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Part 2: I hot-footed it to the Della Frattoria bakery to sip
a warming cup of tea and lust over pastries that were displayed in their
cases like jewels.
By Yvonne Michie Horn — Spring
2005
And so, with Capt. Gary Walker at the helm of our Mainship
43 Trawler Thousand Aces chartered
from Club Nautique (see sidebar),
we pulled out of a slip in Alameda on the appointed day—the only
foul-weather day of what had been a spectacularly sunny fall. The San
Francisco skyline was a misty blur. Alcatraz was somewhere out there,
Angel Island a big blob in the gray. Walker, retired after 30 years in
the U.S. Coast Guard and now a Club Nautique bareboat instructor, steered
from the flying bridge. Droplets of rain nestled in his beard. His hair
blew in the wind. Visibility was terrible, with unseen drawbridges to
be notified ahead. He was in his element, grinning from ear to ear.
I settled into the Mainship’s spacious, comfy saloon
and realized that I, too, was about to come into my element in an entirely
new way.
VINEYARDS IN VIEW
We entered the 14-mile Petaluma River from San Pablo Bay, as the big bulge
at the northern edge of San Francisco Bay is called. With visibility clearing,
the first of Sonoma County’s vineyards came into view, plantings
of chardonnay and pinot noir. Out of view from my usual highway route,
I never knew these vineyards existed. Too, oddly enough, except for glimpses
here and there, I’d never seen the river.
Walker had given the required 24-hour notice before
calling on the VHF: “D Street bridge, Thousand
Aces requests opening.” We cruised through and tied up at
the city dock in the turning basin. Petaluma’s historic downtown
was but steps away.
Downtown Petaluma is well known for its fine iron-front
commercial buildings, holdovers from the days when the slough (as it was
called until officially deemed a river by an Act of Congress in 1959)
was key to transportation between Sonoma County and San Francisco. Miraculously,
Petaluma escaped the destruction of the 1906 earthquake, leaving intact
a bustling center and Victorian-era neighborhoods. There were more than
30 antiques shops at last count.
I hot-footed it to the Della Frattoria bakery to sip
a warming cup of tea and lust over pastries that were displayed in their
cases like jewels. I also arranged for a next-day, early-morning pickup
of sandwiches to see us through our cruise to Napa. The sun was already
setting, and I hoped the weather would improve before we cast off again.
It did not. We headed back toward the bay, following
its long curve east and, several rainy hours later, entered the Napa River
with the rising tide. As we cruised the 17 navigable miles of its 50-mile
length, we kept a sharp eye out for fishermen. Flotsam, also a concern,
made a leisurely pace advisable.
Two hours later, after sometimes cruising at but four
knots, we tied up, as in Petaluma, smack-dab in the center of the historic
downtown.
>> Next page >>
Part 3: With a population of 75,000, Napa is the workhorse gateway
to a string of several hundred wineries tucked among tiny, picturesque
towns. Page
1,
2, 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8
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