Sailing on San Francisco Bay

Sailing today was with regular crew member John, and three women visiting from Poland: Ela, Justina and Evelynka.

I arrived a bit early in order to change the headsail on the furler and change the engine oil. It was the usual multitasking of those things, hosing down the boat, cleaning the hull some and finding small odds and ends that needed attention. I had come by a week or so beforehand to make sure the fire extinguishers were fully charged. I also made sure the insurance and towing policies are in effect. I haven’t needed to use the towing service since the first year I was sailing, but I think it’s great to have in case of an emergency.

We motored out, as usual, and enjoyed lunch (including John’s famous rice dish) before we reached the main bay. Once we got out of the estuary we found lots of wind. We sailed — with a reefed main, as usual for this time of year — toward SF, under the bridge, up the Cityfront and back toward Alameda. It wasn’t a super long sail but the visitors declared it their “best day in California.” Nice!

We actually had some decent wind in the estuary and sailed all the way back, which is a treat on the calm waters of the channel. We passed a ginormous container ship being turned around in the basin; I’ve seen so many of them yet I’m still impressed of the sheer size of such vessels. Lots of pictures were taken throughout the day.

Upon return we did the usual housecleaning and maintenance and hosed Amelia down again. She looked lovely glistening in the evening sun.

I’m a bit sore now; hopefully getting back into practice will take care of that!

Good grief, I have finally replaced the starter switch for the engine. I was out there the other day and, after an unexpected drive to San Rafael for parts (why do I always forget that nothing is ever standard on this old Volvo MD7A engine?) everything is back up and running. I ran the engine for a good long while, including under load, charging up the batteries in the process.

So the problem with a sailing blog is that it’s easy to see when I haven’t been sailing in awhile! The last five or so months have been so busy; I am unhappy to admit that I have not taken Amelia out sailing at all this year. I’ve simply stopped by a few times to check on things, hose her down and tidy things up. I’m planning some sailing trips for July and will be sending out email announcements soon. If you’re not on the email list, check out jeremyrandall.org/sailing/ and add yourself.

I’ve emailed LiveJournal to get the syndication link to this blog fixed. Hopefully this post will show up on LiveJournal once that is done.

I may start posting more general sailing information (as opposed to just my own sailing trips) to make this place a little more interesting and to keep my mind more involved with what’s going on in the sailing community.