Treasure Island CyberCruise

June 1, 1998

Home port, Peninsula Marina, Redwood City, US
37N29.55' 122W15.98'

Pictures? We got pictures!

My "dirt dwelling" friends thought that this was a great weekend. Suzy and I did too!

First after consulting the tide tables, we discovered that low tide was at 11:15 instead of 9:15 (oops, wrong weekend). So, it was either move on out at 8:00 in the way-too-early-am or wait until the bathtub started to fill again. I made an executive decision to sleep in. A well rested crew is a happy crew. Bill and Lynn arrived at about 1:00, just in time; we had just finished putting the awning away and started the engine. Suzy was below roasting the garlic for later. After an aborted attempt at the pump out, we made our way to the marina entrance. The dreaded Peninsula Marina entrance. After digging a few clams out of the sand bar, we pushed our way out of the creek.

Our guests brought sandwiches and wine (yummm) for a late lunch while we motored in the noser-lies. We finally got the sails up at Coyote Point. Hey, we're cruisers. The ride wasn't too comfortable with full sails so we put a reef in the main, then tried to monkey with our 140 Genoa. The top swivel is uncooperative so we ended up just furling the thing and raising the staysail. I'm quite happy to make 6 knots without sailing on our ear, thank you!

Not too much traffic on the way up. And we arrived at TI more or less on time. Now, here we are, complete newbies to the way of CyberCruising. My last raft up was, well, let's just say a looong time ago. And we'd never been to Clipper Cove either! Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and we were getting hungry. Thank you Thank you Thank you Dragon Lady for the use of your dink.

We had just barely settled in when La Adriana swooped in to hails and cheers. The next thing I knew, we were being boarded! In another moment, Adriana was gone with her new passengers. Stu wanted to go, and his boat became the "kids boat" as 9 of the chronologically challenged hopped on. Instead of playing raft-up ballet, I just thought it would be easier to pull my hook and take my guests around on Wishful Thinking. (Ominous music starts to play in the background) The anchor came up just fine (And the music builds in volume).

Stereo blasting, anchor down just south of YB, the fireworks were awesome. There were lots of oos and aahs. The other boats that were closer in were silhouetted against the flares and rockets. Ahhh. Just a minute to let it all sink in. Then, hey look at all those boats heading our way. And look, there's The Spirit of San Francisco heading straight for us! Agggh! Engines! Anchor up! And a happy little motor back to the cove.

We dropped the hook again (there's that music ...) and boy it set right away, didn't it? Aren't these Bruce anchors great or what? (da dum ... da dum) Now, it is what, 10:30? Time for dinner! Roasted garlic with brie -- next time we'll have more to share -- if you missed out. Brownies from Tom -- life is so uncertain, eat dessert first. Homebrew beer, steak, baked potatoes and ice cream. yummm-mm. A quick trip with Joy & Mark back to the dock so they can drive home, and everyone is finally racked out by 1am.

The next morning started with (freshly ground) coffee and cinnamon buns. We got an invite from a friend to go have lunch at a Thai Temple in Berkeley -- awesome food, they set up behind the temple and you get papaya salad, Pad Thai, sticky rice and mangoes. Ah! (food is a major theme, yes?) But first we had to get there, so...

On goes the engine, up goes the anchor chain and whoops! We picked up a cable. A BIG cable. three really big cables. There was much tugging and pulling and hauling and grunting -- who was playing Ride of the Valkyries in the background? I kept looking over my shoulder for the Hueys. Finally, with Stu's help (we owe you some homebrew!), the anchor was strongly encouraged to let go.

The trip to Berkeley was fine (did anyone else notice all of those boats out there, fishing?) Lunch was plentiful and good. By 2:30, the wind was up, we sailed reefed all the to San Bruno.

Coming into the slough, Bill offered to make his famous Mango Margaritas. Being a full service cruising boat, we pulled out the blender and fired up the inverter. By the time we were entering the marina, Bill was ready to pour. (Stu just shook his head and said something unintelligible -- well Suzy said I didn't want to know ;-)

Ahh. What a great day. The sunset was beautiful purple and magenta. What a great weekend.

Ken