THINGS YOUR HEART DESIRES!
New Year's Day was nice and sunny with a thin cloud layer making for hazy sun conditions. We had very little wind in the morning and early afternoon, so for a time, it seemed we might not be able to start the year with a sailing outing.
But a light northerly breeze came up in the mid-afternoon, so we headed out for a sunset sail about 3:30 pm.
As we entered the central bay and began sailing toward the gate on the northerly breeze, we spotted these two lovely boats that seemed like they might be racing each other on a northeasterly course.
This race boat was headed southeast toward the Bay Bridge. [Bad camera adjustment affected these first photos until i corrected it.]
Pier 39 neighbor CATBIRD passed to port, heading home under main only.
The northerly breeze was strong enough to enable us to make slow progress westward against the moderate flood current with the flags on the end of pier 39 fluttering in the breeze of about 5 knots.
This lovely ketch was looking great as she sailed northeast under full canvas!
The city was enjoying the hazy sunshine of the afternoon.
This small sailboat was sailing toward Aquatic Park under spinnaker as we continued westward.
Alcatraz was enjoying the late afternoon sunshine as this small sailboat sailed past the southern shore of the island.
A Catalina named GOOSE passed to port as we each sailed past Aquatic Park.
Way off in the north, close to Angel Island, a large raceboat was flying downwind under colorful spinnaker.
As we ghosted toward the gate, the sun began to go down through the thin cloud layer behind Ft. Point--- lovely!
Sundown was nearly completed as we sailed out the gate near midspan of the bridge....
... a very golden sundown!
We just ducked out the gate and then came about and headed back inside on port tack close reach to watch the sunset developing behind us.
The sunset color in the southwest faded quite fast as we rode the good breeze and flood current toward the northeast before falling off the breeze and heading for home port.
Eventually some nice sunset color developed on some clouds in the southwest, but nothing as dramatic or spectacular as the previous day.
The wind started to soften when we reached about the half-way point on our journey toward home port and we were just ghosting along as the city lights started brightening on shore at dusk.
At twilight, we were just sailing past Aquatic Park again, and city lights were brightening against the twilight sky.
A bit of final sunset color near the horizon, combined with a palatte of soft pastel colors in the southwestern sky created a beatiful vista.
City lights at night were magical as always while we sailed between pier 45 and pier 39.
We doused sail as we passed the east marina and motored into port, happy to have enjoyed a first of many dozens of anticipated sailing outings in 2008 on our beautiful bay.
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