Believe it or not, I sailed for the first time in the San Francisco bay. Yann, Alex and Niki are so nice to invite me to join them to sail in the Bay. We started from the marina of the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge around noon, and soon pull on the sail and sail close to the wind. It is a little bit easier to learn how to sail. When we turned off the motor, and pulled up the sail, the boat when to the Golden Gate Bridge at the speed of 2.4 – 3.1 knots. Sometimes, the wind goes up to 30 knots and rains heavily. When we reached the gate and started to move out of the bay a little bit into the Pacific, it is sunny, but the tide is huge. :-) Yann is a perfect captain and we quickly learnt to how sail a sail boat (although not complete). All the pictures are in my camera but I didn’t bring the cable with me. I will post the nice pictures here when I am back.
Ha, good experience. I am not a sport type, never really tried that. I am sure sailing in the SF Bay is romantic. The whole SF city is romantic. It’s totally different from other cities. I always get a Mediterranean feeling when I walk on the street of San Francisco, I don’t mean the high rise district though. It is one and only in the US. I remember catching red crab near a peer close to Golden Gate Bridge, who would think you can do that in the center of a big city. But San Francisco by itself is not very big. It sometimes give you a small town feeling.
Oh, what an excellent adventure for you, Jian Shuo! It’s a shame that the weather was not sunny and fine for you to have that experience, but still, I’m very glad you got to do that. Seeing the city from the water gives a wonderfully different impression than being in the middle of it on land. Such good friends you have, all over the world :-)
I admire your persistence in writing your blog. I am a beginner in this field, where i can enjoy writng things freely and dream with the keyboard. However,sometimes I am too busy to continue , so there would be some cuts in writing, which is frustrating. Now you set me a good example, and I feel confident to go on.
Wow :) Nice experience. Hope you enjoyed the fresh air. It sounds like the weather could be a little better. Welcome back to Shanghai, you don’t have to be a rabbit anymore..haha eating all the leafy greens.
According to some businessmen (at the Shanghai International Boat Show), sailing is going to be a huge market in China. Anyway, I agree to the part that big yachts will be sold, but not used often. Same situation in westerne countries, where huge boats are there to look flashy, but the owners seldom have time for using them.
Less expensive is the SBYC, Shanghai Boat and Yacht Club, they have facilities at Dianshan Lake, where it is possible to learn to sail the small boats. It is not that easy, Jianshuo !
Steering a course is ok, but all the other things can be quite difficult, nearly same as driving a car. But of course there is plenty of space in the lakes of China, so it’s not dangerous
(as long as you stay ABOVE the water surface :-)
It sounds u greatly enjoy this experience,which is quite different from surfing some small area of water.What is more interesting for me is where is ur position on the boat during all the course of sailing?the pilot?the assistant?or any position else?Hope u not just stinging there like a pole in the wind.:)
What a wonderful treat. I have been to SF before but never sailed. Looking forward to being there later this summer.
From your other posts I can see that you have not become a rabbit. Just discovered the site and it is refreshing to see someone with a sense of humor writing this. I will be in Shanghai this fall to teach. Perhaps we can meet. You have lots of great stuff to say.
Yes. Yann, Alex and Niki are so nice to invite me to the wonderful journey. Before my trip, I didn’t expect to sail a sail boat by myself – maybe the best I can imagine is take a cruise and listen to the tour guide’s introduction for grant Golden Gate bridge….
Nie, I learnt a lot on the sail boat. Yann was the capitain and tutor. I tried all the different roles on a sail boat – I was the pilot – when the wind is not so wired, and helped to pull up the sail, change the position of the sail, some cleanup work after we returned to the habor.