norcalsailing.com Tomales to Bodega

Tomales Bay to Bodega Harbor

October 13, 2013

About 4:00 in the morning I awoke to pain in my gut. I realized how much tension I had been holding due to the plan of sailing my Ericson 26 out of Tomales Bay and north to her new home in Bodega Harbor. It's easy to write, "We were sailing in puffy conditions in 10 feet of water in a narrow channel with large waves breaking on rocks to port and waves breaking on shallows to starboard." It was much different being there.

The Bodega Weather Buoy reported 3.3-ft wave height when I checked in the morning of the sail. Looking back at the buoy data, wave height during our passage across the bar was 7 feet.

We headed out of Marshall making 5+ knots on a close reach in brisk winds from the south. Good wind speed held for most of the way out the channel. Winds went light and shifty at the bar, so we started the engine, and headed towards the small area where the waves were not breaking. One medium sized steep wave was approaching. A couple more rpms on the engine, a quick glance at the depthsounder, and up we rose. We were greeted by a loud thud as the bow dropped into the trough. Everything on the boat seemed fine and we went on into the ocean.

The current was less than a half a knot of ebb at the entrance, and low water was two feet above chart depths. The more hazardous thing is how the wave height built in four hours. Our GPS track showed that we passed 500 feet SW of the Red and White Buoy "RW TB GONG" on a magnetic heading of 050 NW.

My crew were new to each other and new to the boat but neither new to sailing. None of us had ever sailed out the Tomales Bay entrance. Their easy-going and confident manner helped mitigate the unknowns – they joked around while I stared at the depthsounder and tried to accept my fears. We turned off the engine at the Sea Buoy and opened up three beers. I probably started breathing regularly around then.

– Steve Sarsfield, The Kestrel, Ericson 26

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