In San Francisco almost a week

When we left Neah Bay and headed out in the big blue Tony said - "We'll be in San Francisco by Wednesday " - he meant next Wednesday. 3 Wednesdays later we arrived in San Francisco and tomorrow we will have been away 1 month.

We came through the Golden Gate bridge at high tide as recommended and it was uneventful, but very exciting to be bringing our own boat into San Francisco. As we were going under the bridge we phoned Georgia (my daughter who lives in San Francisco) and announced our arrival very loudly in unison.

We found Sausalito Yacht Club just exactly where it was supposed to be and pulled up to their transient dock to fill up with water. We stayed on one of their moorage buoys for the next 5 days and enjoyed their facilities - showers, bar and restaurant. The ferry terminal was right next to the yacht club, so we had easy access to downtown SF but we also had a very rolly moorage.

I think I'm beginning to understand the meaning of the 'pace of the cruising life'. I think that it means that you just don't get anything done. In fairness to us - it was hard to get any work done because the boat was pitching about alot.

We did explore Sausalito a bit - a couple of miles walking to the laundromat - and a couple of miles walking to the Bay Model - which is an amazing feat of engineering. It was built and is maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers - started in 1959. The project covers about 2 acres of land and is housed - as are many businesses in that part of Sausalito - on a site where Marinship built 93 tankers during the war. (33 days to produce one 10,000 ton tanker). They employed 75,000 people to build these ships - many of whom had never even seen a ship before.

The Bay Model project was commissioned by a government with foresight - they knew that California would have water problems in the future, and needed to know how to make the most of the Sacramento delta, weather systems, and tides. This model is used to educate the visitors - many of whom are school children on field trips - to understand the need for water conservation and respect for all natural resources.

We were impressed.

We spent a day with Georgia and Wyatt downtown. Mostly we walked about in Chinatown - one of the biggest Chinatowns in the world where we ate a good meal and took lots of pictures just like all of the other tourists.

Alameda is our current location - we sailed over from Sausalito yesterday in the the daily 25 kn winds - they come up at noon and continue until about 6.00pm. We're on the guest dock at Encinal Yacht Club - they have a pool, showers, a great view - no rolling around - all for $15 per day, 84degrees today. We'll be here a couple of days before moving downtown to Pier 39 and then back out into the big water to commence our trip south.