Exploring Oakland, California

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We knew that every Sunday morning there was a Farmer’s Market at Jack London Square. But when Sunday morning rolled around, we almost fell over from shock when we walked upstairs shortly after waking up to see this:

The booths were so close to Kosmos that we could have stood on the bow and stolen produce from the stands! Here is a shot from the other direction:

Having the Farmer’s Market come to us made shopping easy! It was an especially good market, too. We knew we’d miss it when we were gone.

We did a little exploring of downtown Oakland in the month we had Kosmos there. Oakland was officially made a town in 1852, the same time the shipping industry began on Oakland’s shores.  Oakland was prosperous from the beginning. In addition to the shipping wharves, Oakland became the main staging post for passengers and cargo journeying between the Bay Area and the Sierra foothills during the California Gold Rush. In the 1860s a railroad hub was put into Oakland and the town boomed even more, with shipbuilders, automobile manufacturing, canneries and many more industries developing there. Oakland’s history is rich with fascinating information, but we’re not going to get into the details in this post.

As we walked around downtown Oakland, we noticed that most of the buildings looked to be from the late 1800s to early 1900s. It was clear from the architecture, the quality of construction and the appointments that this was once a very wealthy city, and that it was beautiful in its heyday. Here are a couple of examples:

Oakland continued to flourish until World War II. During the war, an influx of Continue reading →

January 2012 Update

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We are pleased to report that Part 2 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation is selling well (for a self-published book, at least). We haven’t gotten much feedback as of yet, but so far all of it has been good. If you want to read some excerpts, there is one in The Mariner Magazine taken from Chapter 1 (starts on page 18) and one on Lulu with the first few pages of the prologue (click on preview link under image of book). If you have already read the book, we’d appreciate if you would rate it on Lulu, as well.

Part 1 is also selling well. Sales had been steady for most of 2011, but since Part 2 came out, sales of Part 1 have leaped up.

We are nearly finished with our next book project, a workbook called Recipe for Success: What My Cruising Will Cost Me. The text is more or less complete, but we are finding it harder to format a workbook than a reading book. We didn’t have much time to work on it over the holidays, but now that things have slowed down, we hope to have it done by the end of the month. Once Recipe for Success is finished, Christi will focus on Part 3 of The Unexpected Circumnavigation. 

In personal news, Continue reading →

Moving from Downtown San Francisco to Jack London Square in Oakland

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As we mentioned in an earlier post, we docked Kosmos at South Beach Harbor Marina. We loved being in the heart of downtown. We could walk to many great restaurants and attractions. The marina entrance was steps from public transit that could easily and quickly take us anywhere beyond walking distance. The city was exciting and full of life, a fun place to be in general.

However, we didn’t love the marina. We were on an end tie, and it was a long walk to the boat from the gate — we estimate a full quarter mile. One of our friends commented that at night the dock was eerie — that it looked like the hallway from “The Shining.”

Our slip was exposed to the bay and very rocky — so much so that Christi Continue reading →

CA Academy of Sciences and Japanese Tea Garden, San Fran, CA

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Another fun thing that Christi did one day while Eric was at work was to go to the California Academy of Sciences and Japanese Tea Garden, both located in Golden Gate Park (the park is located close to the northwest tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge). Christi and her friend Kim took public transit from the ballpark over to the park, enjoying the pretty views along the way. San Francisco is visually an attractive city.

The California Academy of Sciences is actually several museums all rolled into one facility. The ticket to get in was $30, which is pretty expensive for a museum, but once inside, she saw why it was so much. There is a lot to do there, and a lot of staff on hand to answer questions and offer help.

Upon arrival, Christi and Kim made a beeline for the world’s largest all digital Planetarium to catch the show “Life: A Cosmic Story” narrated by Jodie Foster. It was a surprisingly interesting history of the universe, illustrating how microbiology and astronomy are inter-connected in the great scale of the universe. (In a weird coincidence, the night before, Christi watched the movie “Contact” for the first time. “Contact” stars Jodie Foster, who played an astronomer who found life on another galaxy.)

In the middle of the museum building is a 90 foot diameter (27.5 meter) glass dome that houses a tropical forest. A walkway circles the interior of the dome, climbing higher and higher, allowing people to look at the various plants and animals along the way. We didn’t see many animals at the bottom, but near the top we saw a couple birds and a few butterflies.

Kim loved it. Christi though the concept was cool, but Continue reading →

Angel Island, San Francisco Bay

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We thought that while we were in San Francisco we would spend tons of time playing tourist and sightseeing, but we really didn’t. We have a lot of friends and family that live up there, so most of our free time was devoted to eating out at fabulous restaurants with beloved people we rarely get to see.

One of the fun tourist activities we did was to take Kosmos overnight to Angel Island State Park, located about a mile south of Tiburon, near the Golden Gate Bridge. We chose an unusually clear and warm day to go over there. Here is a shot of our nephew and his girlfriend on the bow of Kosmos with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Here is Kosmos moored in Ayala Cove, on the north side of the island. The moorings were different than any others we’ve seen before and were difficult to tie onto. Fortunately, the Continue reading →