Video: A Southeast Day At Tomales Bay

andyatos

Well-Known Member
With a north Pacific High producing north to northwest winds 15 miles offshore and a low off southern California creating southerly flow, we had the classic large, counter clockwise spinning eddy along the northern California coast… giving us southeast winds at Tomales Bay.

The winds were already blowing when the sensors turned on at 6 am so I got there early and was on the water at 9:30 am. Sailed for a little over 5 hours with one break on a nice Point Reyes beach.

Conditions varied from 5-10 mph to as high as 25 mph “Fog Bank Blasts” from the cold air pouring down off the northeast side of Point Reyes and jetting out from localized canyons on to the water.

Was a nice day with Dennis, Greg and Phil. Mostly Lasers but got some nice shots of Phil in his brand spankin' new Sunfish so I figure I'd share the day with you guys. Here’s some video of the day.

- Andy
 
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Another great video from Andyatos. This was a beautiful day and being out there with these guys is like going to sailing school. Also, Andy's high quality video footage lets me share the day with my wife. It was really cool at minute 3:24 when we were all in view and sailing north together. I went home pretty beat but also very elated. Thanks for posting Andy!
 
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Oh, and thanks for the compliment on the sail while we were out there, Andy. I wasn't hearing too well and thought you were saying what a beautiful day it was and my response was, "It is..." My wife thought I was being rude! The other really cool part of the video is at the beginning when you were coming in from the northwest and then turned west. From the shore it seemed like you were going faster than the video shows.
 
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Andy: great video, and thanks for posting it! Tomales Bay looks like a great place to sail. I may have to tow my Sunfish out from Phoenix this summer and give it a go. I love that area (spent a summer in Petaluma back in the day, courtesy of Uncle Sam); but I don’t think I’ve ever laid eyes on Tomales Bay before. Your video is really sharp and clear - what camera did you shoot that with? And, you seemed to have real-time wind information (?) ... how did you get that?

- Bob
 
Your video is really sharp and clear - what camera did you shoot that with?
Hi Bob! The camera I'm using is a GoPro Hero 4 Black. But why not a more current GoPro version? That's because I also use a Sennheiser MKE 2 Elements external waterpoof microphone. And the MKE 2 Elements only works with the Hero 4. It's great to be able to capture good quality sound while sailing instead of the poor, muffled audio that you normally get with the water proof GoPro camera case.

And, you seemed to have real-time wind information (?) ... how did you get that?
If you mean by that wind sensors in the Tomales Bay area, I use iWindsurf.com which is a paid service that includes detailed micrometeorological wind forecasting. But I also use iKitesurf.com which is a free service that has tons of sensors all over the place.

I also use Windy.com which is a pretty accurate wind model forecasting tool. What's nice about Windy.com is it doesn't just give predicted winds at the surface. It gives predicted winds at 330, 2,000, 2,500 and higher feet above the surface. This really helps with making your own forecasts about what the wind is going to do on the surface and how strong it will be.

Cheers,

- Andy
 

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