When your bosom friend seizes you by the arm, and says to you in that
seductive sotto voce which implies a great deal more than is confessed,
"Come, let us go down to the sea in ships, and do business in the great
waters," you generally go, if you are not previously engaged. At least,
I do.
Much has been said in disfavor of yachting in San Francisco Bay. It is
inland yachting to begin with. The shelving shores prevent the
introduction of keel boats; flat and shallow hulls, with a great breadth
of beam, something able to battle with "lumpy" seas and carry plenty of
sail in rough weather, is the more practical and popular type. Atlantic
yachts, when they arrive in California waters, have their rigging cut
down one-third. Schooners and sloops with Bermudian mutton-leg sails
flourish. A modification of the English yawl is in vogue; but large
sloops are not handled conveniently in the strong currents, the chop
seas, the blustering winds, the summer fogs that make the harbor one of
the most treacherous of haunts for yachtsmen.
Think of a race when the wind is blowing from twenty-five to
thirty-five miles an hour! The surface current at the Golden Gate runs
six miles per hour and the tide-rip is often troublesome; but there is
ample room for sport, and very wild sport at times. The total area of
the bay is four hundred and eighty square miles, and there are hundreds
of miles of navigable sloughs, rivers, and creeks. One may start from
Alviso, and sail in a general direction, almost without turning, one
hundred and fifty-five miles to Sacramento city. During the voyage he is
pretty sure to encounter all sorts of weather and nearly every sort of
climate, from the dense and chilly fogs of the lower bay to the
semi-tropics of the upper shores, where fogs are unknown, and where the
winds die away on the surface of beautiful waters as blue as the Bay of
Naples.
There are amateur yachtsmen, a noble army of them, who charter a craft
for a day or two, and have more fun in a minute than they can recover
from in a month. I have sailed with these, at the urgent request of one
who has led me into temptation more than once, but who never deserted me
in an evil hour, even though he had to drag me out of it by the heels. I
am at this moment reminded of an episode which still tickles my memory,
and, much as a worthy yachtsman may scorn it, I confess that this moment
is more to me than that of any dash into deep water which I can at
present recall.
It was a summer Saturday, the half-holiday that is the reward of a
week's hard labor. With the wise precaution which is a prominent
characteristic of my bosom friend, a small body of comrades was gathered
together on the end of Meigg's Wharf, simultaneously scanning, with
vigilant eyes, the fleets of sailing crafts as they swept into view on
the strong currents of the bay. It was a little company of youths, sick
of the world and its cares, and willing, nay eager, to embark for other
climes. They came not unfurnished. I beheld with joy numerous demijohns
with labels fluttering like ragged cravats from their long necks;
likewise stacks of vegetables, juicy joints, fruits, and more demijohns,
together with a small portable iceberg; blankets were there, also guns,
pistols, and fishing tackle. If one chooses to quit this world and its
follies, one must go suitably provided for the next. Experience teaches
these things.
The breeze freshened; the crowd grew impatient; more fellows arrived;
another demijohn was seen in the distance swiftly bearing down upon us
from the upper end of the wharf, and at this moment a dainty yacht
skimmed gracefully around the point of Telegraph Hill, picking her way
among the thousand-masted fleet that whitened the blue surface of the
bay, and we at once knew her to be none other than the "Lotus," a crack
yacht, as swift as the wind itself. In fifteen minutes there was a
locker full of good things, and a deck of jolly fellows, and when we
cast off our bow-line, and ran up our canvas, we were probably the
neatest thing on the tide. I know that I felt very much like a lay
figure in somebody's marine picture, and it was quite wonderful to
behold how suddenly we all became sea-worthy and how hard we tried to
prove it.
A heavy bank of cloud was piled up in the west, through which stole long
bars of sunshine, gilding the leaden waves. The "Lotus" bent lovingly to
the gale. Some of us went into the cabin, and tried to brace ourselves
in comfortable and secure corners--item--there are no comfortable or
secure seats at sea, and there will be none until there is a revolution
in ship-building. Our yachting afforded us an infinite variety of
experience in a very short time; we had a taste of the British Channel
as soon as we were clear of the end of the wharf. It was like rounding
Gibraltar to weather Alcatraz, and, as we skimmed over the smooth flood
in Raccoon Straits, I could think of nothing but the little end of the
Golden Horn. Why not? The very name of our yacht was suggestive of the
Orient. The sun was setting; the sky deeply flushed; the distance highly
idealized; homeward hastened a couple of Italian fishing boats, with
their lateen sails looking like triangular slices cut out of the full
moon; this sort of thing was very soothing. We all lighted our
cigarettes, and lapsed into dreamy silence, broken only by the plash of
ripples under our bow and the frequent sputter of matches quite
necessary to the complete consumption of our tobacco.
[Illustration: Meigg's Wharf in 1856]
About dusk our rakish cutter drifted into the shelter of the hills along
the north shore of the bay, and with a chorus of enthusiastic cheers we
dropped anchor in two fathoms of soft mud. We felt called upon to sing
such songs as marines are wont to sing upon the conclusion of a voyage,
and I believe our deck presented a tableau not less picturesque than
that in the last act of "Black-eyed Susan." Susan alone was wanting to
perfect our nautical happiness.
How charming to pass one's life at sea, particularly when it is a calm
twilight, and the anchor is fast to the bottom: the sheltering shores
seem to brood over you; pathetic voices float out of the remote and
deepening shadows; and stars twinkle so naturally in both sea and sky
that a fellow scarcely knows which end he stands on.
I have preserved a few leaves from a log written by my bosom friend. I
present them as he wrote them, although he apparently had "Happy
Thoughts" on the brain, and much Burnand had well nigh made him mad.