A Giant Visit To The Big City

Our Travel Columnist braves some wicked swells in her tiny boat and lands on her feet in Oracle Park.

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When Russel and I got married, there weren’t many big things we didn’t know about each other. We’d known each other for 14 years before we got hitched, after all, and though we’d only dated for a year during that time, we had all the basics down—we shared a philosophy of life that pretty much boiled down to “seize the day,” we were liberal democrats, we grew up in California (though Russel was born in Iowa, his family moved to Oceanside when he was 5) and we both loved the ocean. We also shared a fondness for live theater, movie musicals, big dogs, and seventies rock music. What we did not have in common was sports. Russel liked baseball and I loved baseball. And I especially loved the San Francisco Giants. That’s a long story which I won’t go into, but suffice to say that I was a pretty rabid Giants fan.

 Russel was happy to indulge my passion but he was a bit worried when I came running out to the dock shouting when I couldn’t get game 2 of the 1989 World Series to come in on his little tv on the boat. I was pissed off, to hear him tell it, and it took finding out there’d been a devastating earthquake to shut me up. In 2002, Russel started to get pretty excited when the Giants won the Pennant and went to the World Series. By the time 2010 rolled around, he was almost as big a fan as I was and we got even more crazy when the Giants did it again in 2012. That fall was a magical one, with the Giants winning the World Series and Barack Obama winning a second term.

Then, in 2014, my beloved husband came up with an idea to celebrate our 25th anniversary—why not take the boat up to San Francisco, stay a few weeks, and see the Giants in person at their ballpark? I was over the moon, of course, and we proceeded to put his plan into action. We sailed north up the coast, stopping at Santa Cruz Island and Santa Barbara and then jumped up to Morro Bay for our actual anniversary in late May. We planned to cruise on up to SF and catch some games in June or July, before heading south in early August. But Monterey was as far as we got.

It happened like this: we left the gorgeous protected anchorage at San Simeon in the late afternoon, as we often do when making a long passage. There’s no where for a sailboat to safely stop in the miles north of San Simeon, until you reach Stillwater Cove, the lovely bay that the Pebble Beach golf course and resort wraps around so scenically. The 92 miles would take us about 18 hours, but we’d take turns being on watch, so the other could sleep. We waved goodbye to Hearst Castle as the afternoon sun warmed the rolling golden hills of San Simeon, a place we’d come to love on previous visits. The Pacific swell was only moderate, coming as always from the northwest along the coast, meaning right on our nose, and we settled in for a long spell of motoring. At seven o’clock, our dinner eaten, I volunteered for the first watch, knowing there was a Giants game coming on that I could tune in to on Sirius Radio—listening to that would keep me awake while looking around and staying alert to any potential problems.

Russel went below and tried to rest, but two hours later, off Big Sur, he popped up saying he was “too interested to sleep.” We both watched awhile as the boat crept along the towering rock cliffs, then we took turns going below and lying in the v-berth, but sleep eluded us both.  I took my turns in the warm bed but couldn’t shut down my mind, and Russel had the same problem; we each slept an hour or two out of the fourteen we’d allowed for sleep and watches. The motoring went better than the sleeping and we got to Stillwater Cove before it was light, not a good time to come into a shallow, rocky, kelp-filled cove that we’d never entered before. We decided to press on to Monterey, knowing we could anchor off the marina and not have to deal with docking in our sleep-deprived state.

I have always been able to “maintain” pretty well on little or no sleep, thanks to many years of working long shifts in restaurants and bars, followed by doing acting rehearsals, classes, or performances. But I was pretty tired by the time we rounded the big peninsula that wraps around the big bay of Monterey to the west and south. Russel was lying quietly below and, hoping he was sleeping, I kept steering through the quirky but beautiful approach to the harbor. The houses along those few miles are some of the most beautiful in the world, and their waterfront settings are world-class too. When Russel came up, he was happy to see we’d arrived, but we were both unhappy to see that the swell was also wrapping around and heading into the bay, making the anchorage as full of swells as the open ocean.

Admitting defeat, beaten by the elements, we called the marina office and they said they had a slip for us, so we powered on into the dock, exhausted and with the stress working on our final nerves. Once we’d pulled into the slip and safely tied up, I walked up to the office to check us in and pay for the slip, and Russel got the boat straightened up—passages always cause things you thought were fastened to come loose and by the end of 18 hours, there were plenty of things strewn about or hastily stuck in odd places. The rest of the day was spent in the v-berth where, even though I still couldn’t fall asleep, I was more than content to read and relax in the still and quiet boat while Russel snoozed.

The next day we looked at the charts for the next leg of our passage up to San Francisco and decided that we’d “prefer not to.” Better to stay put in Monterey and go up by car. We rented a slip for a month, enjoying daily walks filled with sightseeing around the historic city.

In late June, almost a month after my birthday, we rented a car in Monterey and drove up to SF for a couple of days, planning to eat some great seafood, see some baseball, and do a little city-by-the-bay tourism. The cioppino at the renowned Tadisch Grill was delicious—it always is—and we enjoyed walking around the city—we always do—but a few little things got in the way of us having our dream vacation.

I’d chosen our hotel based purely on the fact that it wasn’t too expensive, and was right on the train line to AT&T Park (we’d decided that public transport was the smart way to get to the ballpark, which is still true). That night we took the train over to the ballpark, taking in the sights at the glittering Embarcadero. Unfortunately, the Giants got soundly beat by our hometown Padres and we got back to the hotel late and bummed out. We were asleep at midnight when the loud partying started next door, and the noise kept us tossing and turning for hours. At dawn I got up to take a morning walk, and found a nearby cafe that served excellent coffee and buttermilk donuts. Russel was able to sleep in once the party animals retired at four, so he wasn’t feeling too bad. The fresh donuts and strong coffee (and a full refund from Hotels.com) made us both feel much better.

That day we drove over to Sausalito, the charming village just over the Golden Gate from SF. We’d been advised to try The Spinnaker for lunch, which lived up to its billing on waterfront views as well as great food, plus the Bloody Marys were spicy and strong. Full as a tick, I wandered back from the ladies room past a bar where the Wednesday afternoon Giants game was on. I stopped to watch a moment, only to discover that Tim Lincecum was pitching a no-hitter against the Padres. I called Russel over and we spent the after-lunch hour watching baseball history be made, just a few miles away. I tried to take it well, but of course I was kicking myself. Why hadn’t I chosen the day game? Luckily, it was a gorgeous afternoon to enjoy Sausalito, so we wandered the streets and happily window shopped before heading home, worn out from the ups and downs of our long-awaited Giant visit to the big city.