Once we had explored as much as we could in the city of San Francisco, we headed to Angel Island and Ayala Cove for a little bit of nature and a change of pace. There are a few docks for boats, so while most people have to ferry it over, we pulled right on up like rock stars in Crazy Love (for a fee of course). Up, up, up we hiked to the top of Mt Livermore. At the top were really fantastic views of the bay in every direction. Unfortunately they don't allow you to dock overnight so we rounded the island and found a nice spot to anchor in China Cove. The island is beautiful and pretty much uninhabited once the last ferry departs. This particular anchorage was very calm in comparison to our previous experience at this island.

After a leisurely morning, we headed for a new spot and a view of the very new bay bridge. We stayed in Clipper Cove nestled between Treasure Island and Yerba Buena (another excellent place to anchor). The bridge was due to close Wednesday night for the holiday weekend so they could open the brand new portion Tuesday morning. I'm certainly glad I didn't have to worry about commuting in on Thursday morning.

Our next destination had to do with finding an excellent spot for preparing for our trip back south. Alameda, a very nice suburb of Oakland, had a grocery store and West Marine within walking distance of half a dozen marinas. We just happened to pick Marina Village and the best shower and bath facilities I've experienced to date.

We met up with Amy and Mom Krisch in Jack London Square Wednesday night in Oakland (a short 15 minute bus ride). We certainly did stop in for a drink at Jack's favorite watering hole. And did a bit more beer tourism at Beer Revolution and Trappist which has a stellar beer garden. Two must stops for beer lovers.

Thursday and Friday in Alameda made it possible for a West Marine stop, boat cleaning and work, provisioning, and planning our trip south.

On our last Saturday, we met up with Christine for one last hoorah, an excursion into suburbia San Leandro. The last NorCal brewery on our list, Drakes and the best truffle tots and burger at the food truck.

Sunday we took a very wet trip from sunny warm Alameda through the foggy central bay back to Richardson Bay where we started and positioned ourselves for exit out the golden gate.

This morning we left as high tide ended at 11:20 am through quite a bit of the Labor Day boating traffic, dodged one large boat, and exited the bay making a left heading south for a beautiful, sunny and calm trip to Half Moon Bay. Dave is still a little upset as the wind came from the southwest and we were hoping and were essentially promised by all we spoke to... northwest wind all the way home. Maybe tomorrow!

The plan south only has a few stops and mostly at anchor as we are tonight here in Half Moon Bay. We will only be able to update periodically as we get service and maintain this battery charge. Tomorrow we head to Santa Cruz (maybe I can convince Dave to ride the big roller coaster)... then Avila, Santa Cruz Island (Northern Channel Islands), somewhere in the LA area, Catalina (Cat Harbor), and finally San Diego (at least for a month or so before we head to Mexico.)