THURSDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 08 -- OVERCAST SKIES WITH LIGHT WINDS THAT EVENTUALLY DIED AWAY

One of our regular sailing mates, Bob, joined us for our afternoon outing and we left port about 1:30 pm, raised full main and put out full jib before heading out into the central bay. Winds at noon were blowing about 8-10 knots, but were starting to soften as we headed out.




Skies over the bay were mostly cloudy but some patches of blue were beginning to show up in the west and north.




We began ghosting westward in the light winds with a mostly slack current-- perhaps some residual ebb-- and the flags on the end of pier 39 showed that the breeze was on a few knots.





We sailed to the west for a while and this lovely J-boat passed to port, heading east.




We eventually tacked toward the cityfront and this small Catalina sailboat named Maltese Falcom passed astern of us, heading east.




The crew of the Maltese Falcon seemed to be a solo skipper.




Skies in the west continued to clear and a sailboat in the west was crossing the bay while a sand harvesting dredge was operating out on the bay.




That sailboat was one operated by the BLUE WATER FOUNDATION. As I recall, this foundation takes kids out for sailing outings.




We did a few beats westward in winds that freshened for a while and then began to soften again as this small sailboat motorsailed eastward.




The skies continued to clear and more blue became visible with some dramatic cloud patterns over Alcatraz.





In the west, Sausalito was enjoying some sunshine, while Mt. Tam was partly shrouded in low cloud.




We were about 2/3 or the way to the gate when the wind started to soften even more, so we came about and headed back toward home port, helped by the flood current, hoping that a new breeze would come up, as clouds drifted overhead.


Eventually we became becalmed and were simply drifting with the current. I would have been content to drift until we were near home port, but we were in the middle of the inbound freighter lane and an inbound freighter was coming, so we turned on the engine and began motoring toward home port. No new breeze came up so we doused sail and motored into the marina. It was nice to have been able to sail for a couple of hours since last thursday there was no wind at all for sailing.