I saw jackrabbits at the Bayshore even before I left California. I have no idea how they got there. There were also harriers (the birds, not the planes). My friend and his Cal 25 were run out of Palo Alto Yacht Basin and he moved to Redwood City Marina, if that's off limits to liveaboards too I have no idea where he is now. He used to earn his living as a book illustrator, both novels and Silicon Valley tech manuals, and he had a little studio set up in his boat. Now that all illustration is done at a keyboard, he probably has had to move ashore.

I suppose they've closed China Basin, Oyster Point, and Alameda to liveaboards, too. I know they were trying to run the boat people away from Sausalito even when I was there. There's something about people living free of the system that infuriates both property tax payers and collectors. Sheer envy, I guess. It's sad, because the boat people gave Sausalito its charm, they were one reason the tourists came to Marin. These were real sailors, offshore people, from all over the world, many of them just holing up for a few months trying to earn some money while they waited for the winter storms to slack off, or while they worked on their boats and got them ready for the next hop, to the Canal or Hawaii.

Sausalito must just be more phony Disney and tourist crap now. Lots of nautical-sounding bars and clothing stores, but no place where you can get your diesel overhauled or fiberglass work done. The same thing is happening in Florida too. The people Sterling Hayden called "Wanderers" are being replaced by the "Cruisers",
people who sail for a hobby, not as a way of life.

I always wanted to retire in Bolinas or Inverness, up Point Reyes way, I wonder how they're doing...One way or the other, I'll see them again. My wife and I have made a pact, whichever one of us survives the death of the other, will scatter the ashes off Tomales Point, on a clear sunny day, where you can just barely see the spray from the big rollers crashing on Bodega Head up the coast.