Our Entrance into San Francisco Bay

Looking on a map, it seemed that San Francisco was still a million miles away. We had made really good tracks getting down the coast, but we still weren’t where we needed to be. From what we could tell, it was still at least one more overnight passage, a full 24 hours of being underway. So we buckled up and set forth, after an overnight in Shelter Cove, we headed out south. 

We were locked in a foggy mist for that entire time. It was what my Dad would call “Tupperware days”, because it felt like you were in a misty plastic container all day. It was quite unnerving. We were so glad we had radar, so we could at least see if there were large vessels in front of us. Which there were. We aren’t sure how you can be a commercial fisherman out at night and not have AIS or any kind of identification system. That nightwatch we were both hyper vigilant, with shorter breaks and more awake time. Luckily, this passage had much calmer seas, so calm that we motored to entire time. Matt had some high hopes of flying the spinnaker, but there wasn’t even enough wind for that. 

But soon, on the charts, we could see that San Fran was in our sights and we called the lilies up in the cockpit to witness our entrance into San Francisco Bay. It was great to see land again and CAlifornia has really beautiful geography. The bridge was shrouded in fog, but that was to be expected. 

What was not to be expected was that our engine suddenly and abruptly sputtered and shut off. No fanfare, just cough-cough-dead.

Now, most people know that Matt is a very capable fix-it type guy, but his first love is diesel engines. It’s his first language. So I wasn’t worried thinking that it was a problem he couldn’t fix, and sure enough he hopped right into action problem solving.

He couldn’t believe we were out of fuel because of the calculations he had done, but it sure seemed like we were out of fuel. It was a quiet entrance into the bay, all of us with tense looks, but all keeping our cool. Luckily there was just enough wind to put the jib out and carry us forward at a safe pace to keep away from the barges and freighters and tugs and other boats coming in and out of that aquatic highway.

Needless to say, it was not how we imagined our entrance to be. After doing the fastest fuel filter change known to man and I’m sure some other spells and incantations, Matt siphoned some diesel out of our wall heater and could drop some in the tank to sputter us into our anchorage. The wind had really picked up now and the bay was a beautiful place for sailing and there were many boats out there keeled over enjoying the breeze. That must have  been so nice for them. Me, on the other hand was trying to not lose my marbles and kept wondering “when do put the dinghy down and push ourselves into the anchorage?”.

Matt acted like a champ and go that boat running and got us into the bay without a single swear word being uttered: a true miracle. After further diagnosis, he found out that the fuel reader stick doesn’t reach the bottom of the tank and the fuel tank is a funny shape so it misread how much fuel was in there. 

We can laugh about it now, and say things like “well, we have a story now!”, but it was probably our most stressful experience so far. But truly, it was the best circumstances: the current was with us (almost slack tide), the wind was steady, there was enough visibility, no rain - all good things. It really could have been much, much worse.

After we dropped the hook in a great little bay just for sailboats, we tried to shake off the drama of our entrance. We could see the Ghirardelli chocolate factory right in front of us on shore, so we thought to go and enjoy a little bit of land. We promptly found an In and Out burger (Digory is all about expanding his culinary experiences and heard this is a quintessential American burger joint) and took in the sights of this busy place.