09/19/2011, Half Moon Bay
We got off the boat today for a short exploratory walk. There really isn't a whole lot right here close to the marina, but I think we will take the bus for the 5 mile trip to the town of Half Moon Bay proper. We could use a few fresh veggies, so a full size grocery store would be in order.
As you can see, lefty got to meet one of our personal heros!! Captn Morgan!! Now you just gotta love that!!
This blog post was sent to you via pirated wi-fi signal, which seems so appopriate since it is "Talk Like A Pirate Day" It's a day of unchancy talk, ill and unmannered! ARGHH You Scally Wags!! Let's keel haul that scavenger 'o the sea!!
|
Comments [1]
09/19/2011, Half Moon Bay
After 5 months and nearly 2000 miles of cruising, members of the Three sheets NW class of 2011 have finally crossed wakes! Jeanne and I have been watching the blog for Aaron and Nichole, on SV Bella Star since last year. With similar departure dates, and both heading for the wilds of British Columbia, we managed to leap frog each other, but never ending up in the same harbor. They chose to circumnavigate Vancouver island, in their quest to land on 100 islands. We took a less arduous quest, with Desolation Sound as our primary goal. We got to spend some incredible quality time in Desolation Sound, and the Octopus Islands, and they achieved their goal of landing on 100 separate islands.
We managed to leave for San Francisco about a week ahead of them, arriving on the 5th of September, and they arrived some time later, after a stop or two along the way.
Yesterday morning we sailed out on the early morning ebb tide, under the Golden Gate Bridge, and headed for Half Moon Bay,. When we pulled into the anchorage, there, finally in all her glory, was SV Bella Star.
They joined us for a glass of wine in celebration, which later, turned into a spaghetti dinner, sharing tales of the summer cruising. The four of us all have one very similar goal, 80 degrees in the shade, and cold beer in our hands, on a day when everybody back in "The World" are all at work. We will continue to leap frog down the coast, and will with no doubt share many more anchorages once we find the endless summer that we are looking for!
|
Bette, if you look at the water behind us, you can see the flat calm water. Half Moon Bay is incredibly calm, for an anchorage right off the ocean, so we just put the camera on a tripod!
Hope all is well guys - we miss you up here.
Kev
Well it's the first full day of fall here in the PNW and the weather has taken a big left turn . The winds have finaly shifted and the rain has begun. Ruth noticed the shift yesterday evening and it was very pronounced. Today we will be treated to clean fresh air a benefit that the rain brings. The temperature has not yet headed south but it wont be long.
Several of us here are already dreaming or planing about flying to Mexico this winter for what we know will be a longed after winter break. I hope we will be able to see you when we are there.
09/17/2011, Clipper Cove
We are going to continue our search for warm, sunny weather, and head south in the morning. We plan on a stop over in Half Moon Bay, before heading towards Santa Cruz.
We will write when we can.
|
09/17/2011, San Francisco
I got an e-mail note from Aunt Bette, letting me know that I better get some rest 'cus we still had some really cool places to see while we are here in San Francisco. Boy was she right!!
On our second day into the city, we took the bus again, just like last time. This time when we got off, we got to go ride on one of the true San Francisco land marks....a cable car!! Because Tom & Jeanne bought that city pass, we even got to ride for free!! So we rode up to the top of the hill, and you know what? Those cable cars are kinda noisy!! Once we got off the cable car. We caught another bus, this one took us to the Exploratorium. This has to be one of the coolest looking buildings ever!! It looks like it was built in early Rome. I tried to visit with some of the good looking goddess's that were there, but they gave me the silent treatment! I also got a really big help from Tom, and flew way up high by the Roman Pillars. Jeanne got some amazing pictures of the building and the statues all around it. I might have snuck into a couple of her pictures, but I don't think she noticed!!
When we went inside the Exploratorium, I was very excited!! This place has just about every kind of cool experiment ever!! I got to play on the sand spinning wheel, and I tried to catch the marbles that Tom sent down the shoot, but I got caught in the rings...dang it!! I got to sit in a really huge chair, there were these funny mirrors that made me looking really big, and cameras that split our faces in two parts. They really made us look very funny. There were all kinds of things to teach us about sound, color and motion.
I am pretty sure that my favorite part was when I got to sail on my own sailboat!! It was just my size and it went where ever I wanted, well, maybe Tom & Jeanne helped out some!!
After we left there, we stopped at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I am pretty sure that I am not old enough to understand some of this stuff, but by the look on Tom's face I am pretty sure he was the same way. I mean I think I could paint some of those pictures that everybody was starring at...I mean, really, who is this Picasso guy anyway? One of the "art pieces" was a bunch of empty water bottles, with a little bit of blues water in each all tied up on a piece of string? Looked to me like it should have been put in the recycling bin.
There was one last thing that we had to go see before we left San Francisco!! The Rice-a-Roni Museum! You know, sing along now....Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat!! The museum was free, and they had all of the old boxes from back when it all started. It was hard to find because it had moved. It is now located south of market, between 8th and 9tb on Minna Street. Tom thought that it was pretty cool that Rice-a-Roni and him were both born in the same year. It used to be called Noodle Roni, and then in 1995 it became Pasta Roni. The funny thing is, the Rice-a-Roni company used to be owned by the Pepsi Company!! Now it owned by the American Italian Pasta Company...that sounds like a better owner to me!
Whew..i am bushed!! It is time to go back to the boat and take a nap!! Bette was right, I am sure glad I got some rest, because this tourist stuff is really tiring....and I didn't even have to do all the walking.
""Note from Tom" we will post a whole series of pictures from lefty's big adventure in the photo gallery, in a seperate S.F. gallery!! Hope you enjoy them as much as we did taking them...
|
Happy sailing tomorrow.
09/17/2011, Clipper cove
Eagle is still anchored here in Clipper cove, and it looks like the weather will cooperate for us to leave tomorrow morning. But today we get to enjoy the largest Dragon Boat race Festival in the nation right in front of our boat!! as you can see by the picture above, we have a great view from the boat!
There are 120 teams from all over the nation and Canada. the races are straight sprints, and they race about 500 yards. It is actually pretty amazing to see the diversity of the teams, from young high schoolers to people in their late 60's, and and almost all are co-ed teams.
The day started with virtually no wind, and the sun out. It is awesome! We took a few pictures from the boat, and then from the dinghy, before we went ashore to explore the many booths and displays set up.
While we were on shore, our good friend, and fellow sailor, John Spicher sailed into the cove, with his crew having just arrived here this morning from Seattle. They made one short stop in Newport, on their trip down to San Francisco. They are going to do the Haa Haa this year.
|
09/17/2011, San Francisco
Monday morning came, and I have to admit, I didn't sleep very well last night. You see, we were going into the city, San Francisco and I was excited because I get to go along!! I have never been here, and Jeanne and Tom told me that we are going to do some really cool stuff!
The first thing we did was walk up to the bus stop that is right here near the marina. We were only waiting a few minutes, and along came a bus to pick us up. We have the boat in at Treasure Island, in a cove that that is part of an island, in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. There is a really big bridge, the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge that touches down on our island, so we can catch the bus and then it climbs a hill to get on the bridge going into town. My first bus ride, my first really big bridge...this day is going to be so cool!
Once we get into town, and get off the bridge, we started to walk toward the water front. The buildings are really tall here...some times I can't even see the tops. When we got down to the waterfront, we still had a pretty long walk, so Jeanne said that we needed to catch a ride on the trolleys that run along the waterfront. They are really old, and cool looking, so we catch a ride all the way down the road, called the Embarcadero, until we got to Pier 39.
Our first stop was the Aquarium by the Bay. We got to walk through this really big glass tube, that was inside the water. There were all kind of fish and rays and sharks all around us!! I tried to get close to them, but for some reason, they were afraid of me...what ever could that be all about? We also were supposed to get to see an octopus, but all we got to see was a big statue of one. Tom said that it was just about the same size as the one he caught when we were up at Sucia island. I didn't get to see that one, so I was pretty bummed. Oh well, one of these days I will. I did get to meet a lady who was showing us how to pet the sharks and rays, but Jeanne wouldn't let me!! Said I would get all wet...duh..isn't that what it was all about? Before we left, I got to hold a shark though, but he wasn't wet!
After the aquarium, we went down to look at the rest of the Pier 39 area. There are a lot of really cool shops there, and you can see all the way out to Alcatraz island. That looks like a scary place, especially since it used to be a prison where they kept the really bad guys!!
Then we came to the coolest shop ever!!! Lefty's!! It was a shop that had my name all over it. There were Lefty pens, Lefty cups, books about Lefty and even some really awesome shirts. One of the shirts said "Lefty Rules".
After all this walking we needed to get some food, at right there in the middle of all this was, The Eagle Cafe. The food was excellent, and Tom said it was one of the best Bacon Blue Cheese Burgers he had ever had. Almost as good as the ones at the Elliot bay Brew Pub, back in Burien.
Then we stopped into a really huge place that was full of nothing but chocolate. Every kind you could imagine. We only bought a few things, but I guess they are for later tonight after dinner. Jeanne said something about really good dark chocolate, with nuts and chewy caramel. The sign said they were turtles, but they don't look like the turtles I saw in the Aquarium.
Then we got to go for a boat ride...like we hadn't done that before. I guess we had free tickets so we went, and we got to go out under the Golden Gate Bridge again. We all got very excited when we were going under the bridge, and there was a boat sailing out in front of us. It was our friends on SV Pearl. They are going to go to Mexico too, and wanted to get going so they already left. We will get to see them later when we catch up.
When we got back to shore, we walked some more and got to see a submarine, and a really big battleship. Then we went into the building that was full of really old, very cool arcade games. I got to play with a couple of them, and Tom and I played Pirates of The Caribbean pinball. We had a lot of fun. I even got to ride a pony!! It was a plastic pony, and took quarters, but it sure was fun.
By now we were getting pretty thirsty, so we stopped at Starbucks, and had a small drink, Tom used his computer to send out a couple of e-mails, because we don't have e-mail while we are in the anchorage.
OK..I am tired now and need a nap! That was a very busy day, but I had SOOOO much fun!! I can't wait til tomorrow. I don't know what we are going to do, but we have so much fun every day out here on our adventure!!
|
