It has been several days of South winds so we have been closed hauled (heeled) making typing difficult, not to mention everything else. I will try for a catch up the blog.

At last entry we were sailing merrily along with the wind behind us expecting a change to a south wind sometime that morning. We were "wing on wing" which means the mainsail is fixed on one side and the jib fixed to a pole on the other. It is a very stable efficient point of sail for our boat IF YOU KEEP THE WIND BEHIND YOU! Thus, about 3:30 am the wind shifted from NW to S in about 90 seconds. It was my shift and I frantically tried to follow the wind around to prevent an accidental jybe. With all the noise and possibly some swearing, the crew, recognizing that a problem had arisen, arose. We wrestled in the pole, brought the main onto the proper side, and carried on in more or less the right direction at a good clip. Thanks crew, and sorry for the early morning excitement. We could head pretty much directly south for the next day and tacked towards San Fran about 1600 Sept 4th with 100 miles to go.

Interesting how it seemed to me we were very close yet, the last 100 miles were still 1/7th of the trip. And with the south winds took more than it's share of the time to cover.

Now that we are in California, we are surrounded by a smokey haze, and have seen ash in the air even 50 miles off the coast. Obviously a big fire is somewhere inland. We can smell it and it certainly affects the moon and visions of the stars.

We are also seeing more whales. Large grey ones we are not orcas nor humpbacks. Quite possibly grey whales (by default!).

That evening, we had a cashew chicken curry dinner (thanks Lanaya) and were quite on the heel so we "hove to" which basically allows us to park for a bit and enjoyed the meal before moving on.

Sept 5 finds us on day 7 of the venture with a a possibility of making it to San Fran. Had we motored we probably could have made it but the intrepid crew carried on win 10 knots SE wind pushing us more south. A tack at about 8:00 turned the corner and we were on course for a direct eastern route to SF. Our arrival time looked like 3:00 so we decided to anchor at the Farallon Islands some 20 miles from the bay. It is a nature reserve and was full of sea lions, walrus, and birds. The smell was quite something but the moon rose over the hilltops for an amazing scene. A quiet restful night for all.

Sept 6th started with a nice breakfast and a stuck anchor. It took about 90 minutes to get it off the bottom but no harm done. Up with the main; up with the jib and on to San Francisco. We were approaching the bridge when accosted by whales and dolphins, and Guy saw a mola mola again.

There are three shipping lanes into the Bay area and they all converge about 5 miles outside. We were kept reasonably busy identifying and avoiding various tugs and freighters as they approached. Then they all seemed to disappear as we sailed under the bridge about 14:00. We probably have 100 pictures of the bridge now and will share a few shortly. The wind kicked up with the venture affect and we quickly made it to our berth at the San Francisco Yacht Club in Tuberin/ Belvedere. We plan on staying a couple of nights. Today (Sept 7th) was a make and mend day so the crew did a bang-up job of cleaning up, Carpe Ventus never looked so gleaming. Laundry, grocery shopping and happy hour rounded out the day. Tomorrow we take the foot ferry to the big city.