Hello John & Marcy,

You may have heard from Ralph Clampett via his daughter P.K. that we are in the San Francisco Bay area. After mostly wintering in Washington, except for January, February when we went overland to the Baja seeking heat, and then a long road trip to visit friends and family in four states, we finally left Bainbridge Island in early August.  We motor/sailed from Neah Bay Washington to San Francisco in five and a half days with one overnight in Port Orford, Oregon to refuel.  We made fast time, but were only able to sail one 24 hour period.  It was mostly a motor/sail 30 miles off shore with slogging seas and uncooperative winds.   

Our autopilot let lose from its' pinning two days out of San Francisco, the very pin that Eric Paerels told us needed to be tightened occasionally.  We made the decision not to go in to fix it, but to keep going.  We did two hour shifts during the two nights, longer shifts during the daylight hours.  In retrospect, John thought we could have heaved to and fixed the pin, but we're still very much on that proverbial learning curve. 

When we arrived at the mouth of the San Francisco Bay in early evening, we pulled into the first marina available, just under the big bridge on the south side, pretty pooped, but jazzed to be sitting in the cockpit, sipping a glass of wine, and looking at the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge.  We reminisced about when in 1994 we were in San Francisco for a conference, had walked out on to the bridge and said, "Wouldn't it be incredible to someday sail under the bridge?" 

After hot showers and a good night's sleep we motored around the bend, under the Oakland Bay Bridge to South Beach Marina where we stayed for a week seeing the sights of downtown San Francisco with friends who drove out from Texas.  We stayed at marinas in the downtown area, Sausalito, and a small marina located almost under the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and lastly a marina in Alameda.  At the marina under the Golden Gate Bridge we experienced the constant winds and fog that rolls in through the mouth of the bay and over the north west range of hills.  It was pretty dynamic to witness the power of the wind and the surreal beauty of the fog for those couple of days.  It moves fast.  We then went over to Alameda to delightful Village Marina.  No wind, always sunny and great, affordable facilities.  While we were there, we took the dinghy down the Oakland Estuary to Svendsen's Boat Yard to scope out where we were going next with Indian Summer.  I spotted the steel hulled boat with Sitka Alaska depicted as her home port.  Then the owner came down the dock and I asked him if we could tie our dinghy up at the dock.  He looked familiar and as soon as he started to talk I recognized him as Ralph's son-in-law Jeff, who co-taught with Ralph the celestial navigation overview at the Snow Goose Restaurant.  It was a nice surprise.  Small world, eh?

We've since had a bigger water maker installed here at the boat yard and gotten to know P.K. and Jeff a bit.  Great people who are working on their big, roomy new boat here at Svendsen's.  They offered us their slip at Half Moon Bay when we leave the area and begin harbor hopping toward San Diego before leaving for the Sea of Cortez in November. 

That's about it in a nutshell for us.  We've got a couple more projects to complete before leaving this area; get the Monitor checked out, install a couple of new NKE instruments and get the ICOM 802 back after Icom completes the modification to correct the clipping problem that's been occurring with that model.  We expect to be headed south within two weeks or less. 

We're enjoying life on Indian Summer and looking forward to the next harbor.  We still miss being on H dock, sailing in the wilderness of Alaska and of course our Alaskan friends, but we do enjoy keeping up with the club happenings through the emails Bob Stinson sends out to everyone.   

We have a new mail forwarding address through Remote Control Mail (RCM) or Earth Control Mail; either one googled will get you to their home page.  RCM notifies you through your email that you have received mail.  You can then go on line and have them scan it so you can read it if you want, then shred, recycle, or archive it for shipment at a later date. I chose the Beaverton Oregon return address (there are several to chose from) because that's the one where you can receive packages from companies that won't send to a P.O. box and RCM will forward them to you.  As we travel farther from home, we'll see how RCM works out.   

If you would be so kind as to share our new address with the club person in charge of new addresses, we would appreciate it.  Don't want to miss out on renewing our cruising membership.

As ever,

Christie & John Brown

S/V Indian Summer

Mailing Address:

14252 SW Millikan Way # 35266

Beaverton, Oregon 97005

Cell #:  541-777-9500