April 28, 2004
the point of confusion
today was yet another great day on the water. tiffany bozic and alberto hernandez joined me cruising around angel island, up raccoon strait, and then back in through the center of the bay. i'm pretty sure that i have found, not the sea of confusion, but rather the point of confusion, and it lies to windward of angel island. the wind and waves of the pacific ocean come whipping through the golden gate, and the first obstacle they hit is angel island. even on a perfect day like today, the boate becomes very disoriented in that rare bit of water, where the ocean always seems to roil like thousands of large fish are rising to feed, and the wind shifts in the most unpredictable ways.
after pulling into the marina right at sunset, we went to a barbecue over at tiffany's friend manny's place. he makes surfboards, as in, really amazingly cool ones. alberto and tiffany took some cool photos.
April 26, 2004
tropical winds
i don't know to what we owe this unbelievably good weather. if this is evidence of global climate change, then i am going to buy an s.u.v. and do my part to keep days like this coming. today was just like yesterday, except there was an excellent breeze. alberto and kin were along, and we got a bit of a late start, but then tacked our way out to alcatraz and then back. i held a perfect wing-on-wing (main to port, jib to starboard), all the way back to the marina, and we flew. alberto brought his pouch of gauloises, a tobacco for which i have a certain weakness, so i rolled a couple and enjoyed them. we got back into the marina around 6:30 and headed over to the mallardacus (club mallard) for a relaxing cocktail on the upper polynesian deck afterwards. today was, i believe, the best sailing weather i have experienced yet.
