boating with keith and bill

Whoa, I've neglected this blog for nearly a month. Sorry about that. Honestly, I was having too much fun! There were four solid weekends of jam-packed fun activities.

1st weekend - Pebble Beach Car Show
2nd weekend - Keith arrived from New Zealand & we went to Monterey (golfing, etc)
3rd weekend - Hanging out with Keith in SF & Burlingame (boating, fishing, sight seeing, and visiting Ian & Linda)
4th weekend - Celebrating our anniversary and Danielle's birthday

From 2009 Boating with Bill

Having my brother-in-law in town from New Zealand was surely the highlight. We had such an awesome time. I keep thinking that even though I've only met Keith twice, I feel like I've known him my whole life. We enjoy doing lots of the same things and generally just get along really well. We have fun whether we're out golfing or just sitting back having a beer at home.

While he was in town, we did a bunch of stuff including spending a day in San Francisco. However, the highlight had to be going fishing with my friend Bill on his boat. Sadly, we didn't catch many fish...in fact Keith (who is an avid fisherman in New Zealand) was the only one to catch anything. First, he caught a little crab who had grabbed onto his line. Then, he caught a shark! I'm not kidding, it was probably 2-3 feet long. I tried to get the camera but just as Keith was pulling him into the boat, he wiggled and unhooked himself to get free. This was a good thing though since we'd planned to release him anyway but none of us wanted to get the hook out of his mouth...so he saved us the trouble.

Most of the day fishing involved drinking beer and taking pictures. The weather was amazing; it must have been close to 90 degrees that weekend in San Francisco, which is unheard of. We were comfortable even without shirts on the boat, although the water did get somewhat rough when we attempted to head out to Alcatraz. (Ultimately, we turned back to the safety of Treasure Island.) We were glad to have Bill as our captain since he's an accomplished sailor.

From 2009 Boating with Bill

One of the highlights for me was getting to see the new Bay Bridge construction up-close. We went under it a couple times and snapped some great pictures of this engineering marvel. I think it's pretty cool that I'm getting to see this built during my lifetime, considering that it'll be around for a long time. It's sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see such a major construction project completed. And it reminds me of those old photos of the Golden Gate Bridge under construction, and how odd the bay looked without a bridge there. Although, the construction of the Golden Gate may have been more amazing to watch, considering the technology of the time.

All in all, a great 4 weekends in a row!

Oh and by the way, I realized I like boats almost as much as I like cars but I don't think I'm ready to deal with how much maintenance would be involved in owning one.

Click here for the full gallery from the boating trip.