'Bred Crumbs

The Odd Man and the Sea

Today, as part of a team outing at work (yes, companies still have them), we sailed to lunch across the Bay. Historically, I'm not good with sailing. It's not a matter of motion sickness; it's a matter of nervousness about the boat's perceived (in)stability. To sail, a boat must tilt, and to me, tilting = falling = drowning.

But our rental was big with lots of railings, the fog backed off, and all was well. Besides being fun, relaxing, and team-binding, the trip was educational. Here are some things I learned.

• San Francisco Bay is full of little jellyfish that get around using tiny sails. These jellyfish don't sting. Unlike the one that attacked me while I was innocently rafting off Florida years ago. Bastard. I hope it's dead now.
• The Bay is surprisingly shallow. Most of our trip was through less than nine feet of water, and at some points the Bay is only four feet deep.
• Sailing between Berkeley and Sausalito takes two hours or more. Given the depth of the Bay, I'm thinking maybe you could walk there faster. (Though of course it wouldn't be as fun, relaxing, and team-binding.)
• According to our captain, if you spend four years sailing around the world, the tropical islands get boring after a while.
• If you laid the Golden Gate Bridge end to end, it would reach from San Francisco to the opposite shore.
• Preparing prawns and fettucine with andouille sausage and a "creole sauce" does not make it "jambalaya."
• I must start remembering to put sunscreen on the sides of my face so that I don't get (a) sunburned on the sides of my face and (b) stupid-looking sunglass tanline racing stripes.
• The wind on the Bay is strong enough to whip a small piece of paper that you've had in your windbreaker pocket for months after someone handed it to you on Castro Street out of your windbreaker pocket, across your boat, and into the Bay, making you feel like the biggest environmental criminal ever. For about five seconds.
• When blogging about or looking at pictures from sailing on the Bay, the sense that you are still bobbing on the water will return even though you've been back on land for hours.
• This feeling of false nautical motion is strangely enhanced by having a wacky, subtle-as-a-fork-in-the-eye Spanish-language sketch show on in the background while you type.
• Those Spanish-language-speakers. What are they thinking?

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