No Mr Coffee here. I was a very young coffee drinker. I’ve always loved the smell of fresh brewed coffee and my Mom let me drink coffee with a lot of milk at a young age. Maybe there is something to the saying that coffee stunts your growth :). So here we are on the boat doing it the old fashioned way. Thank you Mom for teaching me how to brew the perfect pot of coffee.

After an early morning start, some work on the boat and then a 4 hour sail we are enjoying a rare Sunday night in the boat. Thank you to all of our veterans especially my Dad for your service protecting our freedom.

Not only is this the first boat we have owned that we can live on, this is our first experience spending a lot of time on the water.  We grew up around fresh water lakes and spent time at the Jersey Shore but now we are living every weekend actually on salt water.  We drink our morning coffee watching the families of ducks and Canadian geese and the fishing boats heading out.  The Carquinez Strait receives the waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers as they drain into the San Francisco Bay.  You might remember Humphrey the errant humpback whale who made national news by swimming up the Carquinez Strait in 1985.  We are learning about the tides as that determines when we can sail and in which direction.  The deep water channel that runs the length of the Strait is heavily traveled by cargo ships transporting oil from the refineries in the Benicia area as well as goods to and from Sacramento.  The ships travel very slowly through the channel and while it is very cool to watch, it can be a pain in the butt for us as it sometimes interferes with our ability to tack back and forth through the Strait.  Obviously the big guy has the right of way 🙂 Yesterday we had one of the largest ships yet come through while 2 barges were ‘parked’ in the Strait waiting for it to pass.  Each vessel is accompanied by at least 2 tug boats.  I’ve included a picture of one of the tugs here.  It is really a site to watch these tugs turn a huge cargo ship around and then push it up to the dock.  This is so much more fun then spending our weekends in Rocklin!

I had my first sail with Austin on Friday evening and it started out normal enough.  But as Austin was steering us around a tanker that was anchored outside of our marina we noticed a line of 4 foot waves heading in our direction.  This was a bit unusual in the Carquinez Strait.  We hit it bow first which sent us straight up out of the water.  Water crashed everywhere and dishes went flying.  We were all so excited about that adventure we didn’t realize how close to the shore we were until we grounded out.  Since the tide was coming in we only had to wait 10 minutes and we were able to get the bow turned around and we motored out.   Not your typical sailing adventure but we went on and enjoyed some good winds followed by a great dinner in town.

Because of the tides on Saturday, Gary and I planned on being on the water for 5 hours that day.  That went off as planned but Mother Nature was not exactly cooperating.  While we had great wind most of the day the seas were very choppy.  No waves but 3 to 4 foot swells with white caps coming from all directions.   The San Pablo Bay was especially bad with the confluence of rivers and the San Francisco Bay.  Not the most ideal situation for someone who is prone to seasickness.  But our first 2 hours and the last hour was great sailing, so perhaps it was worth it 🙂 And Gary got some time in single handing the boat.  This did give us a chance to see Sereno handle some rough waters as well as a wave out of nowhere and she did great.  We are still not sure where the wave came from but since we are in the bay area perhaps there was some earthquake activity.

Last night sitting outside we were having a martini and snacks watching the boats come in.  After dinner we watched the super moon come up over the water. And this morning coffee and croissants watching the sun come up and the early morning boats leaving.  I don’t know what it is about being on the water that makes it so peaceful and tranquil.  We felt like we were someplace exotic like the South of France or perhaps Italy.  I do know that Saturday morning feels like we are going on vacation for me.  Gary has that ‘just back’ from vacation feeling Sunday night.  We should have done this years ago.