Goodbye San Francisco

[Kyle]Begonia's anchor was up before dawn. We motored across a calm and empty bay on a windless morning, arriving at the Golden Gate Bridge just as the first of both the daylight and the morning traffic were starting. The ebb pushed us out across short, standing waves which slowly subsided as we left the buoys of the shipping channel behind.

Leaving San Francisco as the sun rises

Ten miles out, past the dangerous shoals of the Golden Gate, we turned south and headed down the coast. The wind picked up and the sails started pulling. It was reluctant at first, with them filling and collapsing as we rolled in the swell, but the wind slowly increased and we were soon slicing through the sea.

There were plenty of humpback whales - one came a little too close for comfort (but what a show!)

By mid afternoon, when we rounded the entrance buoy at Half Moon Bay, it was getting boisterous and we were looking forward to a refuge from the swell.

Plenty of lull in the wind, but eventually we had Pillar Point in sight

Inside the breakwater, there was plenty of space to anchor. We tried one close to the marina entrance (we were trying for a short dinghy ride), but we found we didn't have enough room to swing. Further out, we found a spot with good holding, but so far from shore that we decided not to bother with the dinghy and just stay aboard.

That meant we had time to tackle a few more jobs. I decided to install a better ground plane antenna for our ham radio. It should have been a five minute job (of which Maryanne wisely says there is no such thing). Two hours later, I was almost done. All I needed was for Maryanne to dig out the Dremel so I could cut a space to free my arm from a hole that was mysteriously big enough to get it in, but too big to get it back out. The radio works much better now, though, so that's a plus.

Hanging out in Half Moon Bay - with sunsets silhouetting the fancy electronics at the local military base

Instead of the frequent trains of Jack London Square, we spent the night listening to the sounds of both the fog signal at the harbor entrance and the barking of the sea lions on the nearby pier.