Planned route and GPS Track (blue = GPS Track ; red = Planed Route)

It was certainly an ambitious first trip outside the “protected” waters of our San Francisco Bay.  But I had the confidence (or bravado) of three other sailors with basic sailing skills, half of a coastal navigation class and some electronic gadgets on board to help me.  Brian and I provisioned the boat the night before with plenty of food for two breakfasts, two lunches and a dinner.  Damien and David brought drinks for all of us.  I took off two sails I was sure we wouldn’t need–the 135% and the drifter and left the 90% on the furler and the 110% stowed.  I packed on the dinghy along with its oars and hung the outboard off the railing in case we decided to go to shore.

The proposed destination was Drake’s Bay which is about 36 nautical miles from Berkeley Marina (See the red plot line in the picture above).  It’s 8 miles to the Golden Gate and then another 3 miles to Point Bonita before heading north west along the coast 25 miles to Drakes Bay.  It was the first time our boat, Sizzle, had ever been out through the Gate under my command and the first time any of us had endeavored to sail along the coast.  I spent a lot of time pouring over charts, the Coast Pilot, Light List and cruising forums for information about heading to Drake’s Bay.

We were in a neep tide (between the full and new moon cycles) which meant the currents and tides would be mild.  And the winds and weather were forecast to be warm and sustained throughout the weekend.  The only concern I had was the wave heights which were tracking about 7 to 8 feet throughout the week according to the open water buoys outside of the Bay.  I wasn’t sure what that would mean for our progress but felt that the 11 second period was long enough to give Sizzle and her crew a chance of making it.  I wasn’t completely sure about the current coming down along the coast but knew we’d be fighting wind and current the whole way.

Unfortunately we got a late start due to our guests’ late arrival, but decided to press on under power the whole way.  Winds were light under 5 knots leaving the Berekely Marina.  Prior to departure, I changed the oil and oil filter and topped off the 15 gallon tank for our 15 horsepower diesel.  In a little over a year, Sizzle had only used up 3.4 gallons.  Gotta love sail boats.

I decided to practice for the Coastal Navigation class I’m taking at OCSC and diligently kept a navigation log.  I noted the time of our departure, important notes about fuel and oil status and current heading.  I updated the log every 30 to 60 minutes and practiced taking bearings with the compass and plotting them on the chart.  As we approached the Gate, however, I became less certain about our destination as the fog was all the way to the water and visibility went from unlimited to less than a 1/2 mile.

I called Vessel Traffic and asked about any scheduled inbound or outbound vessels.  They reported that they had none scheduled except for a tug bringing in a barge from outside the Gate.  I decided to press on and figured I’d rely on our electronic navigation to get us through the low-visibility.  I wasn’t too keen on getting too close to the rocks and remembered a few of the warnings from other sailors in the forums and the Coast Pilot about Pt. Diablo and Pt. Bonita.  I gave them each a wide enough berth but tried to stay as far to the north of the shipping lane as possible.  I also sounded a fog horn warning signal with my horn every few minutes.

We passed Pt. Diablo around 12:20pm and the fog began to thicken.  Visibility was down to about 1/4 of a mile as we approached Pt. Bonita.  A beautiful ketch rigged sailboat motored by us on the starboard side and we waved to the couple as they made their way into San Francisco Bay.  I couldn’t make out the light of the lighthouse, but I could see the white buildings where the lighthouse was located as we passed Pt. Bonita around 12:36pm.  I wanted to pass the Pt. Bonita buoy, but we couldn’t see it as the visibility dropped to 1/8 of a mile and the water turned into an eerie smooth glass.  According to our electronic fix, we passed Pt. Bonita buoy at 12:46 and turned north west.

Now that we were on our final course all we had to do now was head forward!  Unfortunately this was the longest part of the journey.  I mistakenly set my crew’s expectation incorrectly when I looked at Bolinas Bay on the map thinking it was our final destination only to remember that we were 17 miles past that!  As we approached Stinson Beach, the water turned into a strange brownish red color.  I have never in my entire life seen water this color occur naturally anywhere let alone in the ocean.  As the wake from the boat churned up the water into a foam, the brownish-red would brighten in color.  The wind had completely died ever since we entered the fog.  The calm combined with the fog and brown-red water was reminiscent of a Steven King novel.  It was quite unnerving for everyone.  Still up to this point, the waves and wind had eluded us.  The former we were happy about, the latter, not so much.

As we approached Duxbury Reef off the tip of Bolinas Bay around 2pm suddenly the wind and the waves found us.  I bore off to a close haul and unfurled the sails.  It was wonderful to finally have the hum of the engine behind us.  We stayed on a close haul for about a half hour. This was some of the most amazing sailing of my entire life yet.  I was so excited to have Sizzle out in the ocean watching her rise up to the top of each 7 foot wave and ride down the back side to the next.  The wind had an invigorating chill about it, the sun was shining bright in the now clear sky and blowing at a comfortable 15 knots.  This is the kind of sailing I’ve been dreaming of.

BUT! I realized that we wouldn’t make it to Drake’s Bay before dark if we sailed the whole way so I decided to try motoring straight towards our destination.  Unfortunately for us, the wind and the waves were on the same bearing as our destination.  After averaging only 1.5-2 knots after a half hour, and with Brian and Damien not feeling well, I decided that it would be best to give up on our attempt to reach Drake’s Bay.  There were simply no good safe harbors that I was comfortable with if we changed our mind later and with almost 16 miles to go still, it just wasn’t to be this time.

We bore off to dead down wind and made a run back for the Bay.  We averaged about 7+ knots down the waves and 5-6 knots in the troughs.  It was an easy ride back home as the wind carried us through and around Pt. Bonita. It was a gorgeous sunset sail through the Gate and we seized the chance to take a few pictures.  We headed for Belvedere Cove and anchored there in 10 feet of water for the night just as twilight was upon us.  It was now almost 7pm and I fired up the grill and the stove to cook dinner for everyone.  While the cooking happened, Brian served a cheese platter of Gouda, Brie and some other funky cheese I like along with shrimp cocktail.  We dined on marinated and BBQ’d tri-tip steak, fresh cooked sea shell pasta with vodka sauce and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  Yum!  We curled up with our respective partners underneath the covers and watched Galaxy Quest on DVD.

The next day we lazed out of bed after 9am as the sun beat down early to warm up the boat from the evening’s chill.  Everyone was craving something tasty for brunch and I remembered that Sam’s Anchor cafe was just around the corner!  So we hauled up the anchor and motored over to Sam’s dock and tied up for brunch.  After a wonderful brunch, we hopped back aboard to enjoy an afternoon of sailing in the Bay.  The sun was out, there were a ton of boats and the wind was picking up nicely.

I put the 110% jib on and we reached across the Bay.  We met up with a friend in his trawler half way across the entrance to the Golden Gate and exchanged friendly hello’s as we bobbed along hove-to.  We eventually tacked our way out through the Gate again–no longer is going through the Gate a scary idea.  It’s something to be respected, but not feared… not any longer at least.  We tacked back and forth across the channel, dodging a couple container ships steaming their way into the Bay.  Eventually we bore off to a dead-run and configured the boat wing-over-wing for a nice downwind run back to Berkeley.

Overall it was probably the most challenging and rewarding sailing experiences I’ve had yet and I’m so lucky and happy to have shared it with the folks that I did.  I look forward to many more such adventures and eventually making it all the way to Drake’s Bay!