San Francisco Bay Fleet Week

Hello All,
It is finally raining here a little bit so it has forced me to stay inside and get some photo editing done from last weekend. We had fleet week here which consisted of 4 days of military ship parades and air shows. I took the boat to the city and anchored a block from Fishermens Wharf in a nice little protected anchorage known as Aquatic Park. It is managed by the National Park Service so you need a permit to anchor here. It is really easy to get one and it is for free. I just texted my boat info to a gal at the office and thats it. Little did I know that it would be one of the best places to view the airshow from and hear the events happening from announcers and loud speakers on the beach. It was calm and clear both days I was there and hot, wow!, what a weekend.

I had my kayak with me so Friday afternoon I took a short trip to a nice sandy beach and walked around some with the mass of people touring around. The anchorage offers great views of the city skyline as well as the bay and golden gate bridge.

Its hard to describe the feeling of being there with all of the action so I took some good videos and lots of pictures. I will post them here below the text.

Out side of having 2 great weekends out on the boat it has been work as usual with never ending projects keeping all of us here at the marina busy.

Enjoy the pictures and video and I will chat at you soon


PEACE

Westsail Rendezvous 2016

Hello All,
I just had the greatest weekend at the Northern California Westsail Rendezvous. We met up again at the Richmond Marina Bay Yacht Harbor, I timed it this time, it took me 10 minutes to get over there from where im at, pretty close indeed , anyway I arrived on Friday about 1:30and got tied up, I had some help landing the boat, there was already 3 Westsail boats there so that was handy. After getting settled in I started visiting with a few people I havent met before so that was really cool to see new faces that brought boats. By the end of the day we had 11 boats in all, it was a great turn out and all but one was a Westsail 32. A young couple gearing up to go cruiseing off shore came with a #1 hull Westsail 42 Cutter Ketch. Explaination , cutter has 2 sails foreword and a ketch has 2 masts. Beautiful boat if i may say anyway. I saw alot of the same faces from last year so was nice to visit again.

Saturday, late morning Bud Taplin showed up, recap , Bud is our go to guy for Westsail parts, he worked as a manager for the company in the early 70's, he is a wealth of knowledge and a hoot visit with. Anyway he drove up from home base New Port Beach California to join in on all the fun. He also brought books up that he had published about the Westsail Company while he was there and there are some stories that Westsailors sent to him to put in the book as well. Well needless to say i bought one and had him sign it. I have only skimed through but looks very interesting.
After all of us were boarding each others boats and taking notes on ideas of what someone else did we had a bbq at the Harbor Masters Office party room. I helped set up the tables and did what I could to make it easier on our organizers. I think there were 45 people showed up, It was a great visit moving around the room and the food was great.

I had to leave early this morning to get back to work but all the rest of the boats did a parade on the city front all sailing together. Next year Im taking Sunday off to do this , sounds like to much fun.

Well thats my weekend In a nut shell, Ill post pictures below, enjoy.

PEACE

Yosemite National Park

Hello All,
It's been a very long time since I've been here. I think I'm a little rusty. Anyway things here at the marina are pretty business as usual and I do get to take my boat out in the bay from time to time for day sails. It is a lot of fun just to say I'm going today and 10 minutes later your sailing along.

Well I'll get right to the point. I was invited to go on a 3 day camp out last week by our old Harbormaster Rick. He retired 2 years ago but still attends our Wednesday night BBQs. My self my boss Eric and one of our tenants, Anders, that has a marine repair shop here all jumped into Ricks big fancy van and we headed out last Sunday morning. It took us about 5 hours to get up into the mountains to our campsite taking our time enjoying the views. We set up camp at Tuolumne Meadows, made a fire and about 10 more people showed up to join the group. Rick and friends he knows do this trip at least once a year. He told me they started the group in 1986.

Monday morning we had a light breakfast and jumped into Ricks van and went to one of the trail heads where we hiked up to 10,000 feet and 8.5 miles in all. The views are amazing there and the weather was clear and not to hot.I was pretty tired when we finished but amazingly felt really good the next day. I haven't hiked like that in years.

We had a great visit with all of Ricks friends when we returned to camp most all retired now. Everyone pitched in for a great dinner cooked on the campfire with a Dutch oven. Some great stories were told as well.

Tuesday morning we were treated to a great breakfast as well. we tore down camp and everyone said there goodbyes. They already have another trip planned for the Valley floor this time. I said I'll think about it.

I will post a few pics below

P.S. I have a Westsail rondevous coming up at the end of the month so you will here from me next month.

PEACE