CLIPPER COVE ANCHORAGE AT TREASURE ISLAND

Treasure Island was built up from Bay dredgings in the late 1930's for the World's Fair. Between the man-made island and Yerba Buena Island an isthmus with a road was built to connect the two. The Oakland Bay Bridge was also constructed at that time. See my video for more history.

Today the isthmus supports a sandy beach on the West of Clipper Cove with a rocky forested area to the South where the Bay Bridge connects, and Treasure Island to the North. The anchorage is protected from all but the East where it opens into the Bay, but East winds are extremely rare. Thus it is considered to be an all-weather anchorage.

The Island is a wonderful place to explore. On the map below I have circled the Treasure Island Marina (Almar) and deli at the lower left, the winery adjacent, and the inexpensive bar and grill that has a great outdoor patio.

Here is my Ranger 29 Joy anchored at Clipper Cove on October 14, 2011:

The Marina has locked docks not accessible to transient boaters, but you can dinghy over to the Treasure Island Marina dinghy dock and pay $10 to use it. The other options are to either rent a transient slip for $1/foot/day (decent price), or to dinghy ashore to the beach on the isthmus. Dinghy theft has been a problem even for people who chain up their dinghies and then take the bus into San Francisco for the day. One sailor who left his dinghy chained without oars on the beach had his dinghy cut free with bolt cutters by kids who were swept out into the Bay without oars and had to be rescued. At least he got it back! Without a dinghy it's a cold swim back to your boat! In any case, I suggest using the dinghy dock or taking a slip if you plan to bus into San Francisco.

However, if you want to anchor and avoid any fees while exploring Treasure Island, for best security leave your outboard motor on the boat, row to the beach, chain up your dinghy to a tree, remove the oars and take them with you, and keep an eye on the dinghy  from ashore. Many boaters find this more attractive than the funky marina dinghy dock.

If you plan to stay more than 24 hours, you must call the Treasure Island Development Authority (Ph. 415-274-0382) and give them the information they will want about you and your boat

.

Here is the patio at the Treasure Island Bar and Grill. Good view of everything, and with a short walk you can check your dinghy.

APPROACH FROM THE BAY: Clipper Cove is shallow. Today because of the new Bay Bridge construction there has been no dredging for some time and the big shoal from Yerba Buena Island toward Pier One at the entrance has become more of a grounding hazard than before. On my sail to Clipper Cove in September, 2011, I had barely 4 feet under my keel in the entrance channel on the North side, and my Ranger 29 draws only 4.5 feet. If you draw 6 feet or more, you can easily run aground, so wait for high water or flood tide to enter or leave. Really big yachts anchor outside the Cove in the designated anchorage on the Bay.

Here is the best route to follow from entrance to anchorage area. The charted depths shown for low tide are probably more accurate for high tide, so keep one eye glued to the depth sounder and proceed slowly. The area shown in the red ellipse is the most protected anchorage. Use a soft-mud anchor like Danforth (I use Manson Supreme), but in fall warmer waters there may be weedy growth on the bottom, so a plow type anchor might be better.

The best times to anchor in Clipper Cove for a little solitude are weekdays. On weekends and holidays there are often many boats and raft-ups with little choice where to anchor. Note how other boats are anchored and swinging--usually with just a bow anchor--and fit yourself in. If you anchor close to shore, I suggest a kellet to limit your swing, which could otherwise result in a grounding off the beach.

PROBLEMS AND ISSUES: 
For several decades Clipper Cove was a blighted anchorage filled with abandoned boats.The Cove has only recently been cleared. Almar is developing the Treasure Island Marina with plans to expand the docks and facilities. Currently, however, they are very funky. Here is the harbormaster's building with bathroom facilities. His office is open from 10 AM to 4 PM Wednesdays through Sundays. Don't be put off by the dilapidated appearance. Basic infrastructure is sound.

The dinghy dock, which you can use for $10/day giving you a key to the locked docks, is at the far Northeast end closest to the shore. It is also very funky looking but adequate:

The Treasure Island Yacht Club shares the dinghy dock with Almar. Here is the clubhouse:



Much of Treasure Island is being developed out of its "old town" buildings, such as the one the Winery has taken over. Don't expect charm and completion.

On the Northeastern part of the Cove you will find the Treasure Island Sailing Center. It has a huge fleet of J24's that criss-cross the shoaled opening to the Cove on late afternoons. Below is a photo of a few J24's, but on weekend mornings and much of the day there can be literally scores of them making entry in the Cove tricky for keel boats. As you try to avoid collisions, don't be forced onto the shoal areas near the pier or across most of the entrance from Yerba Buena Island! Procede slowly and the J24's will keep their distance as you negotiate the thin water channel I show on the chart above.



Finally, not all boaters who anchor in Clipper Cove are experienced--especially some of the power boaters. On my latest visit to Clipper Cove a retired couple drove their little Camano trawler up next to me, pushed a button, and dropped a tiny Bruce anchor and chain no more than fifty feet from where I had dropped mine. In 17 feet of water they had put out a scope of perhaps 2:1. This in spite of the fact that all the other boats had anchored at least two hundred feet apart and taken account of their swing in the anchorage environment--which included monohulls, a trimaran, and power boats, each of which swings differently.

The evening was very calm, so we could have all been temporarily anchored to bricks and done fine. But it was full moon spring tides and some weather was forecast to come in later that night. So after watching how the Camano swung relative to my boat, I shortened scope from 5:1 to 4:1 and dropped an 18lb kellet to hold my rode and chain to the bottom to limit my swing even more. Sure enough, by 2 AM we were being whipped around in strong tidal currents and the wind was blowing about 15 knots. The fellow in the Camano raised anchor and motored to within fifty feet of the beach and anchored again in perhaps 8 feet of water and out of my swinging range. He probably thought I was dragging into him!

Remember, anchor with consideration for all the other boaters. Observe how they have anchored and do the same. In Clipper Cover, everyone swings to one bow anchor, so don't set bow and stern anchors or you might get whacked! And be certain when tide and wind come to stretch your rode out to full scope you won't swing into another boat. In Clipper Cove with 20 to 10 feet of water over mud, use about 3X depth for an all-chain rode and 5X depth for chain and rode along with an anchor that bites well into mud. Once your anchor is set, that amount of scope will be good for most situations.

THE VIDEO:  Here is an informational video I made of my recent anchorage at Clipper Cove:

TRANSITING THE BAYS: SOUTH BAY TO VALLEJO AND BACK

A cruise from the South Bay through the Central Bay to San Pablo Bay to the Napa River and Vallejo is a day's sail. Same with the trip back. We will use this scenario to cover suggestions on the basic boat and safety equipment needed to cruise all bays and rivers, and how to transit the various areas of the bays. These will be summarized in a *.wmv video you can watch after reading this blog.

NECESSARY BOAT EQUIPMENT: Dinghy, bow and stern anchors ready to deploy, boarding ladder, depth sounder, reefable sails, VHF marine radio, cell phone, paper and electronic G.P.S. charts.

NECESSARY SAFETY EQUIPMENT: All U.S. Coast Guard required equipment for near-shore and inland boating, including inflatable P.F.D.'s and tethers for everyone.

SUGGESTED EQUIPMENT: A.I.S. on chart plotter, iPhone or iPad with Navionics or other G.P.S. charts, wide-brimmed hats with ties or clip-ons to keep them from blowing away, long-sleeved shirts to minimize U.V. exposure plus layer of sweater and warm jacket that can be worn for cold areas and stripped off for warm regions, good polarized sunglasses with croakies to keep them on your head, gloves for handling lines and keeping hands warm as needed, tiller pilot or auto-pilot, cockpit dodger.

There is good 3G, 4G, and cellular reception all over most of the bays and much of the rivers and Delta, so you can bring iPhones, iPads, and 3G-enabled Kindles with you and they will connect in most anchorages. Wifi is much less available.

OTHER SUGGESTIONS: I carry my dinghy fully inflated and hoisted by the bow painter up the backstay of my Ranger 29. This is very secure with side-lines for balance. I've had it all over the bays in as high as 30-knot winds and heavy seas with no problems, and it adds negligible drag to the boat. I carried my inflatable the same way on my C&C 34 from San Francisco to La Paz, Baja Mexico up to twenty miles offshore in high winds and seas during the 2010 Baja Haha with no problems. (Click for my YouTube documentaries SF to Cabo and Baja Haha and Cabo to LaPaz.) It's an easy way for a small sailboat to keep an inflatable ready for immediate deployment on the bays and rivers of the San Francisco region.

I use a Standard Horizon Matrix GX 2150 VHF radio connected to my Garmin GPSMap 421s chart plotter, which is connected to my tiller pilot. The radio and chart plotter are incredible technology bundles that show me graphic depth soundings, seafloor bottom types (for anchoring), tide and current data, A.I.S. data, etc. The tiller pilot gives a single-hander like me hands-free helming and anchoring with simple push-button control. My Ranger came with a fixed jib boom and jib furler for effortless single-handed tacking and jibing--especially handy on rivers.

If you are singlehanding, build as much convenience into your boat systems as possible, lead all controls to the cockpit to avoid having to reef sails at the mast, and use a tether whenever you are in the cockpit, which is almost always. I installed EzJax so the mainsail doesn't need to have the extra bunches tied off when reefed or when the mainsail is dropped.

I use a Manson Supreme as my primary anchor because it is a less expensive version of the Rocna, which I used on my C&C 34 in Mexico, which always set in one attempt, plus it has a slot along the shank that will help pull out a snagged anchor by the front end if needed. For secondary and stern anchors I use real Danforths (not knock-offs, which are unreliable).

Whenever possible, I get used consignment boat equipment from Blue Pelican Marine at Grand Marina in Alameda instead of West Marine. Way cheaper for same stuff!

TRANSITING THE BAYS: To go North from the South Bay, leave early in the morning on the last few hours of an ebb tide so that you can transit the Central Bay Slot at slack tide or on the start of a flood tide. Most important, do the crossing by noon to avoid the big winds that kick up during the afternoon and can make for a wet crossing. Plan to cross under the Richmond Bridge into San Pablo Bay near the start of a flood. Stay out of the deep channels when the big boys are maneuvering there, but use them to take full advantage of tidal boost. Currents run fastest over deep water, slower over shallow. If you have to sail against an opposing current, do so in shallower water where current runs more slowly. But keep your eyes on paper charts for depth detail (or zoom into deeper chart layers where the data is buried). Watch out for charted sunken ships and other hazards, and keep an eye on the depth sounder. The bays have so many shallow areas that it is easy to run aground.

To go from North to South in San Pablo Bay, do NOT try to use an ebb tide when winds pick up in the afternoon, and never if they are blowing hard before noon. They come in from westerly angles and create the nightmare known as wind against current over shallows. That means close frequency high waves with overfalls that will beat up your boat and make you very wet! Instead, start South on a waning flood, which results in wind and waves in the same direction. Do so in the morning if possible before the winds come up--you may have to motorsail for a while--and stay far East of the deep channel, following the 21-foot depth curve on a rhumb line just outside of Point Pinole. Watch out for the few charted sunken boats that may be in your path. When you pass Point Pinole, make another rhumb line to San Pablo Point and the Brothers. By then you'll have ebb flowing and helping you into the Central Bay. Then you might want to detour through Angel Island and Racoon Strait and wait for slack tide. Then you can make a quick perpendicular crossing of the Central Bay traffic channels to the SF Bay waterfront area and go screaming down the Slot toward the Oakland Bay Bridge on a comfortable dry flood boost and on into the South Bay.

As I said, avoid the deep channels when there is traffic. But also realize that the ferries that ply the Bay are catamarans, so they don't need deep channels. They run outside the channels close to the SF Bayfront, Angel Island, and in San Pablo Bay often close to the East shore--even closer than you would want to sail. So stay away from tanker, cargo, tug, and ferry wakes. If you get caught, take the waves on your bow quarter--not broadside.

THE VIDEO: Now it's time to watch a video of my North-South crossing from South Bay to Vallejo and back, with tips and demonstrations: