DELTA CRUISE 07 - FOURTH (LAST) DAY 06/30/07

This picture is one of the ship that passed by on my last day of the trip.

To be honest, I was not looking forward to this day. It was about 49 miles of motoring with the wind on the bow all of the way. I intended to leave at 07:00 AM but did not get out of the Marina until 07:45 AM. The reason – as I usually do I turned on the engine for a bit to warm it up while setting up the boat to leave. I always check the engine instruments when I do that to make sure all of the needles are doing the right thing. In this case, the fuel gauge needle was right up against empty. I was able to refuel there but it took 40 minutes to put 15 gallons in the tank – really slow!
When I left and turned down the Sacramento River I had 25 to 30 knots of wind in my face along with all of the spray from the bow making its way through 4 foot waves. It was pretty raucous and I was really glad to finally get into Suisun Bay. The wind was still at 25 knots but the waves were down to 2 feet now. Right at the juncture of Suisun Bay and the Sacramento River there were dozens of Wind Surfers and Kite Boarders. It was quite a sight and they were buzzing all around me for a really entertaining period.

As the day progressed the water and winds calmed down a lot and it ended up very nice. I put up the sails in Carquinez Strait just to get some time off from motoring and tacked back and forth for about a half an hour. When I got up to the bridge I dropped the sails and motored through and then just kept on motoring until I got back to my slip at the Richmond Yacht Club.
I really enjoyed the trip, especially when I had Jon Hillegeist and my son, Fred with me. Single handing is okay once in a while but having some one to talk to while sailing is the best.

DELTA CRUISE 07 - THIRD DAY 06/30/07

When Jon and I arrived at the Delta Marina yesterday afternoon we were told that 15 boats were coming into the Marina in the afternoon today. As a result Fred and I decided we would leave for our round trip through the Delta at about 6:00 AM with the intention to get back to Rio Vista about 3:00 PM before many boats arrived since the Delta Marina has a "no reservations" policy. We actually left at about 6:30 AM with a nice wind behind us and what looked to be a gorgeous day ahead. We motored under the Rio Vista Bridge which had to open to let us through. We continued to motor until we got into the Sacramento River just after it splits from the Deep Water Channel to Sacramento. From then on we sailed up the Sacramento River to Walnut Grove. At Walnut Grove we dropped and furled our sails, turned into Georgiana Slough and motored down it to the Mokelumne River. The picture is the bank along one beautiful part of Georgiana Slough.We made a right turn, motored to the San Joaquin River (about 30 minutes) and then down the San Joaquin to 3 Mile Slough. We took 3 Mile Slough to the Sacramento River and then made a right back up to the Delta Marina at Rio Vista.
One of the interesting things about touring through the Delta are the Lift and Swing Bridges you have to traverse. On the round trip loop we made we had to have 6 bridges open for us to make our way through: the Rio Vista Bridge on the Sacramento River, the Isleton Bridge on the Sacramento, the Georgiana Slough Bridge at Walnut Grove, the Tyler Island Bridge on Georgiana Slough, the Mokelume River Bridge, and the 3 Mile Slough Bridge at the Sacramento River.
Fred left about an hour or so after getting back to Rio Vista and, by the way, there were not 15 boats in the guest area of the Marina - only 7. I had dinner at "The Point" restaurant again (not as good as last night) but this time, by myself. The 7 boats that came in were from a PICYA group and when the last two boats arrived I volunteered to move my boat to give them more room to tie up as they were BIG. A 30+ foot and a 43 foot catamaran. The offer was rewarded with an invitation to have some wine on one of the big motor yachts which was a really great way to end the day. I also got a tour of the motor yacht and I was amazed at all of the room inside. That, of course, is paid for in the cost of running one of those big motor yachts – takes lots of "bucks".

DELTA CRUISE 07 - SECOND DAY 06/29/07

Today I would have company! Jon Hillegeist, a friend I met while chartering boats with the Tradewinds Sailing Club before I purchased my own boat, will meet me about 12:30 PM for the sail to the Delta Marina at Rio Vista on the Sacramento River.
When I woke up this morning I was aground at the slip. The Martinez Marina is very shallow and I truly realized that when I saw sea gulls walking on the mud on the other side of the dock where I was tied up.
By the time Jon arrived the boat was floating again and we set sail for Rio Vista. The winds were great - about 15 to 18 knots and off our starboard quarter most of the time. The picture shows some of the "Mothballed" boats stored in Suisun Bay that we sailed past on the way to Rio Vista.
For some reason, I had gotten it into my head that we would be sailing under the Antioch Bridge. That was pretty dumb because the bridge goes over the San Joaquin River and we were sailing up the Sacramento River which was considerably North of the San Joaquin River at that point. As a result I got us sailing the wrong direction and we ended up about a half a mile South of the Sacramento River in some really shallow water. We finally made our way out of the shallows without going aground but one time we were dragging the keel through the mud. The depth finder was showing below one foot of depth a lot! When we realized that we were in shallow water we should have immediately made a "180" and headed back to where we had come from. We finally did that and in about 15 minutes we were back in the Sacramento River again with lots of water under us.
We arrived at the Delta Marina without any more "excitement". My son, Fred, arrived about an hour after we got there and we piled in his car to get Jon back to Martinez to pick up his car and go home. Fred and I ended the day with dinner at "The Point" Restaurant in the Delta Marina back at Rio Vista and I got my Calimari Steak there (and it was really good, too!!).

DELTA CRUISE 07 - FIRST DAY 06/28/07

I departed my slip at the Richmond Yacht Club at 10:15 AM with the Martinez Marina in the Carquinez Strait as my destination. To get there I would sail under two bridges (San Rafael and Carquinez Strait) and traverse San Pablo Bay which connects to the Northern end of the San Francisco Bay. I was not able to find someone to sail with me so I was set up for single handing the boat for the day.
The weather was nice - slightly overcast with a wind of about 8 to 10 knots. I set sail immediately and kept a close eye on my GPS as I needed to average about 4.5 knots to enable me to arrive at the Martinez Marina with enough water under my keel to make it in. At low tide the Martinez Marina entrance is 3 feet deep and the Viking Lady’s draft is 5 foot, 2 inches.
When I got near the San Rafael Bridge I realized that the Flood Tide I was in was setting me more to starboard than I wanted so I had to turn on the engine and motor under the bridge. When I got to the other side the wind became very light so I continued to motorsail for about an hour and a half.
Finally the wind freshened and I was able to turn off the engine. When I got to the other side of the Carquinez Bridge I had to sail close hauled and tack back and forth across the Strait. The wind now was about 20 to 25 knots and that made the tacks a lot more difficult. The strong winds were still with me when it came time to lower sail and go into the Marina. Since I was single handing and my autopilot was in the shop for repair, I found it really difficult to keep the boat heading into the wind while I lowered the Main Sail. The Jib was no problem as it is on a roller furler. I finally got the job done, got into the Martinez Marina and settled in for the night. The picture is of the Hwy 680 bridge just outside the Martinez Marina entrance.
I chose the Martinez Marina because about 8 years ago I stayed overnight there and had dinner at a restaurant in the downtown area. That restaurant had the best Calimari Steak I have ever eaten and I wanted to repeat the experience. However, as happens so often, you cannot go "back" and find everything as you remembered it. After a long tiring walk from the Marina into town I could not find the restaurant and ended up having a pretty good dinner but definitely not worth the long walk!

DELTA CRUISE 07 - PLANNING

Before I start the narrative for the trip I made to the Northern California Delta June 28 - July 01, 2007 I thought you might be interested in what I did to plan the trip. On my web site (The-Sailors-Place.com) I have a Navigation Page that gives access to free downloads for NOAA charts and Chart Plotter - Planning software.
I downloaded charts for San Francisco Bay and everything up through the Delta. Along with that I have two planning tools on my computer: SeaClear II and the Maptech Chart Navigator Viewer. I used the Maptech software for planning the trip as it has some features that are not available with SeaClear II. The most valuable tool was the Route Plan page which allows you to have a print out of the route you set up. You can export the page to a spreadsheet - I use Quattro Pro but it works the same way for Excel - and determine what average speed would be required for a start and end time. You can also set a speed and get what time you will arrive at the destination based on a start time.
I printed out route plans (the last day route plan is at the head of this column) for each of the four days and found them to be really handy as a reference to see how I was progressing in real time versus what I thought would be the case when planning the trip. This was especially useful as I was going to two Marinas that had very shallow entrances and needed to arrive (or leave) when the tide was high enough.

Because I needed to calculate tide heights to make sure my boat could get in to the Marina at a reasonable time I developed a "Half Tide Calculator" and a "Per Minute Calculator" to go along with it that figures tide increase or decrease by the minute. Usually figuring when the Half Tide time occurs is enough for arrival or departure planning. However, when Half Tide is less than your draft then you need to calculate when the tide is equal or a bit more than your draft. That is when the "Per Minute Calculator" comes in handy. You determine the depth you want (usually a bit more than your draft) and the "Per Minute Calculator" will give you the time for that depth. Links to the Quattro Pro and Excel versions of these calculators are on the Navigation Page in The-Sailors-Place for you to download.