Seeing the Sights

Our Journey south has been a huge learning curve and filled with some pretty amazing sights.  We left Poulsbo, WA a  month ago.  We have travelled 1303 nautical miles so far.  I have completed my first log book.  We have logged nearly 3000 miles since we bought the boat and I am on my way to earning my obligatory swallow tattoo (darn another tattoo).  The miles are definitely adding up much more quickly now.

Our journey has allowed us to take in some sites that I might never have seen had it not been for this adventure.  Our time in Fort Bragg really piqued our adventurous spirit.  Sailing down that little river in the fog truly was a memorable experience right off a movie set that pictures don’t quite capture.  There were boats and buildings and piers on either side of us as we threaded our way down the channel.  The GPS was no help as it registered us somewhere up on land so we had to navigate strictly by sight.  We made it safely and spent a lovely several days there.  We took the dinghy further up the river to explore and were treated with some beautiful views as the river snaked her way inland (at any time I half expected to hear banjo music…it was eery at times).  The next day we had the opportunity to drive to a small pocket of Redwoods and hike to a tiny waterfall, Chamberlain Falls.  We had the entire trail and park to ourselves.  The trees were breathtaking, so massive, sentinels standing strong.  Many bore scars of fires and wind storms past but still stood strong and majestic.

After our hike among the giants, we made our way to Sea Glass Beach.  Today it is a thing of beauty but for over 100 years it was a toxic waste site…literally.  We had the opportunity to speak with a Park Ranger regarding the history and we learned that from 1880 to 1975 the city and the military base would dump all of their garbage and waste off the cliffs to the west of Fort Bragg.  They would light the piles of garbage on fire to help compress the mess.  Everything from chemicals to cars was pushed over the edge of the cliffs and lit on fire.  The ocean has had over a century to process all that garbage and now she returns the polished glass to her beaches.  The story was really quite sad.  When the first white men arrived in the late 1800’s, the Redwoods extended all the way to the ocean.  They chopped the trees down to help build the growing and ever-expanding San Francisco.  They destroyed the Indian tribes that had lived and hunted there for thousands of years and turned the beautiful beaches into a huge dump.  The Redwoods remain absent, the Indians gone as well but the ocean has churned through the toxic waste and ha left behind a beautiful sparkling sea glass beach.

Our next stop was Drakes Bay, just outside San Francisco.  The bay is huge.  I assumed it would be filled with boats but no, we had the place to ourselves for two days.  No cell phone service, only whales, pelicans, and ourselves for company.  I didn’t realize how precious those moments would be until we went under the bridge and spent a few days in San Francisco Bay, the sixth largest metropolitan area in the US.  Finally the blow passed, the winds calmed and the tides were right to leave Drakes Bay and enter San Francisco Bay.  The Golden Gate Bridge is not the biggest bridge in the bay area but it is a beautiful site after being out on the ocean.  When we entered the bay, there was not boat traffic, we had the whole entrance to ourselves shared only with whales and a couple small boats.  The bridge is painted a bold red and she demands your attention.  Our first stop once inside the bay was a lesser bay, Richardson Bay in Sausalito.  The bay as we went in looked inviting with hundreds of boats anchored out.  We pushed about halfway into the bay and anchored with only about 12-18″ under our keel.  After spending a few hours in our cockpit and absorbing our surroundings, we realized that we had anchored in a floating homeless encampment.  A man on a boat near us warned that we were surrounded by tweakers and not to leave our boat unattended.  We have not locked our boat or dinghy since we bought her.  We realized quickly that the  people on paddleboards and in dinghies that were circling our boat were not admiring her lines.  I am grateful that Dave looks intimidating from a distance.  I spent not a restful night there.  We left the next day and went over to Angel Island.  We found anchorage on the Northeast side just off Quarry Beach near the ruins of the East Garrison of Fort McDowell.  The beach was sandy, the sun was warm and once more we were alone.  We spent several hours exploring the ruins of the old fort and researching the history of the island.  For thousands of years it served as a major hunting and fishing grounds for local Indian tribes.  It was discovered and logged of course and then it became a strategic military encampment serving as a staging area for the Spanish American War and then also a staging area for troops in World War I.  In the early 1900’s the people of San Francisco were upset and worried about the Chinese immigrants because they were willing to work hard for very little money.  They moved the immigration offices from the mainland out to Angel Island to process the Chinese.  Angel Island processed over a million immigrants.  Some were held there for weeks, months or even years.  In the meantime on the other side of the island with Hitler rattling his chains, Fort McDowell started to grow and expand.  They used the inmates from Alcatraz as their labor force.  During WWII, Fort McDowell once again became a staging area for the Pacific theater and a quarantine for troops returning from battle as well as an interment for POWs.  Eventually the immigration offices were moved back to the mainland after a fire destroyed one of the administration buildings and Fort McDowell closed.  The entire island is now a National Park.  It is such a powerful and moving experience to try to comprehend all that has happened there over the years.

The next day we pulled anchor and circumnavigated Alcatraz.  We contemplated the tour until we saw one tour boat after another dumping hundreds of tourists at a time onto the island.  All the bodies crawling across its surface looked like ants.  Maybe sour grapes but we opted to experience it from a distance and not join the herd.  It looked to me like cattle being prodded through chutes.  This lifestyle may not be the best for me, it sure makes it easier for me to avoid people and crowds.  My phobia issues seem less of a problem out on the water than they did on land.  Our next stop was the stunning Monterey Bay.

We left San Francisco and began our way southward once again, unfortunately the winds shifted and we battled through headwinds and confused seas as we dealt with the remnants of Hurricane Lydia.  We had wind and waves on our nose and ocean swell and currents on our side and stern.  This makes for a very bumpy, slow passage.  Once we made it around Pigeon Point and made our way into Monterey Bay it was still very rough but the whales put on a show.  There were humpback whales breaching and blowing in every direction you looked.  They are so amazing and every sighting renders me speechless.  When Dave hears some incoherent nonsense coming out of my mouth he knows we have visitors from the deep. We arrived in Monterey with protection from the south.  What a gem.  I am so thankful to our friend Tyana for recommending that we make a point to stop.  There are miles of sandy beaches with beautiful clear water.  There are seals, sea lions, and otters everywhere.  The sea lions are so noisy and they bark 24 hours a day.  The goofy seals make me laugh as they climb up on random rocks every afternoon to sun themselves.  Some of the rocks are no bigger than a breadbox and they teeter on them in these ridiculous plank positions.  There is a 17 mile long urban pedestrian path that follows the beach and meanders through Steinbeck’s famed Cannery Row.  Monterey is definitely a spectacular destination by land or water with so much to see and do.  We were even able to take in the aquarium which is unbelievable.  Most of the animals present are rescues.  They rescue injured and sick marine life and birds and return as many to the wild as they can.  Those that are injured too severely to survive in the wild become surrogate parents to abandoned or injured young.  So many wonderful sights.  The pictures posted above are depicted in chronological order.  I hope you enjoy.