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From Berkeley I sailed North and under the Richmond bridge, around the Brothers and across San Pablo Bay, then under the Carquinez bridge into Suisun Bay. I ventured into the straights about two miles before turning back.Exiting the straights back toward and through the Carquinez bridge was surprisingly exciting. I was closed hauled - and the wind would die down to very little, then quite suddenly blow up to 15 or 20 knots, pushing me over hard! It was enough to activate my dinghy reflexes and cause me to release the mainsheet several times, wondering just how far over I'd go. Once under the bridge and out again to San Pablo Bay, the wind was steady. Something about those straights really funnels the wind and makes it erratic, it appears. The passage under the bridge is much narrower than under the Richmond bridge, and the "tractor tugs" are huge and numerous, adding to the general interest ;>)
I remained close hauled (tacking often until well out into San Pablo Bay) all the way back through the Richmond bridge, at which point I was finally able to bear off a bit as I headed south.
I followed my charts the whole way to avoid shallow areas and stay out of the prohibited dredged channel leading to the Carquinez bridge.I reached my slip around 9pm, having sailed the last half hour into the marina in moonless dark. It's amazing how cheery the backlight on my GPS seems at such a time, and since then I've entered a lot more of the local unlighted steel buoys into its memory :>)
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The other two sails were out the Gate into the open ocean.The first was from Berkeley against the flood current; it took me something like six hours to get past the bridge. That day I turned back at Mile Rock just before 6pm, and made it back into J dock at sunset.
The second time I followed a nice ebb toward the Gate, making it from J dock in the Berkeley Marina to the bridge in only 2.5 hours! The breeze was probably steady at 15 knots plus, and I reefed early but kept my 110 jib up. Thus I arrived at the Gate at max ebb, 12:45 pm, perfect for getting a good slingshot out to sea. The wind was a nice, steady 10 to 15 knots past the gate with waves much larger (OK, probably no more than 4 feet) than those I'd encountered inside the Bay, but still quite mild compared to what can be out there. Raven seemed to float wonderfully on them, but I made the effort to try to avoid digging straight into the big ones. Steering while close hauled made all the difference between hard pounding (to be avoided) and wonderfully smooth sliding down the waves. I have a lot still to learn about how those waves work with respect to various points of sail.
I went way past Mile Rock, to the farthest of the channel markers, Marker 2 (maybe six or eight miles outside the Gate). Out there I could just start to see the peak of the Farallones getting larger. My GPS said I could have made it to the islands in 2.5 hours, assuming . . . :>) I headed back around 3pm or so.
Coming back toward the bridge was constant surfing, with occasional fast rides while being pushed from behind. My GPS doesn't register quickly enough to measure, but I'm sure I was surfing at 12 knots plus for a few moments at a time, then slowing way down on the back sides of the waves.
On both voyages I encountered some kind of porpoising animals about a mile outside the gate - black and sleek, with one dorsal fin showing as the looped out of the water. These may be bottlenose dolphins. Also on display: each of the sea buoys was covered with sea lions.
The way back from the Gate to J dock was eventful only in that a very smoky fire started on the curved pier at Aquatic Park just as I sailed by - turning into a considerable burning pyre accompanied by people scurrying away as fire engines roared in. It seemed to burn itself out before the engines arrived, without doing apparent harm to the pier.
What's next? A trip to the Farallones? A couple days in the Delta?