We were 10 miles off Fort Brag, CA. It was 6:30am and Nancy was below sleeping when suddenly BOTH of tuna poles were bent over with 80 lb line screaming out the reels ! Hey Nancy! She came running up to the cockpit, sleepy eyed, to find me with two poles in my hands and fighting two Albacore Tuna! I handed her a bent pole, with the largest tuna of course, and she began her first battle with a Pacific Albacore Tuna. We believe in catch-and-release…so, we released Nancy’s tuna back to the blue waters of the Pacific…Oh, and the second tuna….well, we released it’s filets into the freezer! (It’s doing well). On our way we had many dolphins riding our bow wake, what fun it is to watch as several dozen dolphins jump, splash, and quickly swim under the boat. We could watch for hours!
After 3 days sailing in fog, thick fog, and fog so thick you could cut with a knife, we made it to San Francisco. Encompassed in a very heavy fog we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, only to see the pillar beside as we passed and the underside of the bridge. But, things turned out for the best as we dropped anchor in the famous Aquatic Park with Ghirardelli Square right in front of us with million dollar views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate (when the fog cleared), Fishermen’s Wharf, and Alcatraz …and the cost……FREE! We rowed our dinghy 75 yards to the beach, tied up, and walked to the best San Francisco has to offer.
Located at the park is the famous Dolphin Swim Club, founded in 1877, they encourage people swim in the 55 degree water. We woke up Saturday morning to find HUNDREDS of swimmers passing Windfall at anchor! Hey Nancy! Come look at this!! We were watching the Alcatraz Invitational swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco! Oh, if those Alcatraz convicts knew they could swim that cold water and the 1.2 miles to the shores of freedom! And as for the movie “Escape from Alcatraz”…they do not count that as an “escape” as they never found bodies or captured the three escapees. Good going boys!
We toured San Francisco on the open double-decker-busses, Japanese Tea Garden, Fishermen’s Wharf, Chinatown, and took the ferry Alcatraz. We spent several days at anchor (free) at the Aquatic Park. After several days we moved Windfall to an Alameda marina so we could rent a car and travel to Reno to see Denielle (Nancy’s daughter) who is now teaching her first class at University of Nevada Reno. We were fortunate to sit in on one of her cultural geography classes and enjoyed it very much.
We stayed a few extra days in Reno and went to Yosemite...pictures do no justice to the beauty of Yosemite Park. We watched as climbers slowly advanced up "El Capitan" - several thousands feet straight up of solid rock that takes 4-7 DAYS for climbers to reach the top! No thanks!
Wednesday, September 29th, we will be back on Windfall and sailing to Catalina Island for scuba diving and with much more adventures to come. Thanks for coming along!
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