Sunny and Warm
11/04/2010, Half Moon Bay, CA

Nov. 1/2

On Nov 1 we had a great day sail from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay, only about a 25 nm trip made in perfect light winds and gentle seas. However with a big swell forecast, thanks to the weather back at home, we decided to pull in to anchor and avoid the rollers.
It is another delay, but the good news was that on the 2nd we got to watch the most amazing big wave surfing at Mavericks. It is a famously spectacular and infamously dangerous wave that is about a half mile off Pillar Point, which makes up the west side of the harbour. We can see the tip of the big rock in front of the break when we poke our heads out the companionway!
Incredible! The waves were between 30-40 feet and looked super steep - and it was such a beautiful day that we had a great view, as we hung out on a steep and scrambley ridge with a bunch of surfer paparazzi types wielding some of the biggest lenses I've ever seen!
If you look closely at the breaking wave in the photo you'll see three tiny little surfers - who are on boards at least 10 feet long, to give a sense of scale.

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11/04/2010

Oct 31

We are not really baseball fans, but even so it was hard not to get into the spirit of the World Series playoffs in San Francisco. It seemed every third person on the street was wearing Giants paraphernalia. There were big lineups outside the bars on game nights - we watched the second-to-last game in the yacht club and there was lots of team spirit!
We were at anchor in Half Moon Bay the night the giants won the world series, and there was no mistaking what happened, the town just went off!

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11/04/2010, San Francisco

Oct 30

Well we couldn't stop ourselves - the whole time we were in San Francisco Mike was looking for a used folding bike and finally in our last couple of days he found one -- a Dahon for $350 at a consignment store. Hooray!
We each got a chance to ride over the GG Bridge and around the big city on it and are pleasantly surprised by the ride. Marni put lots of miles on it by getting lost on her way to the grocery store and then hauled a huge load of groceries back from the city on it, so it's tougher than it looks!

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10/29/2010

3.
Well we are still weather bound in San Francisco. It seems like the windows of fair weather are few and far between. Of course we could always sail to windward but with a 8-10 foot NW swell and a 6-8 foot SW swell and 5-8 foot wind waves on top with the wind 15-20 Kts from SE it is just not that appealing, Things look like they will start to shape up early next week though so let's hope!
So far we have walked about 500 miles and are longing for our bikes. Marni was right and Mike was SO wrong.** However we've enjoyed all the walking as well especially hiking up above Sausalito, also a trip to Stinson Beach and near Mt Tamalpais on the Marin headlands, and around San Francisco.

We have been anchored in Sausalito and use the SYC as our base -- nice showers, dingy dock etc those folks are so accommodating!
Yesterday as we rowed back to the boat in a brisk breeze, after a field trip ashore, we noticed it didn't seem to be in the same place we'd left it.... A very bad feeling.
Apparently we had dragged just 20 minutes earlier, ending up near another Canadian couple who have built their own boat! Luckily for everyone Picara had picked a good course to drag along and their boat was unharmed by us, the steel behemoth, though they did have a lot of fenders hanging off the side just in case!
Not sure if our anchor was tripped by a fellow who had been anchored very close and moved that day (we'd like to believe so) or whether we simply should have added more scope or used a different anchor - the mud in this bay is truly soupy. We are now over killing the situation anchored on BOTH a Fortress (Danforth-style anchor which is good for this type of bottom) and our usually trusty Delta anchor, with 120 feet of chain in 14 feet of water!! We have the two linked in series and so far so good.

** this sentence was typed by Mike of his own free will. Mark your calendars.

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10/29/2010

There has certainly been some adventure and hair raising moments so far, for example a couple of nights ago the forecast was for SE 25 Kt , and people were talking about it as if it were a huge storm. We were on a mooring at the SYC and sure enough the wind picked up, it was bumpy and rolly but not really windy, stayed up late watching DeadWood and got into bed around midnight fell right asleep but was woken about an hour later by some bigger gusts, Mikes' "spidey" senses started tingling and when that happens there will be no sleep, up and down every 15-20 minutes checking this and that, climbed out on deck around 3:30 am just in time to see our buddies on Marimba II drifting down on us. After the second hearty yell the skipper appeared on deck as Mike fended off their pulpit. He sprang into action and fired up the motor, cut the mooring lines and sped off into the darkness to anchor safely across the channel. The mooring they were tied to drifted onto the beach and was recovered the next day. They were inspected in 2008 but there were links on this chain that had wasted down from half an inch to something like 3/16 and the weird thing is that many links look like new there are others that are almost gone! This is a good lesson and we will never tie to a mooring unless we know exactly what is down there - a lesson we already knew but temporarily put out of our minds, seduced by the short row and free showers at the club!

At dawn the wind really started to pick up so we let go our mooring and had a go at anchoring in a near gale, but the mud here is like jell-o and our plow-shaped anchor dragged through it with ease. Also we had run out of propane and not wanting to suffer too much decided to head into the fuel dock to fill up, We made a good landing and did not even scratch the paint, there was a guest dock available and that sounded better than rolling around at anchor all day so we peeled our selves off the fuel dock and made our way around the marina healing 15-20 degrees in the gusts, It took two passes on the lee side to land and unfortunately the bow line snagged on top of a stanchion with both of us pulling as hard as we could Picara reluctantly started to come back to the dock though not before the weld at the base of the stanchion broke clean off ! Luckily all of the parts stayed onboard. We finally flopped into bed after being awake for about 28 hrs. The next day was sunny and calm of course and as we have a beautiful little welder on board (Thank you Bruce!) Mike was able to zap said stanchion back in place and we are good to go.

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10/29/2010

1.
We sailed over to Angel Is and anchored in the nice protected cove had a lovely dinner with our Storm Bay buddies and a very still and quiet night, the next morning we were greeted by a overzealous megaphone-wielding park warden bellowing across the anchorage that there was" NO ANCHORING IN THE COVE!" As this left us with the options of sailing away, paying $30 for a night on a mooring or $15 to tie up to the dock, we decided on option C and handed over our $15. Climbed to the top of the island where we were greeted with stunning views and lots of soaring hawks. Once back aboard we decided to get a little value for our cash and unload all of our garbage and recycling. Mike gallantly took on this task and the recycle part went off flawlessly He decided to use his normal garbage disposal style and all was going well until out of nowhere and without warning the garbage can pounced and shivved him right between the ribs, he staggered around clutching his side and gasping for breath and then decided to just walk away, as "There were at least five of them and they all had the crazy eye!" Mike is expected to make a full recovery.

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