the fog of…..well, of fog.

a lesson in the bay area’s microclimates and the sheer hallucinatory disorientation of fog at sea.
phil and i left the marina around three, ripped out of the marina with a good steady 20 knots of wind coming from the southwest and gusting to 30. we were just outside raccoon strait, when the first odd thing happened. there was a big oil tanker cruising up the bay, and by all rights it should have altered its course and passed behind us. instead, the coast guard scrambled one of its swift boats and instructed us to turn around and pass behind the tanker. another one of the coast guard’s big gun boats was behind the tanker as escort. must be part of alert orange….the government spending tons of money on petrol to guard the petroleum industry’s assets.
so it was a beautiful sunset, we’re headed back to berkeley, and i go below and make a dark and stormy for phil. the beverage had a mysterious conjuring effect on the weather on this particular day, and a liquid fog started pouring over the hills. soon, we could not see further than 50 yards in any direction. without the gps, we would have been in serious trouble.
it was an experience that both sharpened the senses to the highest degree they can possibly be, and then constantly played tricks with them. shapes materialized out of the pea soup, then disappeared as quickly. birds sounded like they were sitting on the top of the mast, then got closer seemingly, and yet still went unseen. we were enveloped by a warm thick blanket of moisture, we could have been anywhere. it was surreal, caught in a dreamlike hallucinatory fog, while being completely and totally focussed in the moment out of sheer necessity of survival.
the sunset

the liquid fog

phil in the fog