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Obligitory nautical jargon
We putt-putted out of the marina and to less crowded waters. We pulled up the sails by pulling on ropes. Except that apparently we actually raised the jib halyard and the main halyard by hauling lines. Ropes are lines. On a sloop, there are two sails, the jib and the main. The main is attached to the mast; the jib is tied from the tip of the mast to the front of the boat. The jib directs air over the mainsail. Because the jib is small and not attached to a big mast, it can be adjusted pretty easily, and small adjustments to the jib can result in catching the wind much better. The lines which raise and lower the sails are halyards. The lines by which one moves the sails back and forth are perhaps called the sheets, though sheets also appears to be a word for sail, so I'm not so sure. Anyhow, we raised sail. If you don't mind, I'm going to take it easy on the nautical terms in this travelog. I'm sure that there's better places for learning this sort of thing than this humble report. I remember learning a lot of nautical terms and longshoreman's union terms from a book called Sea-Say, but I don't have a copy of that book handy, so I'm just going to tell you a lot of things in plain English. Bear with me.
Piaw was skipper, and handled the steering wheel while giving the rest of us instructions of how to handle the sails. I was pretty antsy at first, not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing. I was on one of the jib sheet lines, and was supposed to haul in or ease out the line whenever we changed direction, which was pretty often, since we were tacking into the wind. Several times, I asked Piaw what I was supposed to be doing, only to be told nothing yet--so I figure that I was anxious. Piaw dealt with it stoically. Piaw was actually a pretty good skipper, keeping calm in spite of an underskilled crew, explaining things calmly.
Jessica had left her pager behind, but wasn't too sorry. Jessica's the system administrator for a company that runs a communications network. Mpath has a network of computers which they use to run multi-player games over the internet. So when something goes wrong with the machines, you don't just have a few co-workers grumbling--you've got upset calls coming in from across the nation. Nevertheless, we had a cellphone aboard, so we could check for work emergencies as needed. I don't think we needed.
We headed for the Golden Gate, and watched a huge freighter heading out to sea. It was amazing how fast the freighter went. From a ways away, I had been worried that our paths would intersect, that we'd have to worry about a collision. I needn't have worried. That ship was going so fast that we couldn't have caught up to it for a collision if we'd wanted to.
I mean "nerds" in the nicest possible way
Conversation turned to computer games. I didn't have much experience with the games discussed, but fortunately, much of the discussion had more to do with meta-gaming. Talking about the gaming in general, more than any game in particular. This was a fun group to talk to, smart people in the computer industry. Monty Python references worked. Star Trek references worked. And these people were clever, and good conversationalists. I wish I could remember more of the conversation. I remember one awkward spot where I said, "Bah, computer games; what a waste of time." Of course, everyone on the boat spent a great deal of free time playing computer games, so this was sort of a loaded statement. I'd meant it to be funny, but I thought perhaps I'd better tack on some further silly phrase, just to make it clear I was tongue in cheek. Before I could utter such a phrase, Jessica said, "Oh, and we never see you on the GameWay." At this point, I didn't know what to say. I mean, I didn't actually play games on the GameWay. I just chatted with other gamers. But I couldn't figure out a way to say this without making my earlier statement sound a whole lot more serious. Or else sounding like a whining Beta tester: "These games suck. When are you going to get games I like?" I mean, I liked the GameWay. I like the idea of games. I just didn't like the games on the GameWay. How could I make this clear? There was no way. "Uhm, good point," I said, and there the matter rested.
concurrent events
Just as an example of how calm I can remain when it comes to computer games, Ron (a former roommate) called me up as I was getting towards the end of writing this travelogue to tell me that Quake had finally come out. I've been waiting for this game for a long time. But I nevertheless finished off my draft of this report before running to work to play Quake. This gives you some idea as to my priorities.
We sailed under the Golden Gate bridge. "Get ready! We're going to sail under the bridge!" someone yelled. I guess they wanted to make sure that the people who were belowdecks didn't miss this experience. Huh. I'd seen the underside of the bridge before. "We're going to get an underview of our great nation's highway system!" I called. We turned around and came back under the bridge again, re-entering the bay.
While doing all of these turns, we spent some time going with the wind to our side or behind us instead of coming at us. During these times, the jib sail seemed less important, and we'd do some angling of the main sail's angle. The wind's position relative to the boat appears to be the "reach." There were names for the reaches, but I can't really remember them, and am not sure that you care to know. Maybe one of them was "beam reach." Whatever.
Piaw wanted to take a break from steering, and asked for volunteers. Stephany, who'd had sailing experience on Idaho lakes, said she'd do it. She took the wheel, and Piaw started to head belowdecks to fetch the chart (nautical map) to figure out where we should go next. The boat went out of control almost immediately. Apparently, boats with steering wheels are set up to steer like cars; boats with tillers steer the opposite way. Stephany had plenty of experience with tiller boats, and none with steering-wheel boats. She could tell that the boat wasn't heading the way she wanted, but whenever she tried to adjust, her adjustment went the wrong way. Plus, apparently steering wheels don't give you any feedback, whereas tillers give you a better idea of how far you've steered. Plus, she didn't know that steering wheels were opposite from tillers. So I guess it was sort of like trying to steer a bicycle with your arms crossed, not knowing that they're crossed, and unsure how far each degree you turn the handlebars actually turns your front wheel. Anyhow, the boat went out of control. We basically pulled a 270 between the time things started to go wrong and the time Piaw managed to reach the wheel. Stephany seemed kind of shaken up.
Piaw quickly got things over control. He put Sy, his brother at the wheel. I'm not sure whether Sy had any wheel experience, but apparently he didn't have years of tiller experience to unlearn, and this was something of an advantage. Still, the lack of feedback from the wheel tended to make him overcompensate for direction changes. Fortunately, Piaw read the chart quickly and got back to the wheel before we beached ourselves in front of the Palace of Fine Arts.
We were going to Angel Island for lunch. Angel island? Was there any place to eat on Angel Island, I asked. If not, Piaw said, there was a marina just across the channel from the island. Yeah, I said. Tiburon. A yuppie hang. And yuppies know how to eat. We decided to set sail for Tiburon.
Heading away from the Palace of Fine arts, we lost our wind for a while--perhaps because we were in an area sort of protected from the wind, perhaps because the wind had just calmed down for a while. I remembered having read that some topological theorem had proved that there was always one place on earth that had no wind.
Jessica, who'd done some boat racing, joked that under race conditions, if the boat was going this slowly, the heaviest member of the crew would be tossed overboard. "Of course," she added ruefully, "that would probably be me." "What?" I blurted. I was kind of surprised, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm not used to hearing software people talk about their weight in that tone of voice. I'm used to hanging around with desk jockeys who talk about how out of shape they are. But they don't sound that discouraged by it, really. Jessica seemed genuinely worried about her weight. Second of all, it was obvious that Jessica was nowhere near as heavy as I was. I mean, she wasn't as tall as I was. And she wasn't fat. She didn't seem especially muscular. We soon determined that I weighed much more than she did. I probably wouldn't have remembered the incident except for a later remark.
Looking for lunch in all the wrong places
We arrived at Tiburon harbor. Apparently there's a sort of equivalent to public parking at some docks. The way it worked at Tiburon is that there were four parking places/berths/whatever set aside for visitors. At the time we arrived, all four were full and there was one boat waiting in line for the next space. As is so often the case in the bay area, the toughest part about going out to eat is dealing with parking. We waited in line for a space for a while. Piaw was thinking about using someone else's private berth, which was left empty--since it would just be for the duration of a meal. However, this did not seem practical--we might not be able to get back on the dock after the meal. Plus it's no fun having your boat impounded. Even if it's just a rental.
We explored the docks, looking for spaces further away from the main marina. But many of the docks were under the control of the Corinthian Yacht Club, which appeared to be a rather private organization. Further along, we found some slips that appeared to be attached to people's houses. We considered using these and leaving Ritz crackers for the house residents as a bribe, but decided against it. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of going to the Berkeley marina for lunch. I made a face and said, "The Berkeley Marina? What's there? Skates, but who wants to eat at Skates?" I relented, however. I wasn't that hungry, but other people were. Perhaps food that we could eat soon would be more advantageous than good food at this time. I suggested that we use the cellphone to get a pizza delivered, but we decided against the practicality of this idea.
We set sail for the Berkeley Marina. There was a strong wind coming from the gate. According to Yu-Shen, a windsurfer who was familiar with the daily and seasonal wind patterns of the area, this was typical. I pointed out where there had been many eucalyptus trees cut down on Angel Island, passing on information gathered from my high school chum Ray Choi after his bike adventure there. As we came out of the windshadow of Angel Island, the wind hit us full force. We encountered whitecaps, waves with a bit of foam on top. They've always looked kind of cute from shore, but on a boat they were less cute. Each time we went over the top of a wave, the boat would turn a bit, and Piaw had to pay a great deal of attention to steering. The waves splashed us. We saw a seal sticking its head out of the water for a while. Ooh. Aah.
So we were in a great mood when the boat's depth warning beeper went off.