Now that we had arrived in San Francisco Bay, we had some exploring to do. Our transient crew had left, and Melinda joined us again from her extended stay in Boise. We had arrived in Sausalito on Monday and ended up staying in Schoonmaker Point Marina until Friday to do a bit of provisioning and to see more of the Sausalito area.

Sausalito was magical in terms of weather. You could see San Francisco to the south being totally overwhelmed by fog at times, yet Sausalito remained clear and sunny. The fog would hit the hills behind the town and try to make its way down to the waterfront, but would evaporate before ever making it there. If I had it to do over again, I’d still choose to land in Sausalito just for the sun after the long sail down from the Pacific Northwest.

Friday dawned and we had a short window between my work meetings to fuel up and get ourselves across the bay to San Francisco. We fueled up at Clipper Yacht Harbor, squeezing in barely between the pilings and the fuel dock – I’m glad there was very little wind! The pilings were presumably there to protect the fuel dock, and as often occurs seemed spaced out to accommodate monohulls rather than catamarans.

After fueling up – I love having full tanks! – we made the short hop across to Aquatic Park Cove just down the hill from Ghirardelli Square. We were constrained on time, so just buzzed over with engines rather than enjoying a short sail in the fresh breeze.

It was a special feeling to see that skyline coming closer by the minute. I’d been dreaming of anchoring in this cove since seeing our video blogging heroes Johan and Malin from Ran Sailing take this spot to explore the city. Very cool to be right there in the water with the tall ships of the Maritime National Historical Park.

Anchoring in the cove cost us $10 per day. This let us anchor in the cove, have access to a gated beach for our dinghy landing, and gave us access to the ships in the park. Sweet deal for us!

We woke that Saturday morning in the Cove to the sounds of people talking just outside our hull. I went on deck and saw there were swimmers and rowing boats all over the place. We were awestruck by the number of swimmers – there must have been a few hundred – who swam into the cove from some unknown starting point and went ashore at the “Dolphin Club”. Quite the spectacle to see so many people plying the relatively cold waters in their bathing suits.

The rowboats were fun to watch as well. There were several different classes of boats, apparently all involved in racing of some kind. There were sleek sculling boats with 4 or 6 crew, and heftier rowboats for one or two. There were races out into the bay, around marks, and back into the cove. From the cacophony, it was clear they were all having a good time.

We stayed in the cove for five days, and spent the time seeing the sights in San Francisco. We visited Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Park, and Grace treated us with a nighttime trip to Alcatraz. We also had our obligatory visit to the Stinking Rose, the first restaurant that Melinda and I visited in the City while first dating. Ghirardelli was a highlight for me, and we actually ended up going twice.

The visit to Alcatraz was fun for all of us, once we recovered from getting soaked from the knees down when we beached the dinghy. You might notice in one of the pictures that the skipper’s pants are wet! Seeing the prison at night was very cool, and they only open some of the spaces such as the medical ward for the night tours. Grace thought it particularly funny that the skipper was briefly trapped in the handcuff exhibit, unable to free himself!

Some of my work friends stopped by to visit Perception as well, since the company for which I work is based in San Jose. We had a great time socializing in person aboard the boat since we’ve mostly been working together virtually ever since COVID.

When the weekend ended, I worked from the boat while the girls explored more and visited restaurants in the City. The weather had started to become a bit tedious in the cove – it seemed like we constantly had a 15 to 25 knot breeze blowing through from the Pacific. Over the course of our stay the swell started to build as well, and the pier around the cove didn’t really block the low-frequency swell at all with its pilings. We had a couple of bad dinghy landings at the beach, getting us wet and the dinghy partially swamped. It took forever to get that fine sound out of the dinghy (still at it!!).

Not to complain, but after 5 days were were ready to move on. The weather, sand, and pre-dawn wake ups to swimmers outside your window were starting to wear thin. We said farewell to the cove and headed deeper into the Bay.

Our next and final stop in the Bay was Emery Cove Yacht Harbor, near Emeryville. What a nice place we found to visit and clean up the boat. The rates were very low, I think $50/night, which is cheaper than any place in the Puget Sound in our experience. The docks were new and well maintained, power and water were good. Shopping was just an Uber away. The staff at the marina were particularly friendly and helpful. It almost makes me rethink the initial landing in Sausalito – but for the guaranteed sun!

We’d thought about hitting Clipper Cove on Treasure Island and Ayala Cove on Angel Island before heading south, but found the comfort of Emery Cove to be too enticing to leave. We ended up staying there through Saturday when it was time again to take the next step down the coast.