Daily Archives: October 19, 2014

First Thoughts

I put a category on the website call Perspectives because I thought there would be all this time to meditate on life as we drifted down the coast on Adesso. Quite the opposite has been my experience, not that I don’t have daily surprises, thoughts, even preponderance’s but to have time to put that to “web” (that would be pen in the olden days) – well only if I were to forgo sleep. So this is my first (short) perspective. Every day is full of the new, vignettes stand out but in truth just a stream of images, thoughts, which upon reflection are associated with me but actually are experienced more like a dream with “me” in it. The new is more overwhelming and varied than “I” can imagine. Yesterday we sailed into the land of sea otters, humpbacks passed , even an orca swam beside us as we motored into Monterey; who’s shores are painted with “us”. I remember walking in the Banking district downtown San Francisco and pass, along with everyone else, an unconscious homeless man sprawled in the middle of the sidewalk ; could have been dead for all I know; and a stream of humanity moved by, in a different world. I wonder how much of life is lived in a different world.

Our world.

First thoughts are: how lucky and thankful I am to have followed the fork in the road sending us off on the Adesso Adventure. That adventure is a story that can only be lived.

San Francisco

Our anchorage while in San Francisco

Next on our list was a stay in downtown San Francisco having acquired (for free) a 5 day anchoring permit for the Aquatic Park. We were warned to be careful entering and leaving the park because of all the swimmers and wow the swimmers were there as early as 6 am until after dark. Anchored in front of the Ghirardelli building with fireworks in front of Pier 39 every Saturday evening it felt like we were dropped into a different world of lights and celebration.

Shoe in San Francisco

That first afternoon we hit the shore heading to the Ferry Building at the end of the Embarcadero. We were overwhelmed by people, people from all over the world, the San Francisco historic waterfront was just that and a big tourist business. We had a list of “to do’s” which started with getting three day bus passes and heading into the Mission District. Its a good thing I had a phone with data so we could find our way around but I must say the public transportation system really works! We even stood on the side of a Cable Car and rode through town. In truth you can’t take in this place in a week, but we loved all of it, Italian district, China town, Marina Drive even downtown where I got my sunglasses replaced in two hours (dropped them overboard – OPPS). We did a little shopping because you can find “everything” in San Francisco – Josh hit the Quicksilver store and Sue found Yone bead store a fixture from the sixties. One of the big highlights was the free music festival Hardly Strictly Bluegrass that happened while we were there, so we spent a day in the heat taking in some great music.

Sundays line up at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

The crowd, can you see us?

Alas we needed retreat from downtown because Fleet week was starting and we did not want to be in the middle of that!!

Up the River

When we were heading to San Francisco Bay little did we know that the bay was also a massive basin for an expansive inland river delta and estuary with a total area, including both land and water, of about 2,800 square kilometres. It actually supplies 80% of California with water. The main contributing rivers are the Sacramento River, coming in from the north, and the San Joaquin River, coming in from the south. The Delta is a labyrinth of sloughs and waterways with small communities, extensive farmlands and abundant wildlife, including the great blue heron, egrets, ducks, geese, and fish. The California Delta is considered to be one of the best cruising areas in California.

We learned much of this from going through the Bay Model while in Sausalito, a working hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta System that is approximately 320 feet long in the north-south direction and about 400 feet long in the east-west direction.

The Bay Model, Sausalito

It illustrates how the water flow of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are reproduced, including ship channels, rivers, creeks, sloughs, the canals in the Delta, fills, major wharfs, piers, slips, dikes, bridges, and breakwaters. Pretty cool! Really helped us to understand the extensiveness of the Delta before we headed up.

Warmest Water and First Private Anchorage!

We chose to go up the Sacramento River to Decker Island, then then crossed over, through the 3 Mile Slough, to the San Joaquin River.

Our final destination was Bedroom Number 2 in Potato Slough. Love that name! What happens in bedroom #2, stays in bedroom #2!! Not really, but we could have gotten up to any kind of shenanigans as we were the only ones in this tiny little pocket anchorage! We hiked on the levies, miles upon miles of rock and dirt shoring up the waterways that were built by the Chinese after they finished building railroads across the US. All the levies have roads on them and provided us with the much needed opportunity to stretch our legs. The water was warm up the Delta, 24.5C so we also swam and worked out the paddle boards. Here is a tiny glimpse and sound bite of what Bedroom #2 was like: