by Steve Frost
Cephius Dream #825
San Francisco, CA

One I like to recount is from my early sailing days. It was over twenty five years ago now.

I owned a little Santana 20, a little ultra-lite pumkin seed hot rod. It was named Joie De Vivre. I believe this is French for "My colostomy bag is full".

I invited my lady, who is now my wife, out for a sail on San Francisco Bay. The plan was to sail from Alameda to Tiburon, dinner at Sam's, grab a mooring at Ayala Cove on Angle island, spend the night, and then sail to San Francisco for breakfast.

All went well, nice sail to Sam's, pleasant romantic night in the cove. We were young and camping on a twenty foot boat with a bed pan for a head, no running water, but it was still considered romantic then.

We woke to a typical San Francisco morning, pea soup fog and about zip for wind. I put the little Suzuki 9 HP to work. I felt navigation should be no problem, just putt out Racoon Staight, make a left, listen for the buoy at Alcatraz, continue south until I see San Francisco. How hard can that be.

I made the left at the end of Racoon Staight and started to motor south. I noted I was a bit low on fuel and the wind had come up a bit. The little Santana ghosted very well, so I shut off the Suzuki and hoisted sail. I never heard the bouy at Alcatraz and noted a skyline appearing out of the fog. As we got closer I noted it did not look like any part of San Francisco that I remembered. We got in a bit closer and I realized the tide was going out like mad, we had drifted west and were coming up on Sausilito. This is no problem says I, I will just continue west until we get to the Golden Gate, I know that goes to San Francisco, I will just stay under the bridge.

A little more than half way accross, we ghost up upon what as I remember was a Coronodo 35. The skipper hailed me and stated he and family were on vacation from Kansas, had rented the boat and was not familiar with the area. He asked what the horns were. I the sauve young mariner stated that I felt that what we were hearing were the horns on each tower of the bridge, he asked what one was closest, I stated that I believe it was the south tower. He thanked me for my great words of wisdom.

We had not gotten more than about fifty feet from him when we heard the next BRRRRRRRRRRRRRP and the bow of an enormous tanker appeared out of the fog, creating an impressive bow wave. As the guy on the Coronodo was scrambling to get his engine going, the ship missed him by about fifty feet and was close enough to us that my sphicters too became water tight. I fired up the little Suzuki. The fog was so thick that once the freighter was abeam of us with no light reflecting off its bow, it once agian disapeared in the fog even though it was still less the a hundred feet away.

After it had passed I yelled over the thumping of our hearts to the crew on the Coronado and said I bet you do not see that **** in Kansas. He gave me some type of single digit midwestern gesture and they too disappeared into the fog.

God protects fools and little children. I have not been a little child for a long time but some how I still feel well protected!