Short and sweet

Drakes Bay, California, USA

The weather forecast was as good as it gets around here, so we left for a short (26 mile) trip to Drakes Bay (named after English explorer Sir Francis Drake, who anchored here in 1579), just a short distance north of the entrance to San Francisco Bay. Indeed, the seas were very kind for most of the way. No wind, so absolutely no wind-waves, just a 4 to 6 foot swell that occasionally tossed us around, but nothing to complain about.

 As we rounded Point Reyes, the swell got a little bit higher for about a half hour, then as we were past the point, it gradually got flatter and flatter. Completely dead calm in Drakes Bay, with excellent protection from all except SE winds. Of course, no winds meant that yet again we motored all the way. This time we did not have to push it as we had lots of time, so made good about 5.5 knots average. The only problems we had on this run was, as we rounded Point Reyes, we hit a heavy fog and had to navigate by radar and GPS for the rest of the way. It would not have been too bad except that there were quite a few crab pots lurking around and they are hard to see in the fog.

I believe this is the first time we have ever anchored in a thick fog - could not see a thing! It would be nice to be able to see the land to orient ourselves. As Sue was letting the anchor out, we encountered a leftover problem from Cape Mendocino. The anchor chain was completely tangled up in the locker and would not come out. Eventually I managed to coax about 75' of it out, which was enough to set the anchor in the 20' of water. Then I spent a couple of hours working on the rest of the chain, on our bed of course. Finally, I got it sorted out and we let out about 200' of chain and reeled it back in, so it would stack up a little better. We probably should have thought of straightening this out while we were safely back in the marina. Oh well, no harm done.

Tomorrow we will tackle a longer haul down to Pillar Point harbor, in Half Moon Bay. Our friendly fishermen advised us that this is not a nice place and suggested we skip it, but I guess we will have to see for ourselves. Our sailing guides speak very highly of it.

{GMST}38|0.5|N|122|56.5|W|Drakes Bay, California, USA,|Drakes Bay, California, USA{GEND}