Tahoe and San Francisco Bay

Gordon (hlg@pacbell.net)
Sat, 19 Jun 1999 10:42:11 -0700


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Wight Potter Website at URL
http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Beautiful post, Geoff. You should be selling real estate up there. Oh, you
are, aren't you? Do you have a cheap waterfront cabin listed, or is that an
oxymoron? It really sounds great, especially the summers (except for the
lightning). Snow is beautiful, but too cold for me. I enjoyed the snow as a
kid in Missouri, but I'm acclimated to coastal California now. As a skier
AND sailor, you seem to have found your paradise. You forgot to mention the
incredibly clear water in Tahoe.

>You have to understand tides, currents, salt water, big barges, ferries, cold
>foggy days and huge waves born of thousands of miles of fetch causing the sea
>to become alive beneath the Cities bridges.

Personally, I'm not that intrepid. I stay away from the Golden Gate area,
preferring the more sheltered parts of the Bay. I have yet to encounter
fog, and I go home if the water gets rough. The famous SF fog doesn't
extend very far south or north in the Bay. The swells rolling in through
the Gate are dissipated south of the Oakland Bay Bridge, and then if it's
windy the Bay just gets generally rough and confused. It can also be glassy
on a calm day. Though the Bay water is not as cold as Lake Tahoe, it's too
cold for comfort or long survival, so immersion is best avoided here also.

I found tides to be a nuisance, but am learning to live with them now. I
learned a lesson many years ago when I left my boat overnight at Redwood
City with the stern tied to a piling because there was no convenient cleat
on the floating dock. The level dropped 8 feet that night, leaving my bow
tied to the dock and my stern hanging from the piling 8 feet up until the
stern cleat pulled out. Duh!

The currents are more obvious since you sometimes find yourself sailing
through the water at 3 or 4 knots and making no forward progress at all, or
moving backwards.

> We only have to be aware of instant chop, lightning and sudden squalls. We
>get to play with swirly, squirrley winds that can literally seem to come from
>all directions at once. Oh, yeah. I almost forgot to mention. In the 45
>degree water away from the shore, you'd probably last 15 minutes unprotected
>in the water. The nearest Coastie is about an hour or more away most of the
>time. You'd be fresh frozen by the time they got there. It is much more
>comfortable to stay in your boat.
>
<snip>

>Used to it? I don't think so. Awed by it? Always. We still have a lot of
>snow on the peaks. The evergreens are greener than ever. The beaches are
>quite, secluded coves, the water, emerald green. Now, early in the morning
>when the surface of the lake looks as smooth as a finely ground mirror, it is
>not too unusual to see an Eagle take flight from her nest high in the pines.
>There's lots of endless days that I will never forget.
>
>Geoff
>P-15 Lollipop
>N. Lake Tahoe, NV

Hope to see you in Tahoe. Meanwhile, see if you can find me an inexpensive
waterfront house with a dock on a large beautiful lake where the
temperature stays within 60 to 90 deg F all year around, the wind is
usually 10 knots and never exceeds 20 knots, there are no thunderstorms,
and jetskis are prohibited. The shoreline should be varied, with rocks and
trees to look at but also many sheltered, secluded coves with sandy beaches.

Harry
P14 #234, Manatee
Mountain View, CA