THURSDAY, 15 JANUARY 09 -- FINALLY SOME WIND FOR DECENT SAILING AND A LOVELY SUNDOWN THROUGH THE GATE

Grant, a recent Northwestern University grad who fell in love with sailing while sailing lasers and 470s on Lake Michigan over the summer, came by at 1:30 pm. There was not a breath of wind, so we sat in the cockpit and chatted for a couple of hours and then noticed a light breeze come up and decided to head out for a sail. We raised full main outside the marina exit and put out full jib while motoring out into the central bay.



We headed northeast on a light breeze of a couple of knots and began leaving behind the city enjoying late afternoon sunshine.





After passing Blossom Rock buoy, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves sailing on a beam reach port tack in a lovely 8-10 knot northerly breeze-- fantastic sailing!!! We soon passed astern of a tanker at anchor west of Treasure Island.




Ahead of us, a J-boat was also enjoying the lovely wind and sailing closer to the wind. We earlier spotted this boat heading downwind under spinnaker.




As we approached the north side of Treasure Island, this Cal 27 passed to starboard heading west.




This much larger sailboat passed to port, sailing jib only, and also heading west.




We tacked back to the wet ourselves and passed this small sailboat heading southeast and doing wing and wing dead downwind with fenders dnagling over the side.





We were now sailing on close reach starboard tack, well heeled over with Grant at the helm.




We sailed northeast for a while, then tacked toward Angel Island for a while and then eventually fell off to a broad reach to head for home port
and watch the sundown through the gate. The sun was dramatically large as it began to set in the west.




The sun sank lower into the ocean as we sailed toward home port, going slower downwind on a less efficient point of sail.




The sundown was beautiful-- creating a marmalade sky above the horizon.




The last rays of the sun persisted quite a while near the surface of the ocean.




After the sun disappeared, a dusky marmalade sky persisted in the western sky.




Sunset color developed on the few light clouds further overhead.





That airship was heading home after a trip over the gate.




We were making slow progress toward home port in a softening breeze and eventually sailed past Alcatraz way to the northeast.




We stayed well to the east of two outbound freighters and then we had to begin motoring as the breeze continued to soften. The sunset color disappeared as darkness fell and this ferry steamed past us to starboard.



We doused sail while motoring toward home port, motored into port and landed fine in with the ebb current and some moderate surge. It was great to get out there and actually experience some real sailing in a good breeze for once in what seems like a long time. I hope we continue to have some good sailing winds for the rest of the week and the weekend.