Through The Gate

Arriving at the dock at 6:30am was the plan for the morning. I had all the gear I needed and was ready to meet Joli' Elle and her skipper. Joli' Elle is a Hallberg Rassy Rasmus 35, you can see what's she's all about here.  

  

  
After meeting the skipper, I stowed my gear and we prepared the boat in time for the outgoing tide. Navigating the San Francisco bay can be a bit tricky with all the water traffic, so we made a plan and shoved off for our adventure. With little wind to help our efforts we motored our way out of the bay. We passed some of the largest cargo ship freighters I have ever seen, had other larger sailboats pass us, ferry boats zig zagging in front and behind us, and some of the sailboats from the America's Cup came flying by us.

America's Cup Youth Challenge boats with San Francisco in the background. 

As we started to pass Alcatraz, fog crept up on us and turned into what some might call pea soup. Visibility came down to about a quarter mile, and you could only see boats drifting in and out of the fog like ghosts. At the speed that the shipping freighters move plus our boat speed, that would give us about one minute to get out of the way of oncoming traffic once we could visually see them. What I'm not telling you, is that Joli' Elle is equipped with radar. So for the most part those large and some smaller vessels can be detected miles out. There's only one hitch, as we approached the Golden Gate bridge all the radar would show was a solid line where the bridge was. Any oncoming traffic that might be crossing under the bridge would be obscured on radar by the bridge. Just to give you an idea of how foggy it was I took this video.

Using the our limited visual fix on the bridge, the fog horn indicating the location of the pier and radar. We passed under the the Golden Gate bridge with much relief and enjoyed the view of the towering bridge span high above us.

Once we were clear of the bridge, we headed out to the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. When I stood on top of the bridge span the day before the water below and wind the day before were a force to be reckoned with, but today there was little if any wind and the water was as calm as a pond as far as three miles out - go figure.

Next stop, Half Moon Bay

~J~