Alcatraz Island and checking out a few ships

So there was time before we headed to San Diego to check out a few tourist sites together. High on the list was Alcatraz so Loree was able to book tickets for both of us. Loree had seen many of the sites in the weeks she was in San Francisco while I was working so I had a fantastic tour guide. Alcatraz was cool as can be seen by the pictures below such an interesting place full of history.

Lets go have some bread

Museum ship

Man the guns

Old school steam engine

Engineers should know...

on deck

Another boat

On to the old paddle steamer car ferry

Arriving at Alcatraz

Greeting by the park ranger

Cells

I reckon they look suspisios outside of those cells

Visitation window

Tempting site of the city to remind the prisoners of what they are missing

A water tower because they have to ferry water in

Goodbye Alcatraz you have been fun

San Francisco boat works

So after the sail to San Francisco there was some damage due the gale we went through. See blog post
http://storiesofjustdreamin.blogspot.com/2016/10/riding-out-gale-force-winds-and.html
This meant my next week was spent repairing the boat in San Francisco I did not get to do any site seeing until the following week, but thats boat I guess. I fixed things better, I used bolts instead of screws, and heres to hoping it will last this time.
The list of jobs included:

• Fix the draws that broke
• Fix the seat that tore out of the floor
• Fix the water maker
• Add a water bottle/cup holder bellow decks
• Add cabinet for the water maker
• Fix the lee cloths
• Replace the wind indicator that blew off 
• Repair the sails
• Fix the gas locker for the spare gas cylinder

and the list of small things goes on ....
See below some pics of the work

Floor boards up and time to drill some holes

Loree trying to make lunch around the mess in the living room I mean work shop

Time to install the seat

Safety first when using power tools with the draws

Water maker fixed waiting for cupboard

Just canabalising the boat for timber for projects

Up the mast looking down at Loree who winched me up there

San Francisco

We arrived in San Francisco just in the nic of time for Justin to rush off and catch his flight.  Vada and I spent 3 weeks in San Francisco.  For the first and last week, Justin was away working.  Justin was back with us for the middle week,  but there was so many boat repairs required that we only got one night out together before he had to fly back.  Justin did a separate blog on his boat repairs and awesome improvements, but I'm also including a picture of Justin replacing the wind vane at the top of the mast.

Justin climbing the mast to change out the wind vane

We were a little exhausted and the boat required some TLC after our eventful trip from Victoria to San Francisco.  So for the first few days in San Francisco, I slept, cuddled with Vada, took Vada on walks, and cleaned the boat.  Then I was ready to get out and about.  I leisurely toured San Francisco, doing all the famous attraction such as fisherman's wharf, Golden Gate Bridge, Coit tower, Ghirardelli chocolate factory, Lombard st, etc.  My favourite attractions were Alcatraz and the Jeremiah O'Brien, an old WW2 merchant marine convoy ship.

San Francisco trollies!

Coat Tower

Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory - mmmmmmm

Lombard St, the Crookedest St

Palace of Fine Arts

Eureka Ferry Boat on Hyde St

Despite Justin being in an Fransisco multiple times, he had never gotten to see Alcatraz.  So we had to go, of course!  I actually went twice, once on my own and once with Justin.

Alcatraz watch tower

View of foggy San Fran from Alcatraz

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

I also knew Justin would love to see the WW2 merchant ship and old square riggers on Hyde St.  So we snuck in a quick 2 half days of touristy stuff for Justin before heading out to San Diego.  Justin loved the Jeremiah O'Brien because the forward gun and the ship's engine still worked.  See the picture of Justin operating the gears for aiming the forward gun. 

Square rigger on Hyde St

Square riggers on Hyde St

Jeremiah O'Brien - Welcome aboard

Jeremiah O'Brien - Maybe just a little excited

I also got in some time for some exercise classes.  I skyped my belly dance ladies in Fort McMurray and followed along with several classes.  It was so good to see their faces.  I took some local yoga classes.  I did a 4 hour workshop on paddleboard yoga.  I absolutely loved this and want to get a yoga paddleboard.  I also found a local bellydance studio and tried a couple of classes.

Paddleboard yoga

Overall, I really enjoyed San Francisco and couldn't get over how friendly the people of San Fransisco are.   I did find it quite lonely as Justin was working for the majority of the visit.  Poor Vada had to suffer extra attention because of it.

Sunrise coming into San Francico

Well what can I say but just look at the pictures. We had an amazing sunrise coming into San Francisco visible through the Golden gate bridge just take a look at the pictures.

Sunrise through the Golden Gate Bridge coming into San Francisco

Hey what is that big red thing up there???

We made it yahoo

Obligatory under the bridge pic

Loree and Vada heading into San Fran

Infamous Alcatraz Island

Riding out gale force winds and relaxing afterwards

We had winds building from day 3 and by day 4 we were getting consistent 30 knots of wind. This made for some interesting sailing. It was pleasing to note that the autohelm  was able to handle the winds and big seas however the boat itself was quite uncomfortable as we were sailing close hauled and pounding into the waves. To add to this we had rain as well. See below video of the boat sailing to weather before the gale force winds hit.

By day 5 out from Vancouver Island we started seeing sustained winds in excess of 35 knots that blew the wind indicator off the top of the mast and did other damage. Most of it was minor and externally the boat performed marvelously well. However the same cannot be said for the interior. I discovered that the interior wood work was not made for the ardours of offshore sailing. This resulted in draws falling out and braking their latches, the couch tearing out of the floor and so on. Additionally we started taking on water through one of the hatches. This forced me to heave to (park) the boat to conduct temporary repairs, and pump the water out of the boat. After heaving to for about 6 hours we were able to keep sailing. See below the state of the cabin during this time with the chaos below decks.

Cabin in disarray after the Gale

Loree sleeping in the Lee cloth to prevent her falling out of the bunk

Once the gale was over the weather became more much more pleasant and we went from too much wind to light wind to no wind. I took the opportunity of the wind change after the storm and our new down wind sailing angle to put up the spinnaker and Loree took the chance of the calmer conditions to do some fantastic cooking. Things then relaxed into some rather lovely cruising conditions.

Justin hoisting the spinnaker

Loree doing some baking

Vada happy to be relaxing in the sunchine