02/27/2010, Sacramento
It has been an event-full week or so. PEREGRINE has found a new home, so we are officially "STUCK ON THE BEACH". Carole says that my next boat will be with my next wife! But that's OK, we can remember when she said that "we wouldn't need a big boat to go cruising on, 'cause only one of us was going to go!" So for the foreseeable time being if anybody needs crew, let me know. All-in-all Carole has put up with around 14 boats of one kind or another, so there are no complaints (or even whimpers) coming from me. I am a very lucky & blessed guy! . . . . On another note: Carole & I did a little seminar at the Alameda Boat Show last weekend, on COASTAL CRUISINF ALONG THE CALIFORNIA & MEXICAN COASTS. It was fun going through all the pictures and re-living the fun times with so many good friends from the last few years. And it looks like Phil & Nora McCaleb and Carole & I will be doing the same seminar again this year at the SAIL AMERICA boat show at Jack London Square in Oakland, in April. (so I don't think Carole is completely giving up on sailing)
|
Comments [0]
02/15/2010, Coast of California north of San Francisco
We spent a recent weekend at Bodega Bay with Ron & Pat DeRobertis (cousins on Carole's side). It started out cold & wet on Friday, but as the week end got going it turned beautiful. This was the weekend of the BIG swells and the surfing competition at Maverick's; but I want to tell you the swells were huge up there too! So big the crab boats were not going out. But that was OK 'cause we got ours before the supply on the docks were bought up. WHAT A FEAST!!! This is one Irishman who is sure lucky to have married into a great Italian family. The competition between Ron & Carole to see who could come up with the best 'old family recipe' for cooking live crabs or a rub on steaks, was fantastic.
To top it off, there is a great little general store close-by that makes their own sausage & smokes salmon. And then there is the local bakery - - !
This was not as warm as being in Mexico, but was fantastic.!
|
02/01/2010, S F BAY
So - here we are again, sailing ESPIRITU on San Francisco Bay. It all started when we were going to sail in the THREE BRIDGE FIASCO on the Bay. That's a race clear around the Bay where you start off the City-front near the Golden Gate Bridge and sail the bay by going around a mark there, and then Treasure Island, and then Red-Rock up near the Richmond Bridge. It is around 21 to 25 miles or something like that. The FUN part is that you get to chose which way you want to go around the Bay, and you choose which order you want to go around the various marks. Anyway, when Allan was signing up they said we could only choose either single-hand or double-hand divisions. BUMMER, we were going to have four of us on board and make the 'race' into a 'party'. So we did the only thing we could think of - - we had an un-official 'race'. We didn't make the start at 0930, why get in the way of everybody! Oh yeah, there were 350 boats starting this race, they didn't need us in there too! So we picked up the fleet as they came around Treasure Island about an hour later and sailed along out of everybody's way enjoying the view of all those spinnakers flying. We made REDROCK by the bridge and sailed around about as good as anybody in the BIG ebb tide and had a ball. The BIG difference between really racing and what we were doing was that we were loaded down with snacks & drinks & more snacks & food, and we had our party anyway. We finished the snacks in time to enjoy cups of Carole's home-made turkey soup and platter of fritatta & cheese. Then we had some sailing WITH the tide and some great boat speeds coming back across the Bay. About the time we hit the Bay Bridge, THEY PUT THE LEG OF LAMB IN THE OVEN, and we had a fantastic dinner back in the slip about the time the last boats were finishing the race. What a way to go sailing!!!
What a great day on S F BAY. Allan & Marlane really are enjoying ESPIRITU as much, maybe even more, than we did. It was great fun and brought back such great memories, being out on her! Allan has picked up a BIG drifter from a 48' Swan. This thing goes to the masthead (Espiritu is a fractional rig with a small jib) and is cut to come back almost half the length of the hull, so it is probably about a 150% drifter! WAS IT FUN TO FLY!!!
We stayed on PEREGRINE for the weekend, and had a ball yesterday driving home on the river road coming through the Delta. We stopped just long enough in Islton to have a great burger and a bowl of Crawdads
|
