Day 499 Into San Francisco.

The South point of Drakes Bay.  This was Thursday afternoon after the fog lifted.
Looking North at the shoreline of Drake's Bay.  All covered in brown.  Surprising, considering all the fog they get.

More of the shoreline farther east in the bay.
Entering the channel toward the Golden Gate Bridge.--Do you see it?

That smudge in the center of the water is all we got to see of the bridge as we came in.  That's the bridge's footing on the south side of the bay.
That's the underside of the bridge as we passed under.  That's as good as it got.
We looked back and this was what we missed as we passed the bridge.   The base of the bridge was what we got to "see" as we entered.
Our first view of the bay--sans fog.
Alcatraz Island in the distance.
Looking back at the bridge.  That's it poking out of the fog on the left side of the picture. 
Downtown San Francisco.
The Oakland bridge as we started under her.

We upped the anchor and took off for San Francisco at 0800 hours!!   Of course we were totally encased in fog.  Should we have expected anything else?  I think not!!!  I'd told Tracy yesterday that there was no way we were going to see the Golden Gate Bridge as we entered the bay. Mother Nature was not going to allow us the satisfaction of seeing it.  She's such the practical joker.

On with the radar and off we went.  Constantly looking for blips in the screen and checking our Nobeltec screen for AIS targets.  Those are the really BIG ships that we really wanted to avoid.  We "saw" some blips as they went on the radar one or two as they passed close enough to actually see.  Early in the morning, lots of the big ships took off from San Francisco heading past our bay so we didn't have to worry about them.  We saw no land other than it's out line on the radar screen.  On we pushed until we rounded the northern point of the entrance to the bay just as a big freighter was passing by.  We "saw" him on the AIS screen and radar and he was just a blur in the fog.  Far enough away to not cause us any problems.  We got lucky and there were no ships entering or leaving the harbor as we came in.  We cut across the channel and got on the South side(entering side) and just push ahead not seeing anything ahead of us but fog.  We heard the loud fog horns blowing over and over as we motored.  We still saw no bridge!!!  Finally out in the fog, we saw what looked to be a small island or another ship.  Radar just showed the bridge and there was nothing on the AIS.  It turned out to be the base of the bridge!!  That was all we could see as we got closer and closer to it.  As we passed the bridge footing, we looked up and could barely see the underside of the bridge.  That was as good as we got!  We cleared the bridge at 1210 hours.   Once past, we could look back and could barely see what we had passed under.  A bit of a disappointment for us. but hey--we were in San Francisco Bay!!!

Suddenly, ahead of us were sailboats and lots of them.  Going every which way across the bay.  We'd stumbled into a race of about a half dozen boats all going as fast as they could!!  With us being under motor power, it was our job to stay away from them.  Be bobbed and weaved to avoid them.  It was like dodge cars at an amusement park only on the water.  Add in the ferries and tourist boats to Alcatraz and it was just a delightful experience.  At least we could finally see some sunshine for a change.  The fog was behind us--still covering the bridge(as you can see from the photos).

We checked our charts and made our way across the bay toward Oakland and our home for a few days.  A short trip of just 38 miles and into the Marina Village Harbor(37 47.222N  122 16.288W).  It's got 750 slips.  A big marina with lots of boats.  We were assigned a slip that was a bit tricky getting into.  It took some jockeying to get us into it but we finally got in and tied up.  We hooked up the electric cord and had a quick bite for lunch and were greeted by George off Nereid.  We've been following them or they have been following us all the way down the coast.  They got in several days ago and have been resting up from their trip.  They plan on heading out to Half Moon Bay on Sunday.  We now covered 912 miles since leaving Port Townsend.

We called Matt and Kayobi(son and fiance) and made arrangements to get together for the rest of the day.  They came over a short while later and we were off for a great dinner at an indian restaurant and then over to their apartment here  in Oakland.  It was great to see them again.  It's going to be a fun few days being back with them again.

Not to sure when we will be leaving--Tuesday or Wednesday probably.  We still have to get a bit farther South to make sure we totally avoid the wind and weather shift that occurs later this month.

In answer to your question yesterday Dave as to polishing the fuel and it's cost.  I think it was around $500 for the job but the memory goes as we get farther south and away from the boat yard.

Stay tuned--more to come.