As we motored out of the marina, we could see that the tide was very high- near peak levels of the monthly tide cycle.
I pulled up full main, pulled out full jib and headed out into the central bay, heading for the D-E span of the Bay Bridge on beam reach starboard tack, enjoying the moderate southwest breeze. Off to starboard, the city was gray under overcast skies.
The flag on the top of a condo building on Telegraph Hill was fluttering in a breeze of a few knots out of the southwest.
Behind us, the Blue and Gold ferry was steaming out of port and heading for the gate with a rather small complement of passengers.
A small power yacht blasted past us, heading toward the Bay Bridge also.....
...followed a short time later by this fishing boat.
The Ferry Building was gray on gray...
....and the clock in the tower showed it to be 11 am.
In front of us, this pilot launch was heading for the Port of Oakland, probably delivering a pilot to an outbound freighter, or picking one up from a now docked freighter.
The wind shifted more into the southeats so we hardened in the sails and were now sailing on close reach starboard tack against an ebb current that was waxing in strength as this power yacht steamed past us to port, heading west.
The financial district was grayed out by the overcast skies....
... as was the Bay Bridge.
In the south bay, south of the bridge, this large sailboat was sailing parallel to the bridge toward Oakland.
We sailed under the the D-E span, and enjoyed views of the city through the bridge.
In the distance, we saw a sailboat flying a kite heading our way and they eventually passed us to starboard, heaidng north.
We fell off the wind to sail around the southern end of Yerba Buena, enjoying views of our favorite lighthouse and the house behind.
We gybed and headed for the east span of the Bay Bridge, passing the Coast Guard base on YBI and the buoy trender docked there.
The suspension span of the new east span is being worked on actively now. It looks like they may be building the bridge deck on temporary supports.
The Coast Guard advisory asks mariners to avoid the area where temporary structures are being built and use a span two spans over. On the way over there, we saw that there is some structure between the end of the already built span and the supports where the suspension span will be mounted, or so I suppose.
After sailing under the east span, we headed up the east side of Treasure Island in frenshing winds that had shiften into the west and intensified to over 10 knots. Soon we were blasting toward the lee side of Angel Island and arrived there in about 30 minutes, so averaging about 7 knots over ground.
As we sailed up the east shore of the island, this lovely sailboat passed to port, sailing with the current, while we were sailing against the current and hoping the breeze would stay all the way to Raccoon Straits.
We sailed past the east mouth of the straits, after reefing the jib in strong winds coming through the straits as a small storm cell moved through, but then unreefing it again as the winds softened. As we beat through the straits, we passed Ayala Cove where a lone power boat was tied up at the buoy field.....
... while a few sailboats were tied up at the small marina.
Over by the shore of Belevedere, a fleet of small race boats were out and about.
With ebb current assist, we were soon through the straits and heading down the west shore of the island, seeing for the first time in memory a bus on the road leading to the housing structures there.
As we headed across the central bay, we pointed our course to the southeast to play the strong and waxing ebb current so that we would pass close to the buoy on the west side of Alcatraz. Then we fell off the wind and sailed against the strong ebb current to head for home port, happy that the winds were in the 10 knot range so we could make reasonable headway against the ebb current. We were probably doing 6-7 knots over the water but only 3 knots or so over the bottom
Eventually, that same sailboat that passed us on the east side of Angel Island, now passed us to starboard.
We sailed into the lee of pier 35 to douse sails and prepare for landing before motoring into port, and landed fine by playing the strong ebb current flowing through the marina. It felt great to have been out on the bay for the third day in a row under great sailing conditions!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment