Sailing 10 14 01

After the wilderness adventures of the past 3 weeks, this weekend was somewhat tame in comparison. The big adventure was sailing, which doesn't generally raise the adrenaline, but soothes the soul. At least that's the typical SF bay sailing experience. The winds were light and this cruise didn't promise anything different. Dominik was captain and manning the putt-putt outboard. I was steering the rudder (does this job have a title, like ruddermon or something?) Todd was keeping watch for stationary and moving obstacles ahead. Dan and Matt Matt were collecting solar radiation on the fore deck. As we approahced the end of the Alameda Channel, everyone started milling about in anticipation of putting up the sails. I handed the rudder to Matt Matt, not even noticing he had a Smirnoff something-or-another that somehow was a malt brew, and went and got my camera to take some pictures. I snapped one or two then saw this orange coast card outboard getting all aggresive behind us, are we being pulled over? Chaos insued.
They started yelling questions at us, safety stuff, did we have life jackets were we drinking, blah blah blah. Todd mumbled, "Remember when the Coast Guard was the cool branch of the service?" As it turns out we weren't doing anything illegal, you can take a sip off a drink and drive a boat, but you better be able to pass a field sobriety test. Since we weren't doing anything wrong Dan asked the leader thug if the paperwork he was writing was a ticket, he said "no it's a boarding" and continued. Shouldn't these guys be out by one of the bridges protecting us from terrorists? Did I mention we couldn't get our engine re-started? So the Coast Guard officers boarded our boat and harrassed us for a while, apparently you have no constitutional rights whatsoever on the water, then left after trying to convince us to get towed back to harbor. But, we came out here to go sailing. And go sailing we did.
	The rest of the afternoon was pleasantly typical - a bunch of amateurs having a good time making the sailboat move with the light breeze. We made it a little past Treasure Island before it was time to turn around, we could hear a rave going on somewhere on the island. By the time we reached the mouth of the Alameda Channel, the breeze died down to nothing. Dominik and Dan took turns trying to make the engine go. I watched another sailboat putt by about 100' off to port, the captain was watching Dan trying to start the engine, and he circled around and offered us a tow, we were right up for that. On the way up the channel we came across another sailboat that was trying to sail up the channel, they were pretty much dead in the water. The sailboat that towed us just happened to live in the marina next door to Defiant One's, and when he let us go our inertia carried us all the way to the slip.
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