Familiar surroundings

Tuesday, 20 March 2018

Today is spring equinox. I suddenly realize that I have braved the North Pacific in the wintertime! Hard to fathom (no pun intended) that from now on we’ll be getting more daylight than nighttime hours.

Here at San Leandro Marina, meanwhile, we see another sad waterfront story developing. Supposedly there are two yacht clubs using the boat basin but few vessels (many looking rather neglected) are using the 400+ slips. It’s just too much trouble to traverse the long approach to the bay.

Our end of the dock is covered in guano, and in the morning at low tide we notice our yacht sitting on mud. Apparently, San Leandro Marina’s days as a boat harbour are numbered. Because of the lack of federal funding for dredging, the city plans to tear out the floating docks and turn this sheltered harbour into a recreation area for kayaks, paddle boards and other small watercraft. But at least San Leandro is rolling with the punches — unlike Gold Beach, Oregon — for they have ambitious plans to redevelop their entire waterfront.

Good news today for Captain Dan. A local marine electronics technician makes a house call and fixes our AIS (automatic identification system) computer and also discovers the (very simple) problem with our anchor windlass. Later this week he will return to install an electronic diagnostics system so we can pinpoint any malfunction and more easily do some troubleshooting. Dan also finds different dock space for us much closer to San Francisco — at the Oakland Yacht Club!

As we cast off and motor to our new location in the Oakland estuary, I am able to play tour guide. I know the area around the island of Alameda well, for I had looked after my son’s and daughter-in-law’s yacht for two months here in the winter of 2012-13 before they took their family of seven on a voyage across the Pacific. In fact, I did relocate their boat from another marina to the large Marina Village Yacht Harbor right next door to the Oakland Yacht Club!

Photos: The Oakland Estuary is the area’s main working harbour visited by cargo ships from across the globe.

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I learned to sail more than half a century ago on a 100' wooden ketch with canvas sails and natural fibre halyards, no winch in sight. As a young lad I crossed the Atlantic thrice, alas each time as a passenger on a ship. I realize that doesn't prove any boating experience except that I don't get seasick. Later I owned a pocket sloop in which I got to know much of the Salish Sea on Canada's west coast for two decades. The largest boat I've skippered -- in the protected waters of San Francisco Bay -- was a 45-foot catamaran. Now I'm a small tour boat and water taxi captain in Victoria's (British Columbia) inner harbour. I'm off work mid-October to mid-February but sometimes I don't start my job until late spring if I happen to be travelling and like the place I'm visiting more than the prospect of returning home before the weather turns warm.