Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Sailing to Sausalito


This weekend I am meeting up with my childhood best friend for an overnight to Sausalito. The best marina to stay in over there is Schoonmaker Point. Close to town, nice beach and some way cool boats. Last time I was there, I met a gal from one of the mega yachts and I asked her who she crewed for. Turns out it was the owners of one of our favorite wineries in Napa, Silver Oak. I would have loved to do a sampling of the wines onboard but she was not allowed to invite onboard. I digress, the reason for the story is that I was celebrating my birthday a few years back and wanted to do something out of the norm. I decided to head up to Tamales Bay and do some boat camping with my best sailing buddy, Sierra Nevada (my golden retriever). We headed up there with the Hunky Dory (my 16' wooden sailing dory with an old 505 rig) in tow. As we got up towards the Golden Gate, the coast was locked in with fog, however the bay was clear and sunny. I decided to head to Sausalito. I dropped the boat in the water at a local ramp and off we went. As I was sailing across Richardson Bay I hear some one screaming and a dog barking. There are lots of live-aboards in the bay and I did not pay much attention to it. As I tacked around the boats, I see the source of the commotion. It's a lady rowing her boat towards me and as she yells obscenities at her dog the dog barks at her. She is obviously out of her mind. I sail past her and she glares me down and yells, "You can take that 505 and shove it up your ass!". I was shaken but not stirred as I sailed by. I did not look her way and continued to sail by. The next morning in the paper, I read that this same lady had rowed to shore and promptly beat a man to a pulp with her paddle and was in jail on assault charges and the guy was in the hospital but would recover. Can you believe it? That could have been me! As it turned out, Sierra and I had a great time sailing and hanging out in this famous maritime town at the base of Mount Tamalpias. Despite a near assault and no flattery.

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