Under the Golden Gate Bridge

It has been about two weeks since our initial post to this blog. My apologies to those who have been wondering what happened to us. The truth is that there are a lot of important things to take care of when cruising, and lots of wonderful things to see when in port, so it can be hard to find the time to do things like write the blog, play my guitar, read a book or try to learn some Spanish ahead of arriving in Baja.

After the close of the last posting, we took a one-way car rental back to Eugene to receive the equipment and parts for the boat that were being shipped there. We were also able catch up with people at home, and bring back some more warm clothes and blankets – it can sure get cold out on the ocean at night! We were home for just five days. We drove my car back down to Bogeda Bay, as Karen’s mom said we could keep it at her place at Santa Rosa.

With the replacement autopilot, and the one I was able to replace the belt on, we now have three working autopilots! Hopefully, with the eight replacement drive belts I bought, they will last a lifetime. I hope so, because I never want to buy another Raymarine product again, after all the drama of getting a replacement for their product that was faulty right out of the box. It became apparent after a while that the online dealer I bought the product from was actually doing all he could to help me, and the problem was with Raymarine itself, who would not compensate him or me for the return shipping of the defective product. I ended up having to pay for the shipping and insurance myself.

After the autopilot debacle, what I found myself stressing over next was figuring out the best weather window for sailing to San Francisco. After the storms had cleared, the main problem was figuring out when there would be some wind. Finally we settled on leaving on November 1 for Drake’s Bay, where we planned to anchor for the night ahead of sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge the next day. The day before we left, though, the weather forecast said there would be 12 to 20 foot swells rolling in under the Golden Gate Bridge by the morning of Nov 2, created by a huge storm out in that Pacific west of Canada. Two sailor friends who know the bay area seemed to think such swells could make things somewhat dangerous in the Golden Gate area, so I was a little worried.

We left at 11 am on Nov 1, motoring out of Bogeda Bay on a warm sunny day, without the slightest trace of any wind, but with a light breeze forecast to appear around 2 pm.

Our sendoff committe at Bodega Bay - Cormorants

We had the generator running to begin to recharge the batteries as we went, so we would have a good amount of charge still in them for maneuvering out of the way of ships when we got to the Golden Gate! The breeze appeared at 1 pm from the west, and although light, it was enough the push the Witch along at about four knots. After a while I set our large, colorful cruising spinnaker, and with this our speed picked up to five to six knots.

Our cruising spinnaker in action

The sea was calm, it was warm and sunny, and we were surging along at a good speed. It was sailing at its most enjoyable. We rounded Point Reyes well before sunset, and needed to make a decision: to anchor in Drake’s Bay, or to continue on to San Francisco?

Rounding Point Reyes

The weather forecasts were saying the good wind we had would last until after midnight, and I calculated that if it did, we could be under the Golden Gate Bridge by 10 pm, just before the tide was due to turn and start rushing out at about 10:30 pm. The huge Bay Area all drains to the sea through the Golden Gate, so I knew it would be pretty much impossible to make progress against the falling tide, even with a good wind. So it looked like if we continued we could get there that night before the huge swells were forecast to arrive.

Passing Drake's Bay

I decided to pass up Drake’s Bay and try to make San Francisco that night. All went well to start with. The sunset was gorgeous, then the brilliant stars came out, with the milky way stretched above us.

Next we noticed the lights of San Francisco, which got brighter and more beautiful as we approached them. Then, as the blackness of night totally closed in, we could see we were in a phosphorescent sea again. All over the sea around us, the white caps on the waves shone like silver-white camp fires, and we were leaving a long glowing wake behind us. And all this below a spectacular milk way above, and the lights of San Francisco ahead. It was totally magical! And the wind kept pushing us in fast enough to beat the start of the ebb tide.

Then at 9 pm, just five miles short of the Golden Gate Bridge, the wind died down to almost nothing. Now we were doing just two knots. At about 10:15 pm we could see the south half of the bridge past Point Bonita, but were still about three miles from it, when the tide turned and the outgoing current started pushing us out to sea again. We pulled down the sails and put the motor on to full throttle. Our plan in this situation was to anchor in Bonita Cove, just past Point Bonita. With the motor we were able to get into Bonita Cove and anchor out about 800 feet from the beach, where we could hear the waves breaking. We tried to sleep while waiting the six hours for the ebb tide to end, but the anchorage was very rolly, even though it was inside a little bay. All the while I thought about those huge swells that were supposed to arrive later in the morning, and wondered if they would turn to breakers in the shallow water of Bonita Cove. At any sign of large swells, we would have to weigh anchor and get the hell out of there in a hurry! At about 4:20 am we were rocked rather savagely by a large wave, and we got up and into action. Could this be the beginning of the swells? It turns out it wasn’t, but the tide was about to stop ebbing, so we got going, under motor, with the generator running, as there was no wind. As we motored through the darkness toward the bridge, a huge container ship slipped past us into the bay doing about 20 knots. It was lit up like a Christmas tree and was an awesome sight to us on a tiny sailboat. I was glad it was about a mile away when it passed us, but it seemed enormous, and, to quote Karen, “jaw dropping,” even at that distance. The beginning of the rising tide swept us gently under the Golden Gate Bridge at about 6 am. As we approached it, all lit up at night, it was a beautiful sight. Here is a photo of it at night that I took from the yacht club lounge at the second marina we stayed at.

At about 6:30 am, while still totally dark, we pulled in to the transient dock at the San Francisco Marina, and tied up and went to sleep. The next day we waited for those huge swells to arrive, happy we’d got in ahead of them, but they never did arrive. So much for the weather forecasts! But we also noticed that there was hardly a breath of wind all day. We had made the right choice to keep going and not anchor at Drake’s Bay, as if we had stayed there would have been no wind to take us to San Francisco the next day.

More later on our adventures in the Bay Area. Right now I want to get at least this much posted. Greetings to all of you who are following the blog!

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