We left Oakland Yacht Club on Tuesday 31st October on a cold foggy day and motored away under the Golden Gate Bridge heading for Half Moon Bay 30 miles South. It is always an amazing feeling to be travelling under the Bridge as opposed to travelling on the Bridge. San Francisco is certainly a pretty city and in the foggy light the tall spire of the Trans America Pyramid building (853 feet tall) together with the outline of the city takes one's breathe away. We have really enjoyed ourselves in Frisco. We spent the last night listening to a blue grass jamming session at a little Irish pub, where anyone with a musical instrument and a varying degree of proficiency can come along and play with other like minded individuals. It was fun and most could play! We dropped the hook at Half Moon Bay and took the dinghy into the little town. As luck would have it we found a little harbour restaurant and bar open and being Halloween there was a band scheduled to play later that night. What a party this turned out to be. People arrived in fancy dress and we kept getting free drinks as the barman found out we had just sailed in plus he fancied Natalie!! The band when it started was fantastic and played a mixture of blues and traditional jazz - we later found out that some of the members were up for music awards. We have also discovered that pubs here have happy hour every night between 4 and 7 pm - drinks are then cheaper and usually there are a variety of tapas laid out - very civilised. Tomorrow we leave for Santa Cruz 45 miles South of Half Moon Bay. Here there is a huge amusement park (I know that I thought this applied to the whole of America!!) and Natalie and I plan to go on the roller coaster which happens to be a landmark for the area. Bruce flatly refuses to go on those things!!! Then the next stop is Monterey.