12 Aug - As I came on watch at 03:00 we were still sailing but by 04:00 the wind had dropped and the sail was just flapping so I rolled in the Genoa and we were back on the engine, motoring slowly towards our next destination.  Having checked the tide times, and listened to the weather forecast we realised we would be early to hit slack going into San Francisco so we pulled into Drakes Bay and dropped the hook for a couple of hours.  The bay gave us really good protection from the ocean swells which we could see crashing against the rocks on the outer edge of the bay and is probably very beautiful but as ever the cloud was down and we were tired so we weren't that inspired by it!

Drakes Bay - probably amazing in the right weather!

Around 10:00 we pulled up the anchor again and started heading towards San Francisco, 6 hours away.  It was a steady, if choppy motor to get there as we had to make the time and the wind wasn't strong enough to keep us moving at the needed speed (we did try sailing but with only 10 knots of wind we couldn't maintain the 5 knots needed to get to the Bay in time. The approach to the Bay is another bar crossing and we elected to go in 'round the side' which took us on a very narrow channel close to some impressive cliffs with big waves breaking against them - we were glad the engine kept working past these.Once through the channel we passed Point Bonita lighthouse and could see the Golden Gate bridge beckoning us. 

First sight of the Golden Gate Bridge

The run into and under the bridge was very turbulent but we were passed by a number of locals heading in too so figured again, we must have chosen a good time - I'd hate to see a bad time though as even as we went through there was a lot of churn in the waves. 

The City by the Bay

T

As we went under the bridge, with 15 - 20 knots pushing us (but not brave enough to put up sail!) the clouds revealed the full extent of the towers, a rare occurrence by all accounts and we blasted into the bay overjoyed with having reached our first major destination. 

Seeing the top of the towers

Going under the bridge - a rare view 

Two very happy sailors!

Alcatraz - waiting to be reopened?

Now all that remained was to find somewhere to stop - we had identified that Sausalito yacht club had a mooring field which wasn't far into the bay but we had had no cell signal all the way down the coast so hadn't been able to arrange anything ahead of time.  No problem we thought, we'll give them a call and clear ourselves in now.  One problem - no one was answering the phone.  In increasing wind (now gusting up to 25 knots) we went for option 2, a mooring field on a Angel island sounded idyllic.  We pulled in and snagged a mooring buoy but then saw a big sign on the beach warning of very shallow patches over the mooring field.  We checked our depth and watched as we swung around the buoy going to less than two feet under the keel, and we were close on high tide - so that wasn't going to work (there were other buoys but we were already on the furthest out buoy so didn't hold much hope for the rest) So plan C - what about San Francisco yacht club just across the way?  We tried to get in touch but they were closed today! - also our chart showed universal depths in their bay of 4 feet or less so without guidance we couldn't risk going in blind.  As we headed out we started by going south towards Sausalito again but we had already gone past that bay and it had looked windy so I spotted another cove (Paradise cove) which purported to have good holding - it was about 3 NM away but with thought it looked a fair plan D - We turned the boat around and found we were in a very strong ebb current and could only make 2 - 3 knots headway but having committed to this we thought we would push on - all this with increasing winds now 20 - 30 knots. 

Ominous clouds prompting a change in direction

An hour later we finally got to paradise cove and the wind was blasting through it at 25 Knots - well we thought, we’re here and know that our ground tackle is good so lets try it.  We dropped the hook along with about 150 feet of chain in 15 feet of water and… we started dragging!!! So up with the chain and onto plan E - Anchor in Richmond bay - the first one we had seen but that I had not liked because of the wind.  Another hour later we pulled into thi open and shallow bay, found somewhere with about 6 feet under the keel, dropped the hook with decreasing wind and could finally rest. Finding somewhere to stop had taken almost 4 hours - a very trying time after the excitement of the last few days, but we were finally here, and safe so had a stiff rum to celebrate, had some food and settled down for the night.  I was still not that settled with this anchorage though (very exposed) and when the wind got up in the night, ended up going and sleeping in the cockpit so I could keep an eye on the markers to make sure we weren't moving.  

Our big lesson form today has been that just getting to a destination is not enough - we need to make sure we always have a good plan of where we are going to stop when we get there!