10/29/11-
We had prepared the boat on Friday so we got a fairly early start on Saturday. This would be our first trip to Drakes Bay and only the second real trip out of the Golden Gate. We probably spent more time than was needed thinking about what could happen, if we needed a bigger boat, maybe 45 feet displacing 3 gazillion pounds, with all new electronics, towing a fully outfitted life boat. Maybe then we would have had no anxiety. The reality is we had our same 34 foot boat displacing 16000 pounds, slightly less than 3 gazillion, with the same old electronics it always had. So we diligently hung our radar reflector and listened to the weather religiously. The upside is that we had just installed our new EPIRB and felt confident that we would at least be found by the Coast Guard if our boat went down. So we had that going for us.
The plan was to catch the 9:45A slack at the Golden Gate, thereby avoiding the larger waves created by an ebb over the potato patch. We departed Grand Marina at 7:45A and motored out of the estuary. After narrowly avoiding an attack of 10 or so skulls drifting by the marina we settled in to a little breakfast. Soon a second boat and then a third sailboat fell in behind us. Besides the three of us and a couple of fishermen the estuary was quiet. Soon we were overtaken by Tiger Beetle, a well outfitted sailboat. In an odd sense of destiny, I had read their blog in my research for our trip to Drakes Bay. Coincidence or good fate? The motor to the Golden Gate was uneventful. Not enough wind to really sail and we had a schedule to keep. We followed Tiger Beetle all the way out of the Gate where they raised sails and turned South. Unfortunately, it was a slack into a flood and we wound up fighting the beginnings of the flood as we approached Pt. Bonita; the first real waypoint on our trip. The sun was out and we had a great view of the city and of Pt. Bonita as we rounded it. No fog today, must be good luck, since about half of the trip reports I had read included someone starting out by stating “We couldn’t see anything, thank God for GPS”.
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| South span of the Golden Gate on our way out |
Everyone always talks about avoiding the “potato patch” when “the swell is running.” I’m not exactly sure what the definition of a “running swell” is, but I can tell you that this morning it was barely walking. The forecast had called for 3-6 foot swells and 15-25 knots of wind. A perfect day for us. We found 5 knots of wind and maybe 4 foot swells. Not great for sailing by really nice for transiting the Bonita Channel. We turned to Starbord at the red and green channel marker and headed North up the channel into new territory for Autumn Wind.
As we approached the first of two red channel markers we noticed a nice looking cutter rigged boat catching us quickly from back at Pt. Bonita. We tracked them for a while and commented on the beige hull. We had recently met Jeff and Annie of Annie, a beige hulled cutter rigged boat, on the Delta Doo Dah. Couldn’t be them out here going in the same direction on the same day. We kept track of them and as they approached we noticed that they were waving and seemed to be trailing us like an old pirate movie where the ships move slowly next to each other before something big happens. We exchanged pleasantries and figure out that we were both heading to Drakes Bay, for the first time this weekend. Coincidence or something? They quickly pulled ahead of us on a Port tack heading out toward the Farallon Islands. It gave us some odd sense of companionship knowing that someone else was out there going our direction.
By this time the wind had filled in to 10 knots and we unfurled the jib and finally shut down the diesel. The sailing was perfect, making five knots or so. We tacked a few times keeping fairly close to the rumb line to our next waypoint off of Pt. Bolinas. Annie stayed on her Port tack until we could barely see her on the horizon. The sailing was amazing with the perfect wind and smaller swells, about 4 to 6 feet at this point. Elizabeth braved the puking chamber and made us a couple of delicious pizzas with lots of melted mozzarella, red pepper, green onions and a pesto sauce. Yum. Good food always helps to raise your spirits.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the wind was out of the North. This made it hard to make up much ground as that was basically the same direction we wanted to go. On a good note, we had read that Drakes is a great anchorage as long as there is no South in the wind direction. So it would be a bit of a pain to get there, but once there the anchorage should be great. We made a few tacks and began to see the outline of the Farallones and Pt. Reyes. Once past Pt. Bolinas we decided it was time to fire up the engine again and get a move on to make it to Drakes before dark. We motored the final 10 miles to Drakes, arriving around 17:10.
When we arrived there were already three boats anchored, the wind was from the North/North West so we took a place about 300 yards in from the Coast Guard buoy. Common knowledge, and most everything I had read, told you to anchor somewhere near the two piers on the West side of the bay. With the North West wind we figure to anchor a little more central and give ourselves some room in case the anchor dragged. We dropped the hook in about 17 feet of water and payed out 80 feet of rode. Anchoring was uneventful and we soon fell into the nervous sitting around waiting thing where we check the chartplotter, anchor alarm, take sights to verify we are not moving and generally make sure all is well before feeling secure. I’m sure after you do this a few times all of the nervousness goes away. But for us newbies, the anchoring thing is high in the stress me out list. This would only be our fourth night at anchor, and while I felt prepared, I knew I wouldn’t be getting a good night of sleep this night.
We had a tasty dinner of grilled chicken, pirogues and sauteed mixed veggies and drank a beer in the cockpit while we listened to the sea lions making their belchy, screaming barking sort of noises. Apparently there is a sea lion rookery and this is the start of mating season for these big guys. From the sound of it, they were mating all night long. I set the anchor alarm, and then set another one (yes I am still paranoid about anchoring) and went to bed early.
As expected it was a restless night. The anchor alarm progressively got a larger and larger radius as I decided I wanted to sleep more and more. It started out at 80ft. That was good for a while until around 2:00 AM both alarms went off and I realized we had drifted forward as the wind had died and we were now wandering aimlessly at anchor. OK, set it for 100ft and go to bed. A few hours later they go off again. I jump up figuring we must have let loose and I’ll need to do something fast! Not so fast, we just drifted back to where we were before the wind died. All is good. OK set the alarm for 120ft and go back to bed. This time I made it until morning and work up just in time to go topside and hear the chain clanking over Annie’s bow roller as she raised anchor. She motored towards us slowly in the dense fog; we said hello and fair weather and she motored off, disappearing into the fog almost immediately.
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| Annie Disapears into the fog |
10/30/11 – A Day in Drakes
We woke up to thick fog with visibility of maybe 150 yards and light wind below 5 knots. Over the night a large ship had anchored at the entrance to the bay and a smaller boat had arrived and then departed before we got out of bed. As the crew of Autumn Wind had a layover day, ie. We had no where to go or any flood/ebb to worry about, we pretty much did nothing for a few hours. We had some coffee and I made a nice breakfast. I watch our final remaining neighbor raise his main and ghost off his anchorage. It was highly romantic, if your into that kind of thing, to watch him slowly raise the anchor and then turn and drift out of the bay under main sail only.
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| Autumn Wind at Drakes Bay |
After breakfast we launched the baby dink, it’s a baby dink because it’s the smallest one you can buy at WM powered by the smallest outboard you can buy; but it get the job done for us. We puttered over towards the sea lions, making sure to give them a wide berth and then over to the old Coast Guard station. The sea lions mostly looked like a bunch of washed up tree trunks laying on the beach. Some were spooning, some were playing there necking game, but mostly they were doing nothing except making weird noises. We beached the dink on the beach South of the old rails (the oldest marine rail system on the west coast, in case you were curious) near a concrete boat launch. After changing shoes we hiked around most if not all of the Pt. Reyes national wildlife marine sanctuary preserve or something like that. The cliffs looking out into the Pacific were incredible and worth the short hike. There were numerous trails with signs stating something to the effect of illegal trail, dangerous cliff area do not walk here. They were definitely the best trails with the best views. Everyone else was walking on them, so we did also. The hike was great and worth the trip ashore. Our little boat looked lonely out in the middle of huge Drakes Bay, so after a few hours we made our way back to the dink and headed back.
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| Pano of the Pacific and Drakes Bay |
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| Fog rolling into the Pacific |
After paddling deep enough to drop the engine I remembered that I removed the little red kill switch so none of the local cows or sea lions could steal our dink while we were gone. We remedied the situation and headed out. The wind had picked up so we (Elizabeth) had a wet ride. The perils of being the bow person. After the wet ride back we stowed the dink on the foredeck and settled in to doing nothing. How nice! There is an odd sense of security knowing that we were on the boat as the wind picked up and not 2 miles away looking down on it from a bluff.
The wind had built to 10 to 17 knots and Autumn Wind was sailing back and forth at anchor thru about 30 degrees on the compass. One of those time you wish you had a bunch more chain on the end of that thing. I think we both had that slightly uneasy feeling that we didn’t want to talk about. So we didn’t, and made lasagna for dinner. Well, at least we warmed up a nice Costco lasagna in the oven along with a salad. After dinner we made some chocolate chip cookies as much for something to do as to keep the heater (I mean oven) on. The wind kept howling thru the rigging and we kept checking the lights on shore and our GPS to make sure our anchor wasn’t dragging along the bottom. Finally we turned in at the late hour of 9:00P. It was dark, sort of chilly, sort of lonely with no one in the anchorage, and really loud as the wind blew around the boat. I’m fairly sure that once we turned out the lights the wind speed increased or at least it got twice as loud.
An hour later we both hadn’t closed our eyes. There were too many noises, too much motion and we just weren’t comfortable with the situation. The wind was making white caps roll thru the anchorage and slap the hull just right to sound like something breaking every time one hit. The rigging was howling and the halyards inside the mast were clanking back and forth with every wave. The fog had rolled in and now we couldn’t see land to check the lights for our position, so we relied solely on our GPS. It’s time like these that I’m thankful we bought that EPIRB. So we set it off and waited for the Coast Guard, who diligently arrived a few minutes later with hot chocolate and took us home where everything was good again…
So that didn’t happen. It is one of the few times that I could remember where you simply had no options. You make it or you don’t. We couldn’t see 50 yards, the wind was consistently blowing over 20 knots, there is no cell coverage, no one in the anchorage to commiserate with, your 36 miles from anything your familiar with and 33 lbs of steel holding your lives and 16,000lb of boat from crashing ashore. We got up and put our fowlies on in case we had jump into action and started a long night. It was 10:00P by now, sunrise was 7:30A. Let me tell you; that’s a long time to wait.
I’m sure the salty old mariners of long ago are rolling on the ground laughing their you know what’s of by now. But I’d like to believe that they all went thru a night like ours at some time as well. To make a long story short, we didn’t perish on the rocks. It was in fact a VERY long night, and yes; all it takes is 33 lbs of steel to keep you and your 8 ton boat safe in 20 to 25 knot winds. Also, fowlies keep you nice and warm when you sleep/lay awake in them.
10/31/2011 – The Trip Back
6:00A couldn’t have come any slower. We woke up/stopped waiting for sunrise and made preparations for the trip back to San Francisco Bay. It had been a long night, we were fried, tired, felt hung over and ready to just be comfortable again. Oh yea, we had at least seven hours of sailing to get back to our slip. Better get started. The reality is, if we had just gotten really drunk and slept thru the entire night we would not have known the difference. The boat did great and the anchor never dragged. I guess that’s part of the learning curve and while it sucked and we will hopefully have a new comfort level with what our boat can handle.
The idea was to enter the gate at 11:40A or so to catch the slack into flood tide. That would help us with the swell issue thru the Bonita Channel and help scoot us along our way back to the Oakland estuary. 25 NM to the gate / 5 knots = 5 hours from Drakes. We pulled the trusty anchor with no issues at 7:40A. It’s amazing how easy it is to lift 33 lbs of steel straight out of the water, but pull it at an angle and it keeps you safe thru a decent blow. The wind was down to 15 knots or less and we could see land again, all good signs. NOAA reported 16 to 23kts at the buoys off Pt. Arena and Pt. Bolinas with 6 to 8 foot swells. We can handle this right? I guess we don’t have much of a choice, so off we went.
We motor sailed out of the bay with a reefed main. It seemed a little conservative but all the reports indicated some decent breeze and I didn’t to be forced into reefing the sail in big swells and a stiff breeze. Once clear of the point the wind filled in nicely and we unfurled the jib and headed down wind toward the ominous fog bank situated a few miles ahead. There was great sailing for an hour or two, running down the swells, hitting 7.5 knots on the way down and 5.5 knots on the way back up. Ever so slowly the fog enveloped us. As the sight distance dropped so did the wind. Eventually we were bobbing around in 7 foot swells, 50 yard visibility, and 0 knots of wind. Time for the noisy diesel.
Visibility sucked. Maybe 50 to 100 yards. We could hear the buoys well before we could see them, if we ever did catch a glimpse. Some just passed in the fog, clanking their bells or sounding their horns. We could hear a container ship behind us in the shipping channel, sounding its horn every so often to warn us of its presence. We did the same, honking our air horn back at it. I’m sure they could hear us. Either way it was fun to honk the air horn and at least we felt like we were doing something to avoid being run over. The trusty chartplotter guided us slowly back to Pt. Bonita and the entrance to the Bay. While we probably would have made it back either way, the chartplotter certainly reduced the stress considerably. We both stared into the fog, waiting for something to appear. The only way to gauge the distance you could see was by watching the birds as the floated around on the glassy swells.
You could tell we were in the Bonita channel as the wave and swell action became progressively choppier and disorganized. Thankfully there was no wind so it didn’t feel dangerous, but I could see how it would get a little crazy in the channel if a big wind and swell were running. I remembered all that talk about needing a chartplotter or radar again, and this time was thankfully we had our electronic guide to get us home.
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| North Span of Golden Gate after passing under |
Making the turn to port at Pt. Bonita I hailed vessel traffic to see what our chances of getting run over were. They were easy to talk to and informed us of a tug pulling a barge and a tanker ship following, inbound around the same area we were. You could hear the horns from the ships, the fog horn on land and our own horn every so often, but couldn’t see any of them. Finally we saw the towers of the Golden Gate, basically directly overhead. We passed thru, staying as far to the North as I dared, since there really isn’t any way to be out of the shipping channel as you pass under the bridge. And then it cleared. It was a beautiful sunny, blue sky day in the bay. If you didn’t cross under the bridge you never would have know the peril we thought we might have encountered out in the foggy Pacific.
We sailed to the Bay bridge, and motored down the estuary; tired and happy to be back at out comfy marina. The trip was certainly a learning experience for us. Maybe not all good, but definitely not all bad either. I guess that's what you get for tempting the Pacific on a spooky day like Halloween.
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| Oh yea..Happy Halloween! |
