After a couple of stressful days crossing all the items of our never ending to do lists, we had yet another stressful time to leave the Berkeley marina "in time". These days, the tide amplitudes are pretty large, which implies that for several hours during the day, we cannot go in or out of the marina as it gets shallow enough for our keel to get stuck on the muddy bottom.
After rushing the last essential remaining prep, a last pump out run (to empty the boat waste tank - who wants to sail full of sh*t?) and a final topping off of our fuel tank, we got out of our "home" for the last couple of months without any shallow issues. However, the story didn't end there. We were bound to Clipper Cove by Treasure island (still in the Bay) for last raft-up with the marina friends, and Clipper Cove is an even shallower place! Time was still against us, not time to really realize what we left behind, we had to hammer down to our next destination. Sunny day but light winds, we couldn't afford the luxury (and time!) to sail over, so we motored through the gap in the Berkeley Pier, amongst the barges to finally pass the sand bar at the entrance of the Cove. Not an exaggeration to say it was the last call as we almost got stuck in less than 4 ft of water (for reference, our keel draws 5.5 ft!), but we made it to enjoy the gorgeous view on the Bay bridge, the best company we could have wished for this last night in the Bay (much love to these incredible friends who moved their schedule around to meet us on a week night with a low low tide) and a perfectly executed raft-up one last time.
