Sailing in San Fransisco Bay

Good morning! I hope that everyone is doing well!

A couple of months ago, I introduced George and Kai, two of my closest friends, on WhatsApp, and they hit it off so well that they started hanging out. This past weekend, the three of us got to hang out together in San Francisco.

The topper was a day of sailing on San Francisco Bay on Saturday. George, Stefan, Kai, his childhood friend Armin, and I headed out on an absolutely stunning day. Every other morning on the boat, there was thick fog, but not on Saturday. We headed out with a nice, easy westerly. I've sailed with George on the bay before, but we have never sailed out underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Wow! As we crossed under the bridge, I felt the temperature drop and the swell build into a comforting rhythm. After coming back in from the outside, we headed over to Sam's Anchor Cafe in Tiburon for fish and chips, a beer, and some people-watching.

George has had his boat on the bay for ten years now, and he predicted what we would experience in terms of wind after lunch. And he was spot on. After exploring the anchorage on Angel Island, we put the sails out, only to be becalmed on the northwest side of Angel Island. We motored a mile to the west, into "The Slot," and we were greeted by 25 knots of breeze! That wind powered us all the way under the Bay Bridge, where we checked out Oracle Park, before heading back along the San Francisco waterfront to the Small Craft Harbor, where George keeps the boat.

On Friday, Kai reconnected with Armin, his childhood friend that he hadn't seen in person in over 30 years. That gave me the opportunity to spend a day exploring on my own. But before I did that, I caught up with my cousin Eric and he suggested I grab lunch at Radhaus, a German beer hall at Fort Mason. So that's where I headed. After a döner kebab and a beer, I started walking around the Fort Mason piers, and damn if I didn't stumble on the Headquarters of the Long Now Foundation.

The Long Now Foundation has fascinated me since I first became aware of them back in the late 90s. Their premise is to encourage long-term thinking. The most dramatic way they do this is with the clock they are building, which will keep accurate time for 10,000 years. And since the longest-running human establishments are taverns and bars, their headquarters doubles as a very nice bar, so I had a drink after soaking in everything they had on display.

To get from Pier 33 back to George's for dinner, I took my first Waymo. It took me about three minutes of the 20-minute ride from Pier 33 to George's house to feel completely at ease with the idea of no one sitting at the steering wheel as we navigated the busy, winding streets of San Francisco. What made it work for me was the display showing what the car was seeing — far more than I was catching with my own eyes, from its position within the lane to every pedestrian, cyclist, and cars on the other side of the street. Starting, stopping, cornering, easing into traffic, maneuvering around double-parked cars- all of it was smoother than any Uber driver I've ridden with.

The food scene on this trip was excellent - we started off with BBQ with George and Stefan at a place near George's house, had some great pasta, great Chinese food at Mister Jiu's and Z & Y, and yummy pastries across the weekend. Not to mention visiting some great dive bars, a jazz bar, and a tiki lounge as we wandered through the Marina District each night before heading to the boat.

The weekend culminated in walking through the Palace of Fine Arts and the Presidio, with George, his wife Teresa, and both of their boys, Felix and Stefan, checking out the Lucasfilm campus and just relaxing over easy conversations.

Thank you, George, for being such a wonderful city host, and to Kai for being a great travel partner - I'm looking forward to the next time I get to travel with both of you!

Love ya all

Dan W