On Friday October 9th there was a big storm forecasted to hit the San Francisco Bay area on Sunday. They were calling for up to 50 knot winds and over 50 mm of rain in a 24 hour period, and the temperature was going to drop over 10 degrees F! Considering that Richardson Bay is wide open to southerly winds, which is what was called for, and the fetch is all the way to Oakland, about 10 miles, it was going to get very rough and bouncy in our slip as we were side tied to the main dock and would be sideways to everything.

We decided this would be a good weekend to go explore the river delta and get away up to where it is much warmer and protected from the winds. We left on Friday afternoon and headed for Benicia, a small town 4 miles up the Sacramento River from the head of the bay, a total of 25 miles from Sausalito.

The trip takes you from San Francisco Bay into San Pablo Bay and then into the river, going by Tiburon, Angel Island, San Rafael and Richmond.  It is via a channel kept dredged for freighters and military ships and even though you are out in the middle of a big bay you have to be careful to stay in the channel as it is very shallow in San Pablo Bay. One of the interesting things you go by is an old lighthouse on Brothers Island off San Pablo Point. The lighthouse is a working beacon and it has been converted to also be a B&B. You can go out to it by lifeboat and they drop you off to stay for the night or weekend and come back to pick you up afterwards. All the funds generated go to help support search & rescue groups. http://ebls.org/  is their website.

As you enter the Sacramento River you go under the Carquinez Bridge. It is an interesting structure in that the original steel riveted bridge is still in use, it handles traffic going one way, and right next to it is a new modern sectional concrete bridge that was built to handle traffic going the other way once the traffic volume got too high for the original two-way structure. The contrast of the old vs new construction methods is very cool. This type of construction is common throughout the bay area, they are building a new Bay Bridge between San Fran and Oakland right now doing the same thing.

The Napa River merges into the Sacramento River right beside the bridge and you can go north up it to Vallejo and into the Napa River wine country. We decided not to head that way as we wanted to get further inland out of the storm.

Benicia is a lovely little town that now lives on tourism and has a beautiful marina inside very secure breakwaters. The marina was built by the city and then turned over to private enterprise to operate it under contract. This system works great, the marina has first class facilities, is secure and very well maintained, and keeps a significant number of slips available for transient boaters. The Benicia Yacht Club is right at the marina and it welcomes all visiting yachties, they don’t seem to be too concerned about reciprocal privileges. It has a great restaurant and bar that overlook the marina, the staff is very friendly and helpful and the marina is 2 blocks from the heart of the historic downtown district.

There is a lot of history in Benicia, it was the first incorporated city in California, it was once the capital of California for 13 months, and it originally had the largest tannery operation on the Pacific Coast, producing over 1/3 of the leather in California. Jack London lived there for several years and two of his works, “Tales of the Fish Patrol” and “John Barleycorn” are based on his experiences there. The downtown area has been restored and preserved and there is an interesting walking tour that details the history of the specific buildings and the town.

The Union Hotel is very cool and has a great bar! For more info about Benicia go to the website http://www.beniciachamber.com/

We had a great time walking and biking the town and surrounding area on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday.

There is a waterfront bike path that does a big loop around the town and out to the historic military fort and arsenal, it overlooks the Port of Benicia, which is still used as a significant deep water terminal. The bike path also goes back along the river all the way to the Carquinez Bridge.

On Sunday we left Benicia under cloudy skies and headed up the river. When you get to Pittsburg (California) the river splits, to the north it is the Sacramento River and to the south it is the San Joaquin River. The two rivers and multiple islands and tributaries form a massive maze of channels and bays with anchorages, marinas and parks everywhere. You could spend years exploring the area.

The Sacramento River is a deep water channel all the way to Sacramento, the state capital of California, which is a deep water port 80 miles inland from San Francisco Bay! We were headed to Rio Vista, a small town 28 miles from Benicia, halfway to Sacramento from San Francisco Bay, that some cruisers recommended to us as having a great marina and a pretty town.

Once we were about 10 miles up the river we came upon the U.S. Navy graveyard! Dozens of decommissioned warships are rafted together and anchored in an arm of the river, supposedly there to be pressed back into service if needed in the next war. Judging by their condition it would be easier to build new ones than fix these rusting hulks. It was eerie going by all these silent war machines.

By the time we were half-way to Rio Vista the sun was shining and we were motor-sailing along at 8 knots in 10 knots of wind on the beam with flat calm water. It’s a unique sensation to be sailing along within 200 feet of riverbanks on each side, watching ranches, oil rigs and wind farms go by. I think that most of the ranchers make a lot more money farming wind than cattle these days.

We came around one bend and were surrounded by sailboarders and kite-boarders literally flying by all around us doing aerial tricks as the wind compressed to 25 knots around the river bend.

Every bridge between San Pablo Bay and Sacramento lifts to a minimum clearance of 135 feet. All of the bridges from San Pablo Bay to Rio Vista have a minimum clearance of 75 feet when down, we need 65 feet for our mast so we didn’t have to wait for any lift bridges. After Rio Vista the bridges are low and have to lift for sailboats or ships so we decided not to go any further up the river.

We pulled into the Delta Marina http://www.deltamarina.com/ in Rio Vista and it felt like something out of a movie set in the Florida Everglades. Very narrow entrance not even wide enough for 2 boats to pass by each other, palm trees and madronas and willows hanging over the water’s edge, you couldn’t really see the marina until you were right inside. As we went into the entrance we were greeted with a blast of an air horn, thought omigod we’re going to hit someone!

Turned out it was from the bar and restaurant that overlooks the entrance and the river, it is perched right on the water’s edge and this is how they greet all incoming boats.

 

The marina is very pretty, funky and well maintained and has fuel docks, wireless internet, a small chandlery and over 600 feet of transient dock space. The restaurant and bar have a wonderful view of the river and good food and drink. We had appies at the bar on Sunday night and Monday is lobster night so we decided that we would have our Thanksgiving dinner in the restaurant on Monday with the traditional lobster.

During the night on Sunday the storm caught up with us and hit with a vengeance. We had about 20 mm of rain between 2:00 am and noon on Monday with 25 knot winds. Palm fronds littered everywhere, including our deck, and the power got knocked out a couple of times. We were safe and secure at the dock, not even a ripple on the water, just a little wind on deck, all of the action went by above us. By Monday afternoon the storm had passed but it left the power knocked out until Tuesday morning, which meant the restaurant was closed, no lobster dinner and no internet, most inconvenient!

We called our friends who liveaboard in Sausalito to see how they fared. San Francisco Bay had wind gusts over 50 knots, over 6 foot seas in Richardson Bay at the marinas, 4 boats that were anchored out dragged and ended up on the rocks, and anywhere from 75 to 125 mm of rain (3 to 5 inches) depending on where you were. The temperatures were over 10 degrees F colder there than in Rio Vista and the storm lasted over 24 hours, not 10 like we saw. Seems that our decision to run up the river and hide was a good one.

We spent Monday afternoon and Tuesday exploring Rio Vista, mostly by bike as it is more spread out than Benicia. It’s a sleepy little town, the economy is quite depressed as it is off the beaten path for tourists and the other industries are suffering along with most of California’s economy. Rio Vista’s most recent claim to fame is from 1985 when you may recall a gray whale swam all the way up the Sacramento River and got as far as Rio Vista. It was finally coaxed back out to the bay by playing recorded whale sounds from a boat, there was a lot of international media coverage around it. There is a commemorative plaque in the village center overlooking the river where Humphrey the whale visited.

The other unique attraction in Rio Vista is Foster’s Big Horn bar www.fostersbighorn.com. It has to be seen to be believed, inside is a rather macabre collection of over 300 stuffed animal heads from all around the world. The bar was founded by Bill Foster and houses his collection of trophies from 8 big game safaris to Africa and numerous hunting trips all over the rest of the world that took place between 1928 and 1953. Along with the trophies is a collection of 100’s of photographs taken on these trips, we found the pictures and the narratives posted alongside them to be far more interesting than the stuffed animals. Foster was an interesting and colorful character and was an ardent conservationist that firmly believed his trips and trophies helped educate the world about the animals.

On Wednesday morning we left Rio Vista and headed back to Sausalito, the wind was now blowing the opposite way so again we motor-sailed at 8 knots in the sunshine with flat water all the way back, covering 53 miles in 6 1/2 hours. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip up the river and would spend even more time up there and go further if we have the chance to go back again someday.

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