Sausalito

Where Next?
Bob Williams
Mon 28 Sep 2015 02:58
At anchor Richardson Bay, San Francisco Harbor
Wind: south west, F2 gentle breeze
Weather: mostly sunny, warm

I am starting to get my bearings around the Sausalito area, though have not ventured any further afield as yet. We are anchored quite a way from the nearest dinghy dock, about half a mile, so rather a long row. Unfortunately there is very little wind in Richardson Bay, which is good as far as being sheltered is concerned, but not so good for sailing the dinghy ashore. I broke the rig out for it today as there seemed to be a reasonably consistent light breeze blowing, but by the time I got the rig together the breeze had died out completely, so I rolled it back up and once more rowed ashore.

While the row is long, it is not unpleasant. I have to row around a sea wall that protects several hundred boats densely tied up in a their marina berths. Once around the wall I am about two thirds of the way to the dinghy dock and on this stretch of the row I am greeted by pelicans standing preening themselves on top of the numerous piles that mark the northern boundary of the marina complex. And if they are absent then there place is taken by large congregations of black hooded terns. Some black cormorants also manage to squeeze themselves in, and when the tide is out, numerous small harbour seals bask in the sunshine on an exposed wreck of a sunken pontoon, and what looks like a very large chunk of an old concrete pipe that sticks out of the mud at an awry angle. The seals arch their backs with their heads and tails high in the air like a row of sickles, presumably so as to keep most of their bodies out of the water and thereby soak up as much warmth from the sun as they can.

While Richardson Bay has thus far been almost entirely calm, often the greater expanse of San Francisco Bay that we can see to the south east of us, is not. During the day I can see numerous sail boats in the distance, sailing around Alcatraz Island with their sails full and drawing, and often heeled over quite steeply, the water surrounding them ruffled to a dark blue by the wind that must be out there, but not in here, the line between out there and in here being clearly marked by the sharp change in the water's colour.

Today a south westerly wind was forecast, not that it could be felt in Richardson Bay, but as I rowed back to Sylph late this afternoon bringing back a large bag of now clean laundry, thick fog could be seen rolling over the low hills that protect the bay. As the fog descended on my side of the hills the white shroud of water vapour simply disappeared as it evaporated into the warming air mass, creating an eerie effect of an endless magic conveyor belt, its load of white disappearing as it fell of its end, like the oceans falling off the edge of the world.

OK, so I am waxing lyrical a bit, but I hope you get the idea.

All is well.