September 3-5, 2005 Drakes Bay Cruise

(If you like, you can skip down through the prose and go straight to the pictures below!)

Seven boats in total made the cruise, of which five left @ 0800 on Saturday 3rd Sept under very low clouds. They were hanging right at the Golden Gate Bridge deck. That's 160 feet above the water! Winds were 10 to 15k range to the turn north @ Pt Bonita thru the Bonita Channel.

The boats were: Snowflower (Nancy & Skipper Wall); Evanescence (Laurie & Smokey Stover & Donnie); Freedom Won (Nanci & John Melton); Dream Catcher (Vern & CherylVerling); Pulau Jonathann Muhiudeen & Linda Horne + Ian & Keegan); Woodbine (Karen & Ron Damsen) went up on Thursday. And the phantom I36, Tom Cat (Barry Stompe & Sylvia Stewart) who came in on Saturday night after dark, anchored for the night and left at dawn on Sunday!!!

It was a motor trip for Snowflower and a motorsail for all the others. We did have to pick our way thru the fishing "fleet" at Duxbury Reef. There were "hundreds" of them, all going their own way! We never saw the sun all day, but we all arrived in Drakes Bay about 1430 or so. So it was about a 5.5 hour trip north. Swells 4 to 5 feet. Wind waves added chop on top of that. We were sprayed with water over the bow once in awhile, but not very often.

Woodbine was anchored 3 or 4 hundred yards off the Pt. Saint Joseph Fish Co.. All our I36's were anchored within a 100 yards of each other. Think we all took a nap and then about 1730 gathered on Snowflower for our famous I36 pot-luck dinners. We had 13 below for dinner.

The Dream Catcher's crew had other "plans", and we all wondered what restaurant they knew about that we didn't. After dinner we had some good conversations and comments about the day and being in such a very nice, quite location. However, during the night the wind blew about 20K for awhile, and the waves against the hull made it seem like being inside a bass drum!

On Saturday, Nancy Wall, Laurie Stover & Donnie took a hike up the road. Landing by dinghy at the Pt. Joseph Fish Co building. The rangers didn't say a word about not landing with a motorized dinghy!!! It must be "beg forgiveness and plead ignorance" after all we had been told.

On one of the beaches on the NE side were hundreds of people for the Labor Day "Sand Castle" building contest. Just too far to go and there were some breakers right where they were building the castles. The sun did break thru about 1400 on Saturday and with the wind at 10k it was very pleasant. Not a cloud in the sky, quite a change.

However, about 1600 the winds and waves started to build as we were getting ready to go to Evanescence for our second potluck dinner. As a result, only the Walls' and Meltons' braved the water conditions. Everybody wore their foul weather gear and on the way back to the boats we were glad we did! Dinner was just excellent. Laurie had Beef Stroganoff. Nancy Wall brought hot chili and Nanci Melton brought a big mixed salad. We did not go hungry!!! By the time dinner was over the waves had built to about 2.5 feet and the wind was 24k. Still not a cloud in the sky, but the wind and white caps were plenty. Not a pleasant ride back. It was a good thing we told the those on the other boats to "not come over". It was just to bad.

Nancy & I stayed up until 2100 listening to the wind and the waves. Checking our location with the fish pier and the life boat building. Wind stayed up in the mid 20's until about 0300 Monday. Then it just got quite all of a sudden. One minute blowing like crazy and the next dead! At dawn we found a bright sunny sky and 5k winds. Drakes Bay almost like a mirror.

We learned that Nancy & I had slept thru an lot of horn blowing as Freedom Won & Evanescence were trying to get the attention of a ketch that had dragged her anchor down thru the anchored boats and was about to go on the rocks/beach at the life boat building! It was saved by a couple of guys in a dinghy that were going very fast to catch her.

Snowflower was the first one to leave at 0835 with the rest shortly thereafter. Pulau saw a whale just after leaving the east tip of Pt Reyes. And Evanescence tried to troll thru Duxbury Reef and ended up having 10 foot shark following them! Ouch!

Everyone motored sailed back to at least the Golden Gate where finally some wind kicked in. There was basically no wind and only 3 or 4 foot swells with no wind waves all the way from Pt Reyes to Pt Bonita.

It was a good trip, a little of this and a little of that! We think everyone had a good time and enjoyed heading out in the big water for a change.

See you next time. Nancy & Skipper Wall, Snowflower

Pictures are compliments of Ron Damsen, Smokey Stover, Cheryl Verling and Skipper Wall.

Woodbine Anchored Friday	Getting Rough	Wind Gusting Over 22 Knots	Old Coast Guard Rescue Station
Freedom Won out the gate ...	and splish, splash	Chilly going	Dream Catcher Anchoring
Evanescense Arrives	FreedomWon Arrives	Snowflower Anchoring	Vern & Jack Zoooooom ...
Ready for fun	Snowflower & Woodbine	Karen boards Snowflower	Pulau boarding party
Dream Catcher At Anchor	Pulau At Anchor	Evanescense	Snowflower & Dream Catcher
Snowflower ready to host	Hungy Pulau kids.	Nanci, John, Smokey, Lauire	Linda, Ian & Keegan
More food!!!	Getting sleepy?	Skipper's happy...	so is Nancy.
Prepared for anything	What, me worry?	A beautiful afternoon	to catch some sun.
Dream Catcher	Pulau	Evanesence	Snow Flower
Chimney Rock leaving	Chimney-Rock-arrival	combing rewards	Drakes Bay anchorage
Dream Catcher Snow Flower	Duxbury Shark folows Evanescence	Fish anyone	Fish for Donny
Fish On	Freedom One	GGB leaving	GGB return
Hanjin leads Dream Catcher	Pulau discusses sailing to Monterey Bay	John, Linda, Ian, and Kegan	Nancy Donny
Nancy Laurie read on	Nice afternoon	Pulau	Skipper leads Freedom One
Tom Cat sails to anchor	Tom Cat	Woodbine & Snow Flower	Snowflower
Dream Catcher Getting Ready To Leave	Snowflower Saying Goodbye ...	departing & ...	Motoring home.
Tip Of Point Reyes	Muted Point Reyes	Tom Cat sails off anchor...	past Evanescence
The Gate in sight.	Evanescence at Pt. Bonita	Pt. Bonita	Point Bonita