Stopping Traffic

8-17-12 China Camp Anchorage - Day 46

3 Mile Slough Lift Bridge

While I would love to say that it's due to my amazing good looks, or more likely Elizabeth's, that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about bridges.  Draw bridges, swing bridges, bascule bridges, slide bridges, lift bridges and the scariest of them all, fixed bridges.  We've seen just about every kind of bridge you can imagine in the last few weeks while traveling thru the Delta and now up to Petaluma.  As I said the fixed bridges are really the scariest since, well, they don't move out of the way and we have this tall metal thing on top of our boat.  For some reason, no matter how high and how confident you are that the boat will fit thru them, there is always that second of panic when you look up and it looks like the bridge will clip the top of the mast.  Of course it never does and people with much larger boats than us go under these things so this fear is irrational; or is it?   You just never know. 



Swing Bridge - somewhere in the Delta?

The bridge openings come in all types.  We've become fairly adept at contacting the various bridge tenders to ask for openings as we approach.  Some of them seem to be surly old men that use little or no radio protocol and make you feel like some snooty sailor for trying to be proper and polite.  Some are sweet ladies that wave to you from their control room; actually every single one of the bridge tenders waved to us.  I've heard that being a bridge tender is not as easy as it sounds because you are responsible for some of the maintenance work as well, but it sure seems like a chill job.  Just sitting in your control shack waiting for some nice boat to call you and ask for an opening.  Close the gates to stop traffic and then slowly move the bridge out of the way.  Wave to the boaters and close the bridge again.  Sounds good to me.  All you have to do is not drop the bridge on a boat.  You wouldn't think that would be hard either, but we know someone who got clipped by a bridge as the bridge tender dropped it and then went to the bathroom without looking.  No damage but I'm sure it was scary!  Then there's the Petaluma bridge that requires a four hour notice to open on all but Friday, Saturday and Sunday when they need 24 hour notice.  Those hours seem backwards to me but I guess they need a break as well.  And what happens if the current catches you within that four hour call ahead and you miss your time? Do you need to call again and circle for another four hours? 



Bacon Island Swing Bridge

Really the craziest part of opening a bridge is that I am able to stop traffic for five or ten minutes while I mosey my slug of a sailboat thru.  Some bridges have a lot of traffic, like the Rio Vista lift bridge. Some have almost none, like the Bacon Island Swing Bridge.  I wonder what is going thru the peoples minds as they sit in their cars, probably late for work or on a delivery, watching me in my flip flops cruise thru at five knots or so, waving happily to the bridge tender, seemingly not a care in the world.  I really have nowhere to be, they are on a deadline.  There is one of me and a whole lot more than that of them.  It almost seems like I should have to wait for a lull in the traffic to make my passage, not traffic waiting for me.  It's really not a fair system, but since I'm on the good side of it right now, I'm not complaining.  Anyway, next time you find yourself waiting for a bridge, try not to get mad a the injustice of the whole thing and think of your friends on Autumn Wind. 

Rio Vista Lift Bridge across Sacramento River














People with places to be

As a side note:  Petaluma is a very cool place.  Unfortunately, it's one of those places that seems to want to take your money.  There's loads of great places to eat and drink and shops to spend money in so you can buy more stuff that we have nowhere to store.  So after two days in the turning basin we had to leave.  Never the less it is a great spot to visit by boat.





D Street Bridge, Petaluma

Unused RR swing bridge on Petaluma River



Actually a pedestrian bridge across the Petaluma
turning basin




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