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This beeper let us know that we were in water that was less than 15' deep. I never did find out what our boat's draft was; presumably it was less than 15'. Someone pointed out some brown water--apparently a sign that dirt from the bay bottom was being stirred up by the waves. This was a good thing to avoid. Piaw started to steer towards the brown area. I wondered if this was a color-blindness thing. Finally, we got the boat swung around towards deeper waters.
Have I conveyed to you that there was a sense of urgency here? A sign of rapid developments demanding immediate attention? Okay.
We were still in rough (to us) seas and high (to us) winds, so the boat was tossing about a bit. Piaw wanted to get a look at the chart to look for approaches to the Berkeley marina; to see if there was an approach with deeper water. But he (reasonably) didn't want to hand over the wheel under these conditions. He asked me to fetch the chart (map) from belowdecks. I stuck my head and torso down. Stephany, Jason, and Jessica were below. Jessica was sleeping under me. Jason was looking uncomfortable. Stephany handed me the chart when I asked her. A piece of wood started to slip off the kitchen counter, and I caught it as it fell as I took the chart. "Nice catch," Stephany said. And it had been. I was astounded.
I got my torso and head back up on deck and handed the chart over. Piaw looked it over while steering. There was a lot of shallow water around Berkeley. While we might be able to navigate it, we might also spend a lot of time listening to the depth warning beeper going off. Perhaps we would head back to Tiburon to see if a parking place had opened up.
Jessica stuck her head up above deck and was immediately splashed with water. She yelped and ducked below again. I realized that I was rather soaked. Jessica asked why we'd turned around, and we gave the word on Berkeley, and of the plan to try out Tiburon again. A while later, Jessica came back up on deck, well rested from her nap. She was able to keep conversation going, which was good, because those of us who'd decided to spend the windy time on deck were a bit tired. But having an awake person around made everyone else feel more awake.
We made it back into Angel Island's windshadow. Things calmed down quickly. What a relief. There were some beautiful boats to look at, out on the bay. There was a huge square-rigger. I don't really have the words to describe the majesty of some of these boats. But I don't. And back before I had any sailing experience, I don't think I appreciated them. I mean, when you see the size of those things, and the number of sails, you get the impression that these things must have real crews, not just one skipper, a couple of semi-trained people, and some untrained whelps. To see this huge, intricate craft making progress across the water so seemingly effortlessly, one got a sense of majesty. I'm not describing this well. There was more to this thing's impressiveness than just imagining the competence of its crew.
We arrived at the Tiburon marina once more. There were a couple of parking places available. We took one, tied up, walked up the dock to land, and found ourselves on the patio of what we would later learn was Jack's Bar. There were tables all over the place, mostly full of yuppies drinking beer. We (I don't know who, not me) decided to look for a place to sit down. I went with the flow. Perhaps these people knew this place. I figured out that we didn't know this place when a waitress came over to ask us to sign in at the front instead of seating ourselves willy-nilly. At the front desk, when one of the restaurant people asked what we wanted, one of our group said that we were still trying to figure that out.
I took that as my cue, and went over what I knew about Tiburon restaurants: "Well, we have a choice of kinda bland Mexican, some good Italian, this place which might be good, or any of a number of other places around here I know nothing about." "How about Italian?" someone said. I thought someone might. I started walking out towards the street. A restaurant person asked to make sure that we would be staying in town, to make sure we weren't abandoning the boat or something. We would be around. I led the way to Tutto Del Mare, where I'd eaten lunch after a bike ride to Tiburon a week or two before.
Actually, that bike excursion to Tiburon allowed me to come off as the big Tiburon expert for this sailing voyage. I had been able to point out a historic stone tower from the water, and rattle on about its historic significance. People might think I knew a lot about the region, but what little I knew I'd picked up recently. Still, I played my role as local expert to the hilt--especially if it meant going to Tutto Del Mare instead of what appeared to be some fish and beer place.
We went to Tutto Del Mare. I think people liked it. I'm almost certain that Jessica liked it. While we were waiting for a table, she puttered about in the bar/oyster bar area and pointed out some interesting bottles. Coming upstairs to the dining area, some pretty poached pears caught her eye--she asked to find out what they were, and thus knew what she wanted for dessert before even having seen a menu to choose an entree. I've been to this restaurant twice now, and I've liked it each time. However, each time I've been rather tired and hungry, so I don't know how far I trust my opinion. My boatmates did seem to like it, though. So I was pleased. I don't think I really make much of a sailor, so I was pleased to at least have contributed knowledge of a good restaurant.
I really am not much of a sailor. I didn't get seasick, but I never really got to the point where I understood what all the fuss was about. I mean, I never really felt the excitement for sailing that I've heard so much about. I liked the people I was sailing with, but kept thinking that I'd rather just be sitting inside with them. And now I was.
Lunch conversation was interesting. Stephany had spent a great deal of her life in Idaho, and was familiar with the lakes of Northern Idaho. She had been to Coolin, and sadly informed me that it wasn't the happening spot that its name implied. "I think it's got a dock, a bar, and a store," is how she put it, I believe. Her dad owned a boat which he's promised to her as soon as she finishes getting her Chemical Engineering degree. Which seems like one of the better motivations for graduating that I've heard of.
Tim, who works for a company called Lighthouse Design, said that Lighthouse had recently looked into doing some internet-like service for Nokia 9000 phones. Geoworks, the company I work for, did the operating system for the Nokia 9000. So I was famous, sort of. Here was someone who'd heard of Geoworks. Lighthouse wasn't going forward with the Nokia 9000 project, so I guess my fame was fleeting.
We walked to the stone tower and back. I suggested the walk, since it was the same one that I'd taken after the bike excursion. I was the big Tiburon expert, yup.
It was sometime around this time when Jessica pointed out that this meal had probably contributed to her "weight problem." I glanced back. I pointed out that if she had a weight problem, no one need know as long as she continued to wear loose clothes. She said that yes, and her boyfriend wanted her to lose weight so that she could wear fancier clothes. I think my jaw fell at this point. This was the silliest thing I'd heard all day; but it occured to me that saying that she'd chosen an idiot for a boyfriend might not be the most tactful thing to say to someone I'd just met a few hours ago. I shut up. I mean, people who know me would know that the idea of going to any trouble to wear fancy clothes wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I mean, I might go to some trouble to get out of wearing fancy clothes. I kept quiet.
Does it seem as if this travelog spends a great deal of its time discussing places where I made faux pases (or whatever the plural is)? It was something that I noticed a lot, perhaps because this was a new peer group--and because I sensed that it was important that I get along with them. When you're on a boat with someone, you have to be able to get along with them, because there's really no place to get away from them. There's just this boat.
We made our way through Jack's Bar and back to the boat. The wind had calmed down a bit. We sailed back to Sausalito, taking an indirect route so that some people could take their hand at the wheel. I did not take a turn at the wheel. I was feeling very lazy. I lay in a corner of the boat and drowsed, letting the water rock me.
Then it was time to stop being lazy. We were approaching the marina. We took down the sails, let down the fenders. And then discovered that someone had unhooked the main halyard line from the sail. And that the hook that held that line to the sail was now dangling from the line, hanging down from the top of the sail, out of arm's reach. This would be bad news for the next people to use the boat. We were honor bound to try to get that hook back down. No-one was really up for shinnying up the mast. Someone tried standing on this one metal thing and reaching for the hook, but it was way out of reach. Someone suggested I try. I pointed out that the hook was dangling more than a foot above my reach, and proved it by trying and failing to snag it. "You could jump and catch it," I said, "but jumping probably isn't a good idea, just now." Though we were in calm waters, the boat was still shifting. It would be difficult to jump and land on the boat safely.
Tim said he'd seen a boathook below. What good thinking. Someone brought up the boathook. It was shorter than I think of boathooks being, and had a plastic blunt hook instead of one of the sharp metal monsters I think of when I hear the term "boathook." Jason tried to use it to reach the dangling hook but couldn't. I tried--and could sort of touch the hook. After two minutes work, I had managed to drag the hook down a couple of inches, but my arms were getting tired.
It was Tim who pointed out that the boathook telescoped out. Ah. That explained why it had looked so short. Tim took over, expanding the boat hook, snagging the dangling hook, and saving us from leaving the boat in a nasty situation. I think it was Tim. Tim reminded me a lot of Jimmy (my roommate) in terms of physical appearance, so I'm inclined to think of him as being the one to do something so agile as snagging that dangling hook. Anyhow.
We arrived at the dock. Piaw parked. We got our stuff out, cleaned up, closed up the boat, and drove off into the night after exchanging good-byes. It had been a mighty fine day. I still wasn't sure that I understood the point of sailing. I'd kept thinking, This would be a lot easier if we were all just sitting on somebody's porch. Then again, most people's porches don't allow one to haul up and go visit Tiburon, so maybe there's more to this activity than I've figured out so far.