I don't know that it's a bad thing that, from my viewpoint here almost two months later and 800 miles to the south, the most exciting things I can recall of the second leg of our Seattle-to-San Francisco transit are the beginning and the ending. What that tells me is that at least there was no misadventure along the way. Okay, no real adventure, either, but there you go.

As you might recall from one of my crew biopics, the genesis of our departure date became a matter of profane Sunday night debate that ended with eventual consensus to leave Bandon on Monday, August 25th at the late sailor's hour of 7 am. As seems to have become standard under my captaincy, Mabrouka and her crew lagged a bit in getting away from the dock. Andante, Abby Normal, and Friday, being their usual prompt selves, were already fading out the channel entrance into the morning fog when we turned the corner past the marina breakwater.

It wasn't that I'd become attached to them that made me nervous when the lead boats became completely lost from sight, it was that that meant I also couldn't see the rocky jetties or the waves that piled up on them out of the cloying grayness. Unlike the three other boats, Mabrouka was not equipped with radar, so I tucked the old girl's tail and turned back to the safety of our recently vacated slip to wait for the fog to lift. While the crew enjoyed a more relaxed morning routine than our first departure had allowed, I took advantage of the break to take the spare alternator up to a nearby auto shop. There I hoped for the proper equipment to rid it of the serpentine pulley that I'd been unable to remove over the weekend.

A couple of hours later we decided the visibility had improved enough to eliminate at least that impediment to safe departure, so off we went. We still had a little excitement on the way out, but at least this time we could see the six foot swells rolling toward us. The green water washing over the bow and rushing down the decks into the cockpit was still a bit of a surprise.

After that, it was just limited visibility that dampened our spirits. This proved to be the case off and on all the way down the coast. I was still unsure of the charging system, but at least I had the batteries hooked up in such a way as to keep the important systems functioning. Occasionally the winds piped up enough to let us do more than drift under slatting panels of dacron, so we sailed a little bit. Valella valellas put in appearances once in a while as did ocean sunfish, floating like great gobs of used chewing gum just below the glassy surface as we passed.

I know from personal experience that it's a fairly common occurrence to have terrestrial bird visitors land on the boat, even as far as we were from shore. No, by terrestrial I don't mean flightless guys like Emus and Ostriches. Land-based ones, kinda like the opposite of sea birds. Then again, why would a sea bird land on a boat? I've always assumed that the misplaced little finches and whatnot I've had visit at sea have been conscripted into sea duty by big offshore winds. If so, they don't have much choice than to land on the rolling decks of passing ships and boats.

It was the midnight to three AM watch on our first night out of Bandon that I'd gone forward to peer from the bow into the dark ocean night and came across a feathered brown bundle huddled on the deck. It gave not a hint of struggle as I picked it up, but I could feel its life shudder against my palm, so I reassured myself that it would have a chance of survival if I tucked it into the shelter of Mabrouka's dodger. I never saw it after that, so I assume it worked up enough energy to fly out into the night to find, I hope, something more promising than a wet demise among the waves.

Not much later on that very same watch I found a little, green-brown fluff of a bird on the cockpit deck. It looked like a dirty tennis ball with a sharp, pointed beak. Less docile than the first bird, I let it find it's own way to a sheltered perch on the main sheet in the lee of the deck house. It, too, disappeared into the darkness without saying goodbye, leaving to find its own watery way home.

My watch that night was a tough one for birds, I guess, with more definitive tragedy to come. There were three more birds that night and the first one was already dead when I found it. Obviously the feel of the soft body under my rubber boot was not the clue that caused me to look down at my feet, because it was just a lifeless, dark shadow when I noticed it. Sadly, all I could do was plop it over the rail.

Now I was tuned in, though, concluding that the bird had been hiding its wet feathers from the wind by sheltering at my feet. Sure enough, I looked down and another was cowering between my other boot and the wall of the cockpit well. I let it stay there awhile, careful not to shift my feet with the rolling deck. Eventually another survivor was found, and the crew was made aware in turns as they came up for watch not to crush the little buggers under their feet.

In the morning we received a consultation from our resident avian expert. Ed had pored through the Sibley's bird book during his three to six AM watch and pronounced our black bird friends to be sub-arctic storm petrels. I had to agree that they had the webbed feet of a sea bird and the markings and prominent nostrils of storm petrels, but my reading of the book said these would be fairly rare at this latitude. I was pretty sure we'd been seeing frequent flocks of them floating on the water the day before, thus my doubt. Oh well, who am I to argue with an Audobon Society chapter past-president. No one, that's who!

It's only now occurred to me to wonder why a sea bird would need to hide out on a passing boat. That's definitely what these guys were doing, though. If they weren't cowering at our feet, they were tucked up in the shelter of the camp chairs that were folded up on deck. We facilitated this cowardly behavior by draping rags over them.

It broke my heart the next day to hear Ed admit to having killed one of the two survivors. Not that I felt overly sorry for the bird, ...short lives are the generally the way of birds after all. It was Ed's demeanor that made me sad. He'd been coming out the companionway when the sea rolled Mabrouka sideways. Unable to keep his balance, Ed couldn't avoid putting his foot down on one that had ventured onto the open deck. Though he'd cradled it in the warmth of his hands for some time, the bird never revived and was put over the side to join in the fate of its friends.

After that all of us were bound and determined that the third "storm petrel" would make it off Mabrouka under its own power, not just by gravity into the sea. I think it was Jim that contrived to incarcerate number three for its own good, putting it on a dry rag and plopping a tupperware over it. We tried to feed it, but bread crumbs didn't suit its tastes and even an offering from Ed's stash of mussels were rejected. I think it was the tabasco sauce.

By the third day things had warmed up a bit and the little guy seemed to be done preening its feathers dry. With darkness lifted and the sea fairly calm, I released the bird from its little plastic deckhouse to find its own way around the deck. Still, we four gnarly old men of the sea kept each other apprised of its whereabouts so we wouldn't flatten this one with an ill-placed boot. Eventually it found a perch in the starboard, aft mooring chock, ...the bronze hole in the bulwark where the aft mooring line can be passed through Mabrouka's side. With its beak seaward, all we could see of it now was a little splay of tail feathers. I assumed it was scoping out the passing sea, calculating its chances of survival and steeling its nerves for lift off.

This guy was obviously done with us. We'd served our purpose and he was contemplating departure. I thought its little hind-quarters poking out of the chock was a cute visual, ...fitting, somehow, so I turned to fetch my camera. When I turned back he was gone. He'd literally just flipped us the bird and left ... and, sniff sniff, he never wrote, he never called...

Without our little companion, the last morning at sea before the Golden Gate seemed to stretch on forever. We were heading for a spot off Point Reyes that was taking us closer to shore than we'd been for days. That brought not only rocks and buoys into range for calamity, but fishing vessels as well. We had daylight, though, and everyone was anxious for landfall, so we motored safely along with two or three pairs of eyes on watch.

Our first glimpse of the bridge rose around the last point of land at around 10 am. With it came an expansive view of one of the most treacherous bar entrances in the world, comprising almost 180 degrees of obstruction to boats and ships approaching from the west. Looking down from a storm petrel's-eye view, if the Golden Gate Bridge points to 6 and 12 o'clock, then major shipping lanes come in toward the center of the watch face through gaps in the bar at 7, 9, and 11 o'clock. Oh, and did I say that its one of the busiest shipping ports of the world?

I didn't want to get too intimately involved in all that, so I laid in a course that would take us shoreward of the northernmost shipping lane to within a few hundred yards of the rocks, then south through a narrow break in the bar called Bonita Channel. This took us along the northern side of the Four Fathom Bank and around the infamous Potato Patch at its eastern end. From several miles away we could see the ocean swells building in the shallow water, the morning light reflecting silver off their huge rippled backs as they rolled eastward like Amtrak engines. The sight was quite effective as a deterrent to taking a shortcut.

Bonita Channel was quite safe, though. The swells spent themselves crossing the Potato Patch and what was left of them was swallowed by the deeper water of the channel, so we had only a gentle rolling passage along the shore. Then we dashed across to the south side of the one remaining shipping lane and turned left under the bridge.

This all turned out to be rather anti-climactic, for me anyway. The job was done, the big adventure was past, and the dark orange structure just glowered quietly down at us as we entered the bay. Ed wanted to get off the boat right away since he'd planned on his son picking him up on the downtown waterfront and Jim and Robert wanted to know where we were going to dock for the night. That set me to phoning yacht clubs and, eventually, the San Francisco Harbor Master. I was so occupied making arrangements that I hardly had time to appreciate the milestone and only got to my celebratory beer after the fact.

With our promise that we'd only stay an hour or so, the Harbor Master gave us permission to take a temporary slip at the Hyde Street Commercial Fishing Basin downtown while Robert whipped some leftovers into shape for lunch and Ed gathered his things and spiffed himself up for departure. When Ed's son showed up, we posed for pictures and off our shipmate went. So long, buddy!



We'd had recommendations for Berkeley Marina and I'd succeeded in getting in touch with Berkeley YC's dock master, conning him into letting us have a few days of reciprocal dockage, so that's where we headed. Enticed by the wind on the bay, we decided to sail to Berkeley, a decision we took too lightly. As Jim and I would learn in a couple of Bay transits over the next two weeks, the wind really, ...I mean, REALLY funnels through the Golden Gate, blasting eastward every afternoon at well over 20 knots. That day was no exception and it wasn't long before we decided it was too much even for just the genny, so we fought the headsail in and made our way downwind through the shallow entrance into Berkeley Marina, barely needing the engine with the wind in the bare poles pushing us on at several knots all by itself.

Now, imagine anticipating steering a 16 ton boat into an unknown marina with 20 or 25 knots of wind to blow you about as you're trying to maneuver at low speed into who knows what sort of tight spot. Needless to say, I was nervous. Andante had gone into the same marina the day before, so I radioed to them for assistance. They obliged with more than bodies on the dock to take lines. Kevin got on the radio and described the layout of the marina, recommending an approach that he thought would take me safely to the yacht club dock.

His advice served us well and I did Mabrouka proud with as good a landing as could have been contrived. We'd safely completed the most dramatic passage of our lives, tying up at Berkeley Yacht Club's guest dock after over 900 miles of open sea along the craggy, fog bound shores of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. Huzzzzaaaaah!