We arrived in San Francisco Bay Thursday, August 25th. Coming in under the Golden Gate Bridge was an awesome experience, the bridge towering out of the fog, just as we approached it. What a welcome!
The view of the city enthralled us as we continued into the bay, making our way under the Bay Bridge and on into the estuary between Oakland and Alameda Island, to the Alameda Marina. A stall had been reserved for us there by Alex "the key card guy" who is doing work for the Juneau Harbors & invited us to make a visit when we reached the Bay Area. He was sitting in a chase lounge on the end of the dock waiting to catch our line.


Visit into the City

On Sunday, we took the ferry over to the city for the afternoon. We grabbed lunch at Fisherman's Wharf, John a Crab Salad Sandwich and a Shrimp Salad Sandwich for me. Then over to the Maritime National Historic Park, up to Ghirardelli Square, and then grabbed a Cable Car for a quick tour of the city. We hopped the Powell-Hyde Line which took us up Hyde St, past Lombard St (the windy crooked street), to the Cable Care Museum, past China Town, and finely dropping us on Market St, where we walked through the Financial District on our way back down to the Ferry Building in time to grab a quick bite and catch the ferry back to Alameda. Too short, too fast. But that was the time that we had and we packed as much into it as we could.


Our Stay in Alameda

Alameda Island has quite a history. From ship building in the late 1800's - 1940's, to Pan AM World Airways China Clipper Trans-Pacific flight terminal 1935 - 1939, and the Naval Air Station Alameda 1940 - 1997. A lot of the old infrastructure still stands, some being used, some decaying away. The vast space left at the air station is now mostly vacant, but the City is trying to lease out buildings and space. There are a few now occupied. The abandoned air strips and surrounding lands have been used for filming movie car chases, the TV show MythBusters often conducts experiments there, and they provide a great drag strip for weekend car races!

Alex gave us a good tour of the old air station as well as Alameda and downtown Oakland, and we shared a couple good meals together before he had to head up to Juneau for work.

There is a real community look to this town of about 74,000 residents. I have taken many walks up and down the tree lined streets, gawking at the beautiful Victorian houses and their landscaped yards. Rose gardens being common. Apparently, there are around 1500 single family Victorian homes here, with even more than that now divided into multi-unit homes. Everyone I have encountered on the streets have been friendly and say hello.

We are tied at the outside end of a long covered dock, here at the Alameda Marina. Our walk to the top of the dock is an eye treat, as a good number of the covered stalls are filled with old classic wood boats. The uplands of the marina houses a large full service boat yard which has provided John with plenty of people to pester while they are trying to get their boat work done! It has payed off for us though, as we received an invitation and a ride to the Ballenas Bay Yacht Club the other night for a Mexico send off potluck. There are several boats from the club heading south this year and we were able to visit with them and share travel stories.

We have greatly enjoyed the local restaurants, having now eaten Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese meals. I also caught the local weekend farmers' market and came home with Pluots, Nectarines, Tomatoes, Figs, Olive Bread, Pumpkin Paratha & Cilantro Chutney, and a recipe for Pickled Peaches (maybe Renai will make some and bring them to me). General provisioning has also been good here. We were told about a great meat market by the fuel polishing guy (oh yeah, that's another story), and John went crazy there. We now have Stuffed Chicken Breasts, a whole swirl of Italian Sausage, and some Basil Chicken Sausage in the freezer. We already BBQed the Stuffed Pork Chops (they were fantastic) and have sliced Roast Beef and Italian Mortadella in the fridge for sandwiches. I took a 2 ½ mile walk to the big chain grocery on Wednesday to pick up other necessities and took a cab back to the boat with them.

On Tuesday, an old co-worker & friend of John's, Bob Hughes and his friend Lauri made the drive out from the Sacramento area for a visit. We took the dingy over to Jack London Square in Oakland for lunch. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and wonderful to catch up with Bob.


That Other Story

On the run from Bodega Bay to Drakes Bay the winds were light, so it was a motoring trip. It's still the ocean however, so there is still some swell even in light winds. The shoreline along this stretch is quite rocky and jagged. Yah, yah, you're getting the picture... The engine suddenly dropped RPMs, then after a very long few seconds, returned to full power. This happened three different times! John checked everything he could check and saw nothing that could be causing this. That left only the fuel to be the problem. We had planned to go from Bodega Bay, straight through to San Francisco, but not with this going on. That's when Drakes Bay became our new destination. We cut the engine power way back and watched the jagged rocky shoreline the whole way, praying the engine would keep running, as we putted into Drakes. There was not enough wind to stay off the lee shore had the engine conked out all the way. A collective release of breath echoed through the foggy anchorage as we dropped the anchor. Once at anchor John was able to clean out the fuel filters, discovering a jellied substance in the secondary engine filter. Pays to keep a supply on hand. Filters were cleaned and replaced and the only excitement on our trip into San Francisco the next day was the thrill of the bay entry it's self.

Once we arrived in Alameda, John found a fuel cleaning service and made an appointment to have the tanks cleaned and the fuel polished (super filtered until clean). The fuel polishing guy was quite talkative and I believe half of the four hours he spent at the boat he was just chatting it up with John. He used to be in IT, but now runs this fuel cleaning service. He told us about a great organic grocery store that also has a fabulous meat market. That is where John went crazy and filled up the freezer!


Getting Ready to Move On

We have been here in Alameda now for eight days and are ready to get moving on. Weather watch is still in affect though as there is a large swell breaking along the coast from a storm off of New Zealand.

The winds that were creating the small craft advisory throughout this week are subsiding with their NW swell following that trend, and therefore we were planning to leave the Bay Area tomorrow morning (Friday, 9/2). However the large Southerly swell is continuing and may make entry into some of the harbors south of here impossible. Looks like tomorrow isn't a good day to leave the bay, so we will be moving over to Sausalito instead.

Chris Burns has been our personal weather forecaster since we left Newport. It's been wonderful to have him "along", so to speak. He pulls GRIB files for the area and gives us his readings. This has been a great help in determining the best windows for traveling along the coast.

We will continue to watch the weather for a safe window and hopefully be able to head out of the Bay Area by Saturday.