We headed north toward the lee side of Angel Island initially, then headed up to head for the weather side, before changing our mind again and heading north as the IMX race boat HAWKEYE passed astern of us. Olivier races on this boat but he was not aboard-- guess they were out practicing or maybe just cruising around.
Despite the somewhat inclement conditions-- mistyness and overcast skies-- there were quite a few cruisers out on the bay, like this Catalina named Ardellee that was heading toward the Bay Bridge.
The gate was socked in with fog and the western portion of the central bay was socked in with fog and overcast, but some patches of blue were visible in the north as we headed that direction.
We headed over toward Berkeley Circle where we could see the fleet of race boats engaged in a regatta and here some J105s were heading upwind and downwind.
A fleet of Express 24s were also involved in the regatta.
Here one of the stragglers of the J105 fleet is heading for the windward mark while boats in the Express fleet are heading downwind.
We doused the jib and hung around the windward mark to watch some of the roundings and here BLACKHAWK is charging downwind after setting her spinnaker.
ONE TRICK PONY is heading our way with crew on the rail...
and soon after she tacked to head for the mark.
We also watched as some of the J24 fleet rounded the mark and headed downwind under spinnaker.
Little Wing.. a J24. was looking good as she headed downwind after rounding the windward mark.
NIRVANA, one of the stragglers of the J105 fleet was heading downwind and looking good at this time.
Vitamin J, one of the stragglers of the J24 fleet was dousing her jib as she headed downwind under spinnaker and looking good.
After the last of the fleets rounded the marks on their last leg of the race, we headed north again, pulling out some jib, sailing through some light rain, and soon spotted this lovely boat heading our way under cruising spinnaker.
We soon headed up toward the east mouth of Raccoon Straits, enjoying views of Angel Island and the Straits with dramatic skies overhead.
Wayne was enjoying his time at the helm as we headed for Raccoon Straits on close reach port tack, now with full canvas and sailing nicely in perfect full canvas winds.
As we approached the north end of the east mouth of the straits, this nice Catalina passed in front of us, looking good as she sailed across the mouth of the straits.
This sailboat with a large genoa was appraoched form our port side, and we owed her right of way but soon could tell that we would pass well in front of her.
After we passed her, we tacked to the southeast to sail across the mouth of the straits toward Angel Island, and tacked to the west after approaching the shore, passing this lovely Beneteau heading east.
That Catalina that earlier passed in front of us was now tacking into the straits, but further north of us, and in some sunshine.
The buoy field in Ayala Cove had just a few boats tied up there.
Only a couple of boats were at the docks of the small marina.
Another shift in the wind forced us to change course toward Angel Island and we needed a couple more tacks to exit the straits, fortunate to have a relatively consistent breeze with no wind holes between Belvedere and Angel, so we were soon headed south on starboard tack in a lovely breeze and enjoying views of the skies over Richardson Bay...
.. and Belvedere and Tiburon.
The gate was still mostly socked in with fog as we headed toward home port with Alcatraz sometimes visible, sometimes not as we corssed the bay, but then skies cleared dramatically after we doused sail in the lee of pier 35.
We motored into the marina and landed okay with a strong flood current flowing through the marina that banged us against the dock on the starboard side as we entered the slip. It was an invigorating outing with many different climatic conditions during a few hours of sailing.
No comments:
Post a Comment