We made it to Angel Island!
We spotted an overturned vessel about an hour into the trip up and we called the coast guard. We circled it a few times and told them the vessel looked pretty derelict and had probably been overturned for awhile-therefore we did not think it likely there was anyone in the water. After several phone calls with three different USCG people we were told we could go. We had just gotten going again when they called back and asked us to stay. 20 more minutes passed (45 from the first call) and Matt called them again and got permission to go after giving them up to date coordinates. We started off once again and passed the coast guard within minutes. If we'd known they were that close we would've stayed! They probably only let us leave since they were so close. It was maybe a 12-15 foot flat bottomed boat with a green hull, very hard to find without a 35 trawler to mark the location!
The excitement didn't end there. It was a beautiful trip up, flay water, windy but not too bad. Once we got in the lee of the island the wind was warm. We usually deploy the dinghy to pick up the moorings but this weekend we brought it without the motor as Joe is bringing his motor. So we tried to pick up the moorings from the side decks. We got one for the bow ok but could not get the stern ball due to the ebb current swirling through. Matt finally jumped in the dinghy and rowed the line over to the mooring buoy right behind our boat. Except that was the wrong buoy (they are color coded). Off he rowed to the correct buoy, fed the line through and started to row back. It is hard to row with a line in the water next to you tangling with your oar. So then he starting pulling the dinghy along hand over hand back to the boat except he could not quite get back all the way. The more line I fed out the more Pineapple Girl drifted in the current away from the buoy. Finally I ran down to the swim step and was pulling Matt by the arm trying to bridge the gap. Finally Matt was able to step out of the dinghy onto the swim platform. I looked down and said "um, that is not attached to the boat in any way, shape or form." Matt quickly jumped back into the dinghy and rescued it from drifting away.
We managed to haul in enough line to get both ends of the line attached to Pineapple Girl. Then the began fun process of hauling in on both the bow and stern lines until we were centered between the buoys, versus 40 or more feet off to one side!! The nice folks on the sailboat next to us said they'd been through a similar ordeal when they'd arrived.
There is actually more to the mooring ball story but since I am typing this on my phone I'll save the rest for when I'm on a computer and can type more easily.
