The second weekend we went back, we anchored for 2 nights in China Cove on the back of Angel Island. It looks like an open anchorage, its actually quite sheltered, and effect of the currents rushing through raccoon Straits are vastly diminished there. Although, we all had fun watching about a 45”cigarette boat trying to throw out a very light Fortress anchor with little chain and no scope, while going backwards at 10knots. Walking on the island is great, its good to stretch your legs on either the perimeter road or the fire line tracks that criss-cross the island. The artifacts of this West Coast version of Ellis Island are truly amazing. But, don’t try and take your dog, apparently the people of San Francisco are not good “pooper scoopers”

We returned the boat to Alameda again and arranged to stay one last week at Marina Village. All of these marinas in the Alameda corridor are open to visiting yachtsmen, the fees are reasonable but you must book ahead. Well reasonable for US standards, Canadians will have a heart attack @ $.0.55 US to the $CDN.

We finally got to sail out of the Bay on the morning of September 8^th. We had arrived with our friends Ken & Linde again on Friday afternoon and went to spend the night in Sausalito so that we could get an early start the next day. We just about got run down by a tug and dredge as we approached Alcatraz. I was lead to believe that they no longer dropped dredge spoils in the hole that used to be in front of Alcatraz. Wrong, we saw the lights of a tug pulling towards us and expected form his track that he would pass astern of us, but he kept halving the distance to Alcatraz and as we were pushing against what was probably a 3 knot current we had no way of getting out ahead of him so we pulled out to port and kept going that way, for a while we did not know (a) if he had seen us or (b) could we get out of his way. He finally stopped dead in front of Alcatraz opened his belly dump and pulled out of there so fast we could not believe it. It made us think of someone illegally dumping his mattress at the side of the road and disappearing into the night. As we cleared Alcatraz another came at us from the other end, only this time it was much more professionally handled as the tug and tow did a wide berth around us. All this at 11:30 on a cold and blustery night on the bay.

We approached Sausalito at about mid-night, the wind dropped as we passed the Sausalito Yacht Club and we motored to were we new we could get our hook down. Murphy dictated that that was the time we should run out of diesel. We were on the final approach so Ken took the tiller and we anchored under main about 30” from were we wanted to be and went to bed.

This was to become a recurring theme until I figured out that the new prop we had installed had changed our fuel consumption dramatically.

So on a blustery morning after waltzing around the anchor all night, we set of to Oxnard. We beat out of the Gate in 15kn of breeze, and worked our way out to the south side of the channel. As we tacked back and forth several other sailboats came out to play then ducked back in under the Gate. The only boat to stay with us was a 35’Santana motoring in our general direction. I though we had died and gone to heaven 15-20kn out of the West, our course to Half-Moon Bay 30mls away was due south. No such luck, as we kept trying to fall off, the wind came with us, an hour later we are beating into winds from exactly were we wanted to go. Together with the prevailing West swell, relatively shallow water down the coast, we had some pretty ugly seas. We tried to motor directly into but the wind had built and we made 2.5kn vmg. At least sailing in the wrong direction each tack we made 3.5 vmg, so sail we did.

We arrived in Half-moon Bay at 6:00pm, 30 miles in 10 hrs. Only thing to do, shower go to town and eat fish and chips and drink beer at a recommended restaurant near the marina. Incidentally, the Santana had headed out of site as we left the Gate and tacked in just ahead of us at the buoy off HMB. Not bad going, for an overloaded cruising boat.

We left bright and early the next day to head out down the last big jump of nothingness, Big Sur. Once you pass the south end of Monterey Bay there are no real all weather safe haven until you reach Ventura about 250 miles away. Guess what, the wind was gone, well not completely we had about 6-10kn out of the South with the leftover lumps from the previous days wind. We tried sailing, we tried motoring eventually we settled on motor sailing with only the main up. It got flatter and flatter and eventually we motored all the way to Pt Conception. The last of the sticky out bits of the coast, the last that you’re insurance company wants you to get around before October. True to form we had very, little wind at this supposed very windy location. What really surprised us as we came to and around Pt Conception was the traffic. It was midnight and the sea was alight with freighters heading north and south, service tugs for the oilrigs and of course, the oil rigs themselves. The oilrigs are not a problem. You see them from miles off and they do not move much. The shipping on the other hand gets confusing when the coastal fog drifts in and out.

As dawn broke we got to a great view of the Channel Islands, we were amazed at their ruggedness and shear size. Then it happened, at watch change at 8:00 am, I announced I was going to see what the world was up to as we had not listened to the radio until then. I only need to tell you it was the morning of September 11. We all harbor our own emotions about that day, but even as Canadian citizens our hurt was a deep as our American friends on board. I t made for an extremely difficult end to this second leg of our Journey.

We tied to the dock at Vintage Marina (the newest one built) in Oxnard @11:00am 3 days, 3hrs after leaving San Francisco.