Santa paid a visit to our bow
turkey is in the oven! A five pound breast with ribs, with an herb rub (thank you Paula Deen / Food Network for the GREAT recipe).
The mooring field in Ayala Cove as viewed from the top of the island. That is us on the far left.
The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the top of Angel Island.
The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from the flybridge, shortly before we went under it.
We stuck our nose out briefly on our way home.
We had a fabulous four nights at Angel Island. We arrived Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a steak and baked potato barbecue. There were three other boats in the mooring field. A few more boats arrived on Thursday and Matt helped several people tie up to moorings. One boat was trying to pick up moorings right next to us and didn't seem to be having much luck. Matt jumped in the dinghy and the skipper said they were fine and did not need help, as their boat was getting pushed by the current right towards our bow. Luckily they hit the mooring ball our bow was tied to and not our bow. The woman on the boat was more than happy to hand Matt a line and let him help get them tied up.
The couple that did the best job picking up the moorings actually got a line around their prop after they picked up the first mooring. They borrowed a wrench from the boat next to them, got the line off the prop in short order, and proceeded to quickly pick up the second mooring with no harsh words exchanged between the two of them. Matt wasn't able to help them out as he was helping someone else at the time. They didn't need help anyway! Most people are more than happy to hand off a line.
As for our mooring experience, we again solved the "how to pick up the mooring ball" dilemma by using the dinghy. It seems like cheating but is SO much easier. We pulled it off a lot better this time than the first time, though I was kind of tired and having a hard time with the dinghy. I accidentally goosed it at one point and did not realize what I had done so I pulled the emergency stop. I didn't realize until I restarted it that I had it throttled up. Despite my bumblings with the dinghy it went really well. I haven't really driven a dinghy that much so I need to practice more with it and get more comfortable with it.
Thanksgiving day we cooked a great meal with our Princess electric range. We carried our saloon table out to the sundeck and ate out there, enjoying the views of the cove and the peaceful surroundings. Friday we hiked up to the top of the island and spent a few minutes enjoying the view before a huge pack of people came up. Some friends arrived on their sailboat later that afternoon and we had another great steak and potato cookout with them.
Saturday our friends cooked up another Thanksgiving feast and we went over and enjoyed it with them. We had spent the entire day on our boat, tracking down the issue with the autopilot and working on a few other projects.
Sunday we decided to poke our nose out the Golden Gate before heading home. It was a beautiful day and a great end to a fabulous trip.
3 comments:
Pineapple Girl, I thought I was supposed to be "following" your blog, but I wasn't notified of your recent posts (which is what I thought registering to "follow" meant). That's my excuse for having only now read your Thanksgiving post. What a great Thanksgiving you had!
I wondered about the implied conflict between possibly husband ("skipper") and wife ("woman"), in the paragraph after the fifth photo. Did you detect any animosity in either person toward the other? Did the skipper perhaps suffer from some illusion that he must never ask for help? Or was the incident all more innocent than that? Just not clear from your description.
Re the couple that was drifting towards us--I don't think there was any anomosity between the two. They were on a sailboat so the skipper (husband?) was at the wheel and the woman (wife?) was a good 30' away at the bow, so it is quite likely they had different perspectives of their need for help. Plus, in general, the skipper usually has NO idea what the crew is going through in the struggle to pick up a mooring and doesn't realize how delightful it is to hand off the line to someone in dinghy instead of struggling with some "happy hooker" contraption or worse, hang upside down trying to grab the mooring by hand!
I didn't note, the couple who were quite successful in their mooring were both men. :)
Sounds like a fantastic Thanksgiving! Love the picture of the table with food, wine and a beautiful view!
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