Take the Helm, or Don't: Sailing Out of Bodega Bay
A licensed captain runs the boat from Bodega Harbor to open water, and hands you the wheel only if you want it.
A harbor cruise usually means a crowded deck and a narrator on a speaker. This is a thirty-three-foot sailboat with room for six and one licensed captain aboard.
Richard Crumley started Bodega Bay Sailing in 2006, and the offer he makes is unusual: work the boat as much as you like, or do nothing at all. Three hours covers about ten miles, out through the harbor mouth into the outer bay and on to open Pacific water.
The trip is private, which settles the question of who else is aboard: nobody you did not bring. The booking starts at four adult fares, and a party of two pays for four all the same. Six is the ceiling. The operator runs departures at 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM, and booking closes eight hours ahead of the slot you pick.
Private Sailing Tour of Bodega BayThree hours under sail from Bodega Harbor out to open ocean, about ten miles, with a licensed captain and six places on a thirty-three-foot boat.www.viator.comWhat Ten Miles Under Sail Covers
The route is not a loop around the harbor. The boat clears the harbor, crosses the outer bay, and keeps going into open ocean — about ten miles in three hours, with the Sonoma headlands on one side and open water on the other.
How much you do is yours to pick: the helm, the sheets, or a seat on the rail while somebody else works. Richard Crumley holds a Coast Guard license and the boat is Coast Guard inspected. Everyone aboard wears a life jacket, the inflatable kind.
The Rock Where the Sea Lions Pile Up
Bodega Rock sits off the mouth of the bay, and in the operator's own photographs it is carpeted with California sea lions and cormorants.
The operator's account of what you will see stays deliberately unshowy: lots of migratory birds, seals and sea lions generally, whales common during peak migration season. That last one names a season, not a sighting. The route is not rigid either — by the operator's description the trip is sometimes customized to what a group asks for.
Who This Boat Actually Works For
The booking floor does most of the filtering. Four adult fares is where a booking starts, which makes this a plan for a group rather than a pair. Children under six have a fare of their own, and six people is the hard ceiling on a thirty-three-foot deck.
The listing rates the activity easy for all fitness levels, and carries two cautions from the operator: not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries, or for travelers with poor cardiovascular health. The captain guides in English only.
Dress for the Water, Not the Parking Lot
Bodega Bay runs cold and grey when the inland valleys are hot, and the operator's instruction is blunt: bring warm layers, it can be chilly any time of year. Wear shoes you can move in. Food and wine are yours to bring; the boat supplies drinking water and nothing else.
There is a restroom on board. Weather is the one variable nobody on the dock controls, and the operator will cancel a sailing for it rather than push out in it.
Departures leave from the Sports Fishing Center on Bay Flat Road, in front of number 1410. Northbound on Highway 1, turn at the East Shore Road sign reading "to Bodega Head", then straight down the hill, past the stop sign, to the water.
Everyone meets at the boat: no hotel pickup, no ticket desk, nothing to redeem. Cancel at least twenty-four hours ahead for a full refund. The operator's instruction for arrival runs to a single line — just come on down to the boat.