The clocks on the church in North Beach and on the Ferry Building were chiming 10 am as we readied ANTICIPATION for a morning outing.
As we motored out of the marina, the flag on the top of Pier 39 was fluttering in a breeze of about 4-5 knots.
I raised full main just as we exited the marina, and then headed out into the central bay where Sambolo was headed west, sailing with the waxing ebb current and looking good. I seem to recall that we saw this boat out there another time in the last couple of weeks.
We headed east and pulled out the jib to full, sailing toward the D-E span of the Bay Bridge against the current, as Sambolo continued westward and was approaching the southeast shore of Alcatraz.
The gate was quite vivid in the clear morning air and skies were cloudless.
Angel Island was beautiful in the morning sunshine, rising above the azure sea...
... as was Alcatraz with Mt. Tam in the distance.
Off to starboard, this loaded freighter was at anchor and in the process of swinging around to line up with the ebb current. We haven't seen a freighter anchored there for quite a while. It may have anchored there because of the morning fog.
In the south bay, beyond the Bay Bridge, we could see some fog remnants still hanging over the bay.
We were headed toward the D-E span and making some decent headway against the current, but eventually had to fall off the wind to avoid being in the patch of a freighter heading out from the Port of Oakland through the D-E span. The freighter was lightly loaded and her bow bulb was out of the water and making a substantial wake.
The freighter passed well to starboard, and we headed up again, but now the wind direction and current were taking us toward Yerba Buena Island.
Way over by Angel Island, this lovely ketch was sailing west.
The city was enjoying the mid-morning sunshine.
A sand dredge and tug steamed through the D-E span and headed west toward one of its regular dredging sports.
A freighter that had been at anchor in the south bay was now steaming toward the port docks.
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289565561058223554" />The Naval Museum on Treasure Island was basking in the morning sunshine.
Behind us, a pilot boat was blasting northward and those two sailboats were near Horseshoe Cove, just inside the gate. I thought the pilot boat might be heading for the anchored freighter, but no.. she was headed into the north bay area.
Suddenly I heard this military jet screaming overhead toward the northeast....
....flying level and greatly disturbing the serenity of the bay.
We tacked away from Yerba Buena and headed southwest across the current that was dragging us northward as this other freighter previously anchored was now steaming toward the Port of Oakland.
Suddenly, another or the same military jet came screaming toward us again....
... and made a steep bank toward the north.
We tacked toward the D-E span again, sailing against the current and pleading with Mother Nature for a bit of freshening breeze, and she gave it to us for a while so we were making some headway toward the bridge as this tug and barge steamed toward the Bay Bridge.
After freshening up for a short time, the breeze started to soften and eventually died totally, leaving us at the mercy of the ebb current. I hoped that the wind was shifting and would freshen again, but it didn't so we had to motor across the current toward the cityfront shore, reefing the jib as we motored along. We motored into the space between piers 33 and 35 to douse the main and get ready for landing, then motored around pier 35 and into the marin, landing with a bit of a bang of the port side hull against the dock finger because of the strong ebb current.
It was nice to be out there for a couple of hours even though we didn't get very far.
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