9/21/2010 - Either a day early or 2 months late

We're safely tied up to a dock at the Benicia Marina near the mouth of the Carquinez Strait. The ride down from Fort Bragg to SF Bay was, how shall I put this?.... rambunctious. The weather was beautiful until the sun went down and it got cold. But we did have a full moon almost all night. The beginning of the trip was pretty mellow but the seas started picking up in the afternoon and continued to build into the night. I did roll out the jib for an hour or so yesterday evening. We were making really good time with it but I was having trouble maintaining a course so I ultimately doused it just before it got dark. No need to make things complicated for Lulu when she comes on watch.

I programmed our route from Ft. Bragg to Drake's Bay into the computer and the GPS. The plan was to arrive at Drake's Bay about 10:30 AM and then drop the anchor and spend the night there resting up and waiting for a favorable tidal current under the Golden Gate. However, I must have changed the name of the route without changing the waypoints because, when I came on watch at around 0500, we had just passed Point Reyes. That meant that Drake's Bay was right around the corner. Huh? Looked at the GPS route and found that the route called Ft. Bragg to Drake's Bay was actually Ft. Bragg to Richardson Bay, which is inside SF Bay. Oops. No way did I want to sail into Drake's Bay and anchor in the dark.

So, I checked the tides and currents and found that we were in a perfect position to attack the Golden Gate if we just kept going. So that's what we did. By the time we motored under the bridge the sun was shining and the current was giving us a 2.5 knot boost Woo-Hoo!

It was really nice in the Bay today. The water was downright glassy and, although there was enough wind for SF hardcores to sail, they weren't getting anywhere very fast. It was nice and warm, too. We headed up through San Pablo Bay and then into the start of the Carquinez Strait where we secured moorage at the Benicia Marina in (where else?) Benicia.

Passed this cool looking place along the way:

You can actually rent it according to the signs.

Anyway, we're here. Now our whirlwind visiting schedule begins. It wouldn't have been such a whirlwind if we had gotten here back in August like we originally planned, but waddya gonna do?

Once again, the marina does NOT have wifi. Geez! So a posting requires a 20 minute walk to the nearest Starbucks. Otherwise it's a very nice marina. Maybe a little hoity-toity for us but the showers are clean and don't have coin slots so we'll manage somehow.

If this entry seems a bit distracted it's because I'm very distracted here in S-Buck's trying to compose something. Usually I write the entries on the boat and then just post them when I got to a connection. But I didn't have time to do that this time so, it is what it is. Sorry.