Got on the water twice last weekend (Lake Berryessa and SF Bay)

[Ronnie]

Just saying thanks to Don (aka @HidnNOS) for inviting my family and I to join his and friends at Lake Berryessa on Saturday. I was a great day on the water and my first time rafting up to other boats. If I would have believed the forecasts I wouldn't have gone but the weather turned out great, sunny highs in the mid 80's, the water was in the mid 70's and not a lot of wind.

On Sunday I decided to stay close and took my friends for an SF Bay tour. We started at San Leandro Marina, hit the Berkeley Marina then checked out Angel Island before anchoring and BBQing in McCovey Cove outside of AT&T Park (home of the SF Giants). They played the Marlins and we anchored just before the game started.

I have to say, I love my box anchor it held the first time everytime on both days. Whereas, lots of other boats (large and small) had to re-anchor numerous times in McCovey Cove (is was very windy there that day and we even had to grill in the cockpit to keep the BBQ lit). I will try and add more pics and / or video later.

 

[jcyamaharider]

Awesome pics Ronnie!!

 

[Glassman]

Do you have a drone or can you fly? How'd you get those overhead shots?

 

[jcyamaharider]

Do you have a drone or can you fly? How'd you get those overhead shots?

You haven't seen Ronnies DJ phantom posts? It is a cool quad copter.

 

[Glassman]

You haven't seen Ronnies DJ phantom posts? It is a cool quad copter.

Ah, the Phantom, cool toy. I want one. I almost got the Parrot, but I heard some not so great things...

 

[HidnNOS]

@Ronnie I had an excellent time as well and was very glad I extended the invite last minute! I'm not sure two boats ate any better than we did on Saturday! We had some great marinated chicken breasts and carne asada soft tacos with guacamole etc! Man am I glad you clued me in on eating in style on this boat. You mentioned before I bought the boat, "It's nice to not always have sandwiches on the water..." and there are a few times I've gotten sandwiches but until I got this boat I never thought it possible to eat as good as we do in the middle of a lake! We had the boat packed more than ever before, 11 people all in all, and I/everyone had a great time!

 

[HidnNOS]

@Ronnie , How was it camping out at McCovey Cove during a ball game? No issue getting to where you wanted to anchor, is there security etc?

 

[Ronnie]

We pulled up just before the game started without any issues. There were probably three to four 30' to 40' cruisers already in the cove along with another five or six run abouts. No security on the water that I saw but we were only there for about 2 hours. They rent kayaks in the next waterway over (I think it is behind left field whereas McCovey cove is behind right field) and the kayaks seem to stay close to the edge of the cove closest to the park). The is a company called bay voyages.com that brings people through the cove in a RIB (ridged inflatable boat, I think but they only stay for a few minutes, it's $45 for a 25 min tour of the bay including the cove). From the position we were in we could see the jumbotron so when the camera was focused on the cove we could see it in real time. This time the voyages.com boat made it on TV but didn't know it until they passed us and we told them.

The biggest single problem we experienced was the wind that day. One gust was strong enough to flip my center window closed, actually it slammed shut as I was in the driver's seat eating. It happened so fast I think if I did reach out all I would have done was get my hand or arm pinched by the window. The wind was a hassle for me personally but what made it bad was that it caused a lot of boats in the cove drift (because their anchors didn't hold). Not an issue if you are at the front of the cove facing the wind first but if you are in the middle or end you could suddenly be scrambling not to get hit by the boats drifting (and a 40' cruiser floating towards your bow stern first looks a lot bigger than 40' describes).

If you want to boat there for a game or just to see it and it's windy I'd recommend launching from Oakland since it's less than five miles across the bay to the cove and I'd do it in the day but I don't generally boat at night anyway. On the way out to berkeley we were dealing with 2' to 3' swells on the way back from Angel island, through the "golden gate corridor" and from the cove to san leandro there were a lot of swells in the 5' range the Yamaha handled them fine and I was able to "surf" some of them for a little while but it made the trip a very slow one, averaging between between 15 and 20 mph.

The next time I go out on the bay if will likely be by ferry to angel island. I'd like to take a Segway tour of it with my family. Boating there is an option but it would be cheaper and far less hassle to take the ferry (the launch fee at san leandro is $10, the day birth fee at Angel island is $15, I think the cost of a ferry ride is about $10 per person roundtrip to the island).

Here are some additional pics. I wish I had more but I was the tour guide that day so I had a lot going on, since we didn't deploy the bimini I didn't see and so forgot to use the gopro mounts on the tower for continuous video or pics. As you can imagine it was way to windy for me to fly the quad copter. I thought about doing so just before we left but the wind never let up, in fact it got stronger contrary to what the ktvu weatherman said would happen.