Angel Island

Ha! Cruising Dayspring, my beat Santana 22 was a riot. I don't get many takers for my more adventurous outings, but my brother volunteered. He was a good soldier and he may have a few grey hairs for his trouble. Here is Scott moving the dinghy to the slip.

Leaving CP with the dinghy in tow.

This weekend past was a little squirrelly with a forecast for scattered lightning and possible thunderstorms. We didn't get out early and the tide was against us most of the time, but we made decent time from the marina in San Mateo to the main bay.

Along the way we got to watch the Coast Guard practice water rescues from a helicopter. The diver would drop in or they were dropping in something the diver would retrieve.


The wind was light until we got to the north edge of SF when it picked up and we had an excellent run across the slot, around Angel Island and into Raccoon Straights ( A name which held little meaning for me). Later I was told that, "Raccoons are excellent swimmers". For some stupid reasons this became a refrain for the duration of the trip. I wondered if we would have little masked burglars, wearing their fur coats and compulsively washing their hands try to board us in the middle of the night. The wind lightened up and we pulled into the finger docks of Ayala cove.

I spoke with a ranger about the moorings and docks as I still hadn't been able to get my head around the system. Here it is as I understand it. If you want to use the docks it is a very straight forward $15 fee and you have to leave by 7pm ( or maybe dark). If you want to stay overnight on a mooring, you may still use the docks during the day, but pay $30 and move off to the mooring when the docks "close". The moorings are first come first served, so it seems there is a risk that even though you might pay your $30, if you don't take the mooring immediately you could get snaked out as they don't specify the moorings like camp sites. Thus, we paid our money and headed over to a mooring we liked and tied up. We then used the little Apple Pie dinghy to go from Dayspring to the docks.



Scott and I decided we would climb to the top and then descend and return via the eastern side of the island, the side I hadn't been to yet. Image of Scott on the peak look toward SF.


The majority of the old army buildings are boarded up


(though the temptation to make a quick ascent into the upper stories was heavy upon me), but the park service has left one open and it was cool in a quiet exploratory way to be able to cruise through this structure. The stairs have been jack hammered out, but anyone with basic ape like abilities could easily surmount the obstacle to gain the upper floors.



We chose respect and made our way back to the cove where we rowed back to Dayspring and started dinner on my trusty Coleman two burner, I love my stove! Beer, pasta and cookies.



So, Ayala Cove is "rolly". Every boat that goes through Raccoon straights makes a wake that rocks the boats on the moorings. the wind also dropped entirely around midnight and despite the fog horns echoing on the islands far side it was pretty quiet. I did have to get up around 1 am to secure the halyards and put a mosquito net over the hatch. Finally got some sleep. My wife says I snore " lightly" and now I have confirmation from Scott, dammit!

Regardless, I woke up pre-sunrise and went back to bed. Scott was up first and we had a breakfast of cold TJ's pop-tart wannabees. We got onto the island and hoofed it around to the old gun positions. We got to watch a group of about 8 hawks all goofing around and then got a good eyeful of the campsite near Fort Drew.



The cool way to "back pack" the island is to actually come over on the ferry with a wagon to pull your camping gear and cooler up to the campsite 1.7 miles from the cove. there were actual wagon trains heading up the hill as we headed back.

Looking out toward the Gate I was a little concerned that the wind appeared pretty serious for the morning. I expected the wind to be low and picking up, not set to full "on" at 10 or 11am. We got back to the boat and hooked up the 90% jib while Scott made some sandwiches. Headed out the backside of the island and even though we were a good way offshore, still lost wind and I lost patience. Fired up the motor and moved out of the windshadow of the island right into 30 - 35 mph winds. It was great. The bay turned deep grey with 4 to 5 foot wind waves. Like a clueless dope, we headed south and discovered the Rolex Big Boat series was in full swing. It was noonish and the Bay was a total yard sale. My goal was to stay out of everyones way and while Scott handled the mainsheet I steered us off the sterns of most of the race boats heading to windward. It was somewhere about here where I looked back at the dinghy and told Scott we wouldn't try to reclaim it if it broke loose. Some bum in Berkeley could have the dinghy rather than us risk our lives trying to recover it. Ahead of us, boats were wiping out everywhere, spinnakers shredding. We watched one boat with a red spinnaker, pinned on her side for what seemed like ten minutes. Another boat was running out of control and it was general mayhem.

I deeply regret that I didn't grab my water proof video camera and shoot some of the amazing scenes of speed and carnage. The boats that were in control and under full kite were flying, truly amazing.

The rest of the trip back was straight forward. The wind died the further south we went and around the Bay Bridge we swapped to the class jib, finally setting the spinnaker around Hunters Point. About two miles out of CP my patience was gone and we fired the motor up and we crossed the last bit of distance to home.

The trip was still too hectic. With two full days, we didn't afford much time for relaxation and I now wish it was 3 days. A great trip and very worthwhile.

Yours truly heading south.