Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[Rico]

Thanks! -

I'm sure that the last time I saw those islands, I was driving well inland....

I've been taking advantage of the great summer we've been having. The strong summer winds are calming a bit in the San Francisco Bay... We'll be looking forward to their return, but there is plenty of sailing to be done until then. We are still looking forward to a beautiful weekend coming-up for the Fleet Week festivities...

Plans for next weekend (Oct 9 to 11) are here:
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ead.php?t=2068




Here are a few pictures of some summer 2009 sails so far:

Picture 1: A nice warm day out with a salty crew... We had a great sail in mild winds and warm temperatures. Lack of high-wind duties had the crew well into the grog by mid-day. We had planned a stop at the neighboring port's watering hole, but by the time we reached it, there was clearly no need...

Some of the crew fared better than others upon our return to the dock late in the afternoon due to the 'excesses', but it was still a lot of fun... (NOTE the off-the-shelf 'Mephisto Cat' gear...)

Picture 2: A typical gray but breezy summer day in SF at the Master Mariner's regatta in the Bay; an mazing old ship's race held since the 1800's. The best weather for sailing! (no need to worry about the sun!)

Picture 3: Camping at Angel island. We had a campsite for the 2 boatloads of landlubbing 'passengers' (only one load shown in pic.) while some of the crew planned to stay on the boat at the mooring.

We unloaded everyone's supplies, but did not manage to get too far before stopping for some refreshments. Had we known we had quite the hike to the camp site we would have spent less time 'at the dock' and would have also spent less time fighting in the dark with the raccoons for our dinner !

It is at times like this when you wonder where all the boats/people in the bay have gone to... (-no complaints though!).

Picture 4: Chased by a bigger-badder boat on a wednesday night beer-can race.