Yesterday, New Years Day, I was invited to cruise around Alameda Island with Cheryl and Brad Belleville s/v Encore. Encore is a 1984 Beneteau First 32, a beautiful racing boat. Cheryl and Brad have set it up for cruising, and they sailed it down to the Channel Islands and back in September (what a good idea! I want to do that!).
It’s awfully comfortable below, not that we spent much time down there. Also aboard were a sailing friend, Pete, Cheryl’s sister, Shannon, and two really nice lawyers. I know their occupations because Brad started telling lawyer jokes over lunch and they laughed a lot. Their teenaged daughter Mattie joined us, and she was an incredibly good sport given the number of goofy adults.
Cheryl told me that the cruise around Alameda began years ago when the bridge operators’ jobs were threatened by the presumption that they were no longer needed. Seems the number of bridge openings didn’t warrant the expense according to a cost analysis by someone who held the purse strings. According to Cheryl, all the yacht clubs around and on Alameda Island agreed to motor sail through every bridge every January 1. That way the bridge operators would reach their quota of bridge openings and closings on the very first day of the year, so there would be no question regarding the need for their services.
Yesterday we met at Island Yacht Club for breakfast @ 9 am. Eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes and sour dough toast, cooked by Jamie. The potatoes included his special ingredient, which he would not divulge. Coffee, orange juice, fruit and granola bars were downstairs. A feast for $5. Thank you, Island Yacht Club.
Then we drove to Aeolian Yacht Club, over in Fernside, and parked our cars. Encore is berthed there, and she is the zippiest looking boat in the harbor, which is owned by the Club. Smart move, owning their own harbor. The Club was started in 1902 and it’s tucked away just a bridge away from the San Leandro Channel.
Very nice clubhouse, with a pool table, bars upstairs and down, a library, big kitchen, laundry and a big deck overlooking the boats.
Another huge plus included with membership? The workshop. Oh My. What a nice space. With a member who does wordworking. Need a new tiller? He’s your man. What’s not to like? And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Gin Fizzes or Bloody Marys everywhere, for $5 each! Plus very good chili and cornbread: $5. I began to see a pattern, and was prepared with $5 bills. The deck was packed when we left to continue around Alameda the back way, with the airport and the coliseum off in the distance to starboard. Encore draws 5’10” and yes, we did bump over a sandbar in the channel, but only once.
Going under another bridge, we continued on our mission, which was to reach Ballena Bay, known to the SSS as “that place reached by dense fog”. It was really cold by that point, so we were happy to tie up at the Ballena Bay Yacht Club where we were asked to check in via the computer, which didn’t work. So we signed in the old fashioned way, in a guest book with a pen. Then it was onward to the bar and thence into the dining room where we were offered hamburgers and hot dogs for (yes) $5. We ate our food, Brad told lawyer jokes and then we were on our way again, back to the Aeolian Yacht Club via the San Leandro Channel. Before we arrived we admired the south bay, which looked like this:
It was a really nice way to spend the day. Thanks, Brad and Cheryl. Oh, BTW (that's a tech acronym for "by the way"), Brad is interested in delivering someone's boat back from Hawaii after the SHTP. Seems he likes being on the ocean. Crazy, man, crazy.
