gives information about the various neighbourhoods it passes through. It’s a “hop on, hop off” service so we were able to stop at any neighbourhood that caught our imaginations. Of course we stopped in Chinatown. It felt like a cross between Beijing and Hong Kong to us. It was complete with a park where older folks sat around talking and playing cards. We also made stops in the Italian area and Union Square. Finally, we had a very breezy trip across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so windy that my headphones were blown out of my ears. That’s okay. The wind was too loud for me to hear the recording anyway!

That evening we found ourselves back in the Italian part of town where we had a great meal with our friends Scott and Jannette Brown and their friends Barry and Anne. Scott and Jannette are part of the Bluewater Cruising Association. We enjoyed a couple of days with them in Princess Louisa Inlet back in May.

Back to Sausalito

To round out our time in the Bay Area we headed back to Sausalito.

On the trip down I fried our propane switch. It was a dumb thing to do. I was frustrated with myself for doing it. In my defence, it was one o’clock in the morning and I was trying to stop what I thought was a faulty alarm from beeping.

Anyway, we had a new switch and solenoid shipped to our cousin Eric’s place. Installing it necessitated a little woodworking. Eric graciously offered the use of his garage for the project. It was awesome to have a proper work bench, a full set of tools and Eric to work with. He was more than happy to jump in and do much of the cutting and routing!

The switch is now installed. It works! We enjoy the convenience of being able to turn the propane on and off from the galley. For the last couple of weeks, we have been turning the propane on and off at the tank which involves going out on deck to access the propane locker. It works but it’s not convenient and we wouldn’t do it if the seas were rough.

On Our Way

We sailed back out under the Golden Gate Bridge a couple of days ago. We are anchored in Pillar Point Harbour as I write this post. It’s a great little anchorage about 20 nautical miles (37km) south of San Francisco. We had a relaxing sail down which was a good way to have it on our first trip back out in the Pacific swell. After two weeks in the protected waters of the San Francisco Bay, it was a good way to get our sea legs back.

There is a low-pressure system moving in tomorrow which will bring southeast winds. We’ll stay here until the low passes. There’s no point sailing to windward if we don’t have to!