Tom and Sue Fowle
It has been several years since we've enjoyed one of South Beach's annual cruise-ins, so we were delighted to be invited to join BAADS' boatswain Dan Sullivan and other BAADSoids onboard Dan's Albin Ballad, Acqua di Vita, for this year's Memorial Day doings.
We met Bob Bryan and skipper Dan at South Beach Harbor Saturday morning and loaded up our usual tons of gear while motoring out towards the Gate. We had arranged to meet South Beach member and long time sailor Dick Locke of Kia Orana near the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge at 12:30, so Dan chose to motor sail till we got outside. Dick recommended motorsailing out the shipping channel past the second channel markers before turning south. This necessary maneuver avoids the southern bar over which depths can decrease to 35 feet or less. What, you say, surely no boat we know has a keel that deep? No, but waves certainly go that deep and sudden decreases in depth allow the big sea swells to build into higher, shorter nastier more confused waves and breakers which can make for a very uncomfortable ride indeed. We've all heard a lot about the "Potato Patch" to the north, but there are at least as many stories about boats getting into serious trouble by turning south too soon.
The motor sail out with the wind almost dead on our nose was a little wet and uncomfortable although the seas were not more than 5 to 6 feet and the temperature not as cold as is often the case outside. As with any motor sail, it took too long to get far enough outside to safely turn south, and we had some trouble staying "up" in the shipping channel. Even with Acqua di Vita's fabulous pointing capabilities, the west wind forced us south to keep the sails at all filled. Motoring directly into the wind would have made things even less stable and increased the tendency to feel ill.
Sue and Tom had taken ginger capsules early Saturday morning as a first trial of that remedy. We came to no great conclusion about ginger's viability as Tom felt only a bit queasy during the trip west, and Sue started feeling sickish once we turned south. On the trip back home, we used Bonine with better effect: the return was Sue's first ocean trip with no sickness, even though the return voyage was by far the less comfortable of the two. Tom felt a little queasy on the return trip. Sue speculates that while ginger may be effective, it probably passes through one's system as quickly as other food, while the Bonine is supposed to be effective for 24 hours. Sue also ate substantial breakfasts well before sailing time, and nothing else until we docked, thus following her "give 'em no ammunition" theory. She also did not go below at any time while under sail beyond the Gate, and wore over-the-glasses sunglasses on the return trip, which moved much less in the wind, thus providing more stable vision.
Finally, a bit after 2:00, having had no sightings or radio contact with any of the South Beach fleet, we saw the second channel marker and confirmed our position by GPS. So we made the turn south and shut down the "Iron Jennie" with great relief. Conditions improved immediately, we stopped taking water aboard almost completely and trimmed out for a nice broad reach down the coast. We stayed a few miles off the coast for most of the trip south till we could be sure of finding the Pillar Point buoy, then began to angle in to find the channel markers for the entrance. We enjoyed the whistling buoy which marks the beginning of the channel and has a deep mournful moan which would be great for movies involving fog and mystery.
We made the outer harbor with no trouble and called the harbor master to determine if dock space were available for us. Skipper Dan had telephoned the harbor previously to ask if dock space could be found to ease the difficulties in getting disabled persons aboard and ashore. At that time Dan was not sure who might be joining us and wanted to leave the possibility of having a wheel chair user join us. The harbor master acted as though they had never heard of us and, pleading the space was needed by the fishing fleet, didn't find us a spot. As it was, we all felt that rafting up was more fun, but luckily no one aboard required easier boarding facilities.
We found the South Beach "Raft" with trusty Milt Lemanski as its anchored center and consisting of 5 boats total. South Beach Commodore Tom Rogers invited us to raft alongside, and Milt asked us to drop a hook out our end just to be sure. We all wondered what happens when a raft of boats swings to two anchors, and later Monday morning found one slightly difficult answer to that quandary. This was, embarrassing to say, our first anchoring experience since the ASA class (ouch), and Tom remarked that he had forgotten that the anchor does not go roaring overboard like in the movies. Once the iron is in the water, it drifts down quite easily, and it is fairly easy to tell when the hook hits the bottom. It takes care though to properly handle the rode as the boat backs down to allow the required scope for safe anchoring. The precious fingers need to be watched well to assure they do not get in the way of the moving rode; there is a great deal of energy in that simple movement and damage could be catastrophic.
With about 120 feet of rode out, we rafted up alongside Tom Rogers and settled into enjoying the evening. Due apparently to a lack of interest, the promised pot luck dinner did not come off, so we made do quite happily with the abundance of food aboard, and were only slightly envious of the smells of charcoaled steak coming from next door boats.
Bob Bryan had to go home that evening. The remaining 3 of us spend a most comfortable night aboard Acqua di Vita; she has some of the most comfortable berths we have yet experienced.
Sunday was just what we all wanted, a quiet "kick-back" day of being aboard, installing Dan's wind sensor (Dan got hoisted up the mast), and paddling Dan's 2-man rubber raft around the harbor (we could feel how cold the water was through the rubber bottom). But we awaited the appearance of more substantial and more stable motor propelled dinghies before going ashore late in the day for a walk and one of those fabulous South Beach barbecue dinners. Sue and Tom split entrees of freshly caught barbecued salmon and rib eye steak. Along with truly sweet white corn cooked over the coals in its husk, and fine fixin's, the dinner was truly top drawer or better. We wondered why people waste aluminum to wrap corn when it comes with all that ideal husk built on. Just the correct amount of smoke flavor comes through, enough to add to but not overwhelm the corn flavor. WOW!
BAADS member David Conely joined us for Sunday night aboard, which was also mostly quiet. We were awakened though sometime about 2 am with the unwelcome sound of gun fire. We were fairly sure it was not really close, but worried for a while whether we were still too close to "Civilization" for comfort. We learned, sadly, next morning that park rangers had been putting an injured sea otter out of its misery. We did not search for details! ("I hate guns!" (Tom))
Monday morning saw us preparing for the trip home. We found that, as we had worried would be the case, the raft of boats had swung clockwise putting our anchor rode under Dick Locke's keel. We discussed trying to back the entire raft of boats around to reverse the night's swing and clear the line. We were worried not only about the anchor rode but about swinging into a large rusty moored fishing boat, Bear. Bear had seemed far enough away yesterday, but it is quite difficult to guess which way things will move with tide and wind, and just where other boats and mooring buoys are in relation to their anchors. It was decided however that boats from the end of the raft opposite us would leave including Milt and his anchor. We then hoped to allow the remaining boats to swing to Dan's hook and thus clear any possible mess below.
We found, though, when 3 of the 5 remaining boats had left that we were coming uncomfortably close to banging Bear or her very large and rusty mooring buoy. Careful attempts to reverse us away ended with our rode caught up in Dick Locke's propeller leaving us all a bit stuck. We finally untied the inboard end of Acqua di Vita's anchor rode, unrafted and motored off to the marina. Dick had called the Harbor master to inquire about a diver to straighten out the mess, meanwhile Dick and wife Carol managed to haul on the rode between the anchor and their boat and pull themselves up clear of Bear. In the interim, Dan Sullivan had insisted on donning old clothes and going overside to see if he could remove his rode from the prop. He said he'd have done it easily if he'd had a wet suit, but luckily discretion proved the better part of valor, and he gave up, admitting the water was simply too cold for unaided diving.
We tied up at the marina to pump the holding tank and add diesel for a possible motor home. Meanwhile after a couple hours' wait, a diver showed up and apparently cleared the rode from Kia Orana's prop with no damage to either. Although the anchoring situation could have become dangerous, all participants handled things with care, it was one of those times when things just go a bit wrong. No one and no boat was ever in real danger, and all came off without a scratch, except to poor Dick's pocket book for the diver. We can call it a learning experience all the way round, and say firmly that no individual was really at fault.
With anchor and rode fully restored to pulpit and chain locker, we finally got underway for home about 2:30 pm. As soon as we cleared the harbor, we knew we were in for a bumpy ride. Luckily the wind was still west to south west, so we could at least make most of the trip under sail, but the seas were steeper and more confused than on the trip down, and of course we were heading into them. It was quite chilly, and we all put on all the gear we had to hand, Tom and Sue had decided, for the sake of carrying stuff on BART, not to bring sea boots, and we regretted that decision both in going ashore and on the trip home. We took a fair deal of water around Acqua di Vita's dodger, and one particularly huge miscreant wave gave us a good beam hit, filling the cockpit instantly with 18 inches of cold pacific sea. However skipper Dan and Acqua di Vita proved their grand abilities and handled the somewhat messy conditions in fine style. For most of the trip up the coast, winds were brisk, being westerly to 20 knots or so, but as we neared the shipping channel, we found ourselves most of the way out to the Light Bucket, and as we turned east, the wind seemed not enough to get us home as quickly as we wished, so we motor sailed again till we got clear of the Gate and out of the cold and waves. We stopped at South Beach to drop David Conely after his first off shore trip. "It's beautiful out there" he remarked, and he's certainly right. We all felt lucky that David, as manager of South Beach, could give us a blast of heat from South Beach's big hot air heaters, as well as coffee, hot chocolate and crackers to refresh and warm us. Then the three of us motor sailed south in a smooth bay to Dan's slip at Brisbane and the end of another fabulous weekend with BAADS and South Beach.
For many sailors, such a happening is common place, but for all of us, it was full of new experiences and accomplishments. A particular round of applause is due to Dan Sullivan for his planning and skillful handling of this trip. We think he's the first of the newly ASA certified BAADS skippers to lead an offshore trip of this magnitude. He had thought it all out well in advance, had boat and gear in superb shape, and handles himself and his wonderful Acqua di Vita in grand sailorly style.
As always, South Beach members were friendly and helpful. Thanks go to Commodore Tom Rogers, Milt Lemanski and his dinghy and anchoring, and particularly to Dick Locke and Carol Itami of Kia Orana for help and neighborliness. BAADS is lucky to be a member of such a fine group of folks and we should take more advantage of the opportunities available through SBYC.
Updated 2-18-1999 and 6-20-2005