Making a safe voyage up the coast to Alameda

Ahoy.

I promised to follow up on my voyage to Alameda in San Francisco

Bay with you this week. We arrived there on Wednesday -- Sept. 11.

Well, Chad Bolken, 1st officer, and I departed Newport at 2:30 p.m.,

finding good cruising conditions northbound in the San Pedro Channel.

We had a beautiful crescent moon that night before the fog bank at 1

a.m. at Point Conception, where, as I predicted, the seas became a

mixed set from the south and northwest, making it feel like being in

a washing machine.

Here we turned toward the coast out of the northbound shipping

lane and had to jog around the oil derricks and buoys in the limited

foggy visibility for a heading to Morro Bay for fueling. We arrived

at Morro Bay’s entrance buoy at 5 a.m. with a few fishing boats on

their way out of the harbor. In the dark and fog, we poked our bow

into the jetty straining our eyes for the next set of channel buoys

that, from the fly bridge, Chad could just see with a spotlight.

Those of you who have entered Morro Bay know that there is a breaking

bar with a south swell and that the entrance can be tricky with

shoaling.

Quiet through the harbor, we tied up to the Morro Bay fuel dock

before opening hours. The owner lives across the street, so I picked

up the boat phone and called the fuel dock’s phone number to have the

owner answer and crawl out of bed to fuel us, allowing us to get back

underway ahead of schedule. While we were fueling, a Coast Guard

vessel came over that I thought wanted to board us, but they just

wanted to fuel, too.

Just north of Monterey, the visibility increased to three miles,

where we saw a huge pod of at least 100 whales playing in the sea. A

good sign and, with the increased visibility, I was hoping that we

might have good visibility to enter San Francisco Bay. No such luck,

we were ahead of schedule for a daylight entrance at 6 p.m., but as

we neared Half Moon Bay, the fog thickened.

When approaching from the south, I cut the coastline close to just

off Lands End and Point Lobos, where you make the turn around the

Mile Rocks marker that keeps you off the rocks while changing course

toward the Golden Gate Bridge. On our radar, we had targets and

visibility just enough for us to now see a ship on a parallel inbound

course and an approaching Coast Guard cutter that passed by without

stopping, so I lost the bet on being boarded.

We could just barely look up through the fog to see the Golden

Gate Bridge as we passed underneath and, as is common, once a mile

inside the bay, the fog cleared. We stopped to pick up Blake Novak

from the ferry terminal at the San Francisco Port for him to guide us

the remainder of the way into the Ballena Isle Marina now after

sunset. After arriving, Janet Van Klompenburg, the Ballena’s marina

office manager, stopped to see if we needed anything and she gave us

our reservations to the airport the next day.

Oakland Airport was deserted, except we had to go through the

inane screening procedures since our sail bags with items like Chad’s

man overboard strobe light, metal writing pen and my overboard

whistle confused the screeners, but what we saw afterward makes all

of this a huge waste of time. While we were looking out the windows

by the boarding gate, you could see maintenance carts full of tools

like box cutters, long screwdrivers and whatever just laying out in

the open by the planes while the ground crew, pilots and others not

in any type of uniform walking by the carts with full access to the

aircraft. So much for the screening.

This Thursday, I will speak at the Newport Harbor Exchange Club’s

luncheon at the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. My topics are “Life

as a professional boater” and as one in the media spotlight. The

Exchange Club has a 75-year history in Newport Beach with 100 members

dedicated to many important needs of the community.

Safe voyages.

* MIKE WHITEHEAD is the Pilot’s boating and harbor columnist.

Send him your harbor and marine-related thoughts and story

suggestions via e-mail to Mike@BoathouseTV.com or BoathouseTV.com.