Here are some pics taken on a short trip from Tamalis Bay back to our Berth in Emeryville (in the Bay Area). We sailed from Tamalis down the point Reys peninsula and then through the Golden Gate and across the bay. The first shots are the bluffs on the southern side of Point Reys, on which stands a light house. The trip was timed on the tides. We left Tamalis bay on a full tide (always best since Tamalis bay is incredibly shallow) and took most of the day to get down the coast. We had a consistent tail wind of 14-18 knots, plus a southern current and 3 foot waves and so were able to average 8 knots all the way down.

Sunset occured about an hour before we hit the gate and conditions were perfect to see the 'green flash' atmospheric phenomena that occurs just as the last sliver of the sun goes below the horizon. No, I don't have a picture of that, the flash only lasts 1/15 of a second. But it was cool! The two shots with people in it are of my Dad.

By bumping my digital camera up to 400ASA I was able to take a couple of shots of the gate as we went under it. We timed our entrance as the tide started to flood so we were able to maintain speed all the way across the bay back to our Emeryville berth. If you push into the flash shot of the cockpit you can see the radar image of the gate (roughly the horizontal white mess), and the gate's radar transponder is the white mess in the middle below the gate.

And, finally, as we were passing by San Francisco we decided to take a side trip to the Mexican Tall Ship that was anchored near Ghirardelli square. She was lit up like a christmas tree, very cool!

And, as you can see, there is a phenominal amount of safety equipment all over the sailboat. Just to give you an idea, we lost a bright red floatable winch handle overboard as we were going down the coast, and even in full sunlight and getting the boat turned around in less then 30 seconds we couldn't find it again. So not only is it a good idea to have a life ring, you also need to have a float pole that extends vertically out of the water (you can see it on the rear of the boat), and a floatable strobe becon that goes overboard with the life ring and the float poll and automatically starts flashing (so everyone can rendezvous at the float, including the man who went overboard). Of course, we weren't going to hit the release for a winch handle :-) There are no good shots of it, but the life boat is also tied down on the foredeck with quick-release straps (on a previous trip many years ago we had the life boat tied down with knots, uninflated, but with carbon dioxide canisters to inflate, and had an emergency in heavy winds 15 miles off the California coast that almost capsized our Santana-30. There were just too many steps required to get the damn life boat ready to go so now its quick-release ties only and the life boat is left fully inflated. Fortunately we were able to break loose the main, but having a boat stuck sideways in 20 foot waves and a 45 knot wind listing at 50 degrees for 60 seconds in the dead of night is not a fun situation to be in).