Pt. Richmond

[shitan]

Speaking thru Sofi here.....
West Garrison is a sandy beach, with some riprap old pier outside (S) of the landing beach, and the actual beach is small and nonexistent at high tides, so drag your board out of the water. Should be side on most days you can actually sail out to there.
Seatrek not friendly owners, at least back then.

[pthorner]

If you have not sailed up near Angel Island and Alcatraz, then you should make sure that you know the navigation rules well since it is a Regulated Navigation Area and there are many high speed ferries running up down the east side of Angel Island and big ships heading outbound turn west just south of Pt. Blunt. Most people have the good sense to stay out of the way of larger vessels, but it can be tricky to do in that area if you are not watching the traffic and planning ahead. Most captains and pilots are careful out there, but if you are sailing in an area where they don't expect you to be, they could miss you when they are busy watching other ships and boats.

Rule 9 requires small vessels to yield to ships confined in a channel and Rule 10 requires small vessels to yield to a ship following a traffic lane. It can be tricky east of Pt. Blunt because the ferries make turns at a couple of points, so you can think you are steering out of their path and then they turn and you are in the cross hairs of a ferry doing 35-40 knots. I was out a couple of weeks ago and had 3 ferries converging on my location at the same time.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/mwv/navrules/rotr_online.htm

Once I head west of Red Buoy 4 and enter the traffic lane, I usually keep moving west until I am due south of Pt. Blunt since the ferries split east of west well before they get to Pt. Blunt to either head to Sausalito or to Larkspur/Vallejo.

The Nav Rules also apply at other places such as Crissy where the traffic lane starts about 5x the distance to Anita Rock offshore. Once you are perpendicular with the south tower, you are in the traffic lane.

Peter Thorner
SFBA