Ayala Cove, at Angel Island I miss the salt air. I miss hauling all our duffel bags and crates of picnic supplies and extra clothes across the parking lot; down the gangway. I remember flip-flopping along rickety, briny smelling docks, knowing where the weak spots were and avoiding them, to our beloved sailboat. I say, "sailboat," though there were many to love through the years. There was the O'Day, which we sailed for one day only. The O'Day fell from grace before it could be christened when, on the open ocean, just outside the Santa Cruz harbor, we smacked off a wave that opened a large hidden crack in the hull. My father, calm as a cucumber even in the face of a nearly three-foot long crack in the hull of the boat, crawled in the open cabin, took a look, and stoically turned for the harbor. Once the O'Day was returned, my father chose an Aurora, which was a sweet little boat of about 20 feet. My father liked that he'd found a boat h...
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