This is the beginning the Log of the SIESTA, and our trip to bring her home to the Florida Keys...It was hard to leave the San Francisco Area. After all, we lived there almost seven years and enjoyed this area of incredible beauty, and diversity. We leave many wonderful friends that we hope to stay in touch with over the years...

9/29/2001 - We left our berth in Ballena Isle Marina in Alameda on a Saturday afternoon. Although we had all the stuff IN THE BOAT, it was not stowed in any reasonable order, EVERYTHING WAS EVERYWHERE! A lot of friends from the marina were there to say goodbye. We were excited with anticipation, yet sad at the same time. We were leaving many good friends who had been our neighbors at the marina for several years. We hope to have at least some of them visit us in Mexico early next year. The boat was a total mess. There was STUFF everywhere: spares of all kinds and sizes, paddles, books, charts, cans of paint and other maintenance items, buckets, new sail bags, computer gear, new lines that needed to be installed...you name it, it was somewhere IN our boat! We stopped at South Beach, to get to the West Marine in San Francisco to pick up 7 additional jerry jugs for diesel fuel. We only had three jugs full of diesel, which we got earlier at the West Marine in Oakland. While tied up at the fuel dock in South Beach, we could hear the roar at Pac Bell stadium, a stone's throw away, where a history-making home run had just taken place.

With the seven more jugs piled on deck on top, we motored to Tiburón, followed by CSY 44 WT Sunshine Daydream. The Caradonna´s had come to say goodbye to us the next morning. We had planned to attend a party that Mai and Volker Dolch were having in their fashionable new place in Belvedere that evening. They called on VHF several times from their high vantage point, but...to no avail. We had our work cut out to get ready for departure next morning, and missed a lovely evening with such wonderful hosts.

We had planned to take the dinghy off the davits, and tie it upside-down on deck. It is not a good idea to carry the dinghy on davits offshore, but....the 15 HP Evinrude outboard was locked to the transom, and I could NOT find the key, no matter how hard I looked. So...we decided to take a chance and take the dinghy on the davits. Hank Delevati, a good friend who was our crew for this trip, became the master "weaver", tying together the miriad items on deck, as well as storing stuff below in the shower and elsewhere. We would not have been ready to leave without Hank! I was at this point halucinating and not very effective. After a solid month of fast-paced work on the boat, I was beat and was ready to slow down and stay a few more days. But, on Sunday, September 30th, at approximately 8:30am,  SIESTA sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge one last time, at least for a very looong while...in the company of SUNSHINE DAYDREAM, sailing along with us and taking video and pictures of the event.