Epic Alaska Adventure - Spring 2024

Leg 21 - 6/15/2024 - Seattle, WA (KBFI) to Oakland/San Francisco, CA (KOAK)

Leg Stats

• Time Enroute: 4.6 hrs
• Distance (direct): 588nm
• Distance (actual): 652nm
• Fuel Used: 49 gal

Part of our reason for returning down the Pacific coast, other than to visit our friends in Seattle, was to stop by and see one of Katherine's coworkers in San Francisco, who has a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Ebenezer, and let him meet Magic. The Bay Area is a long flight from Seattle, and I wanted to avoid a bunch of vectoring or maneuvering on arrival, so I decided that Oakland was the best choice for visiting SF city proper... just a short ride across the Bay Bridge.

On Saturday morning, the weather was looking pretty poor for my planned flight to the San Francisco area. I had hoped to file IFR, depart early. and go high, but an Airmet for icing ruled that out and even VFR wasn't looking good.

The forecast did call for good weather to prevail along the coast, so I decided that we could follow the low terrain out to the Pacific, fly about 100 miles down the coast, and then be free of the weather.

Fortunately the weather was continuing to improve so waiting a bit to depart was best. We met up with our friends again for pizza, said our goodbyes, and they dropped us at the airport after a short stop at Home Depot for some more oil change supplies.

Although the weather was clear, it was extremely windy at the airport, so we got ready to depart quickly.

On taxi out we got some pretty cool views of the new 777X airplanes.

I studied the very complicated VFR departure procedures for BFI and decided that we would do the Vashon departure, which requires a very aggressive turn at low altitude to a tight right downwind before the westbound turn, but it gave us the best chance of staying well clear of any weather. We took off and executed the departure, and got some more cool views of Seattle.

After we cleared the Boeing Field area, we crossed the water and headed southwest towards the coast.

We encountered a little bit of rain which was easy to avoid.

Soon I had the coast in sight, and I turned left and headed south.

The weather along the coast was decent, with intermittent areas of lower clouds and showery rain, but it mostly stayed onshore while we were in the clear. I kept it pulled back in economy cruise to save on fuel for our long flight and enjoy the sights. The Oregon coast is beautiful!

Shortly after passing Newport, the clouds cleared totally and I was able to climb up to 9,500ft to head southeast into the central valley of California.

It was mostly clear skies and slight tailwinds from that point, and we flew past the beautiful Mt Shasta on the way south into the Central Valley of California.

We got into the Bay area just before sunset, and we landed in Oakland, which was much quieter than I expected.

We got an Uber into San Francisco and booked a hotel for the next 2 nights.

On Sunday morning, we woke up and walked around some while we waited to meet up with Katherine's coworker.

We were quite excited for Magic to meet Ebenezer... the weather was beautiful so we had agreed to meet down at Crissy Field, and enjoyed a great little picnic on the beach while the dogs enjoyed the off-leash beach area.

There were some beautiful views of the Golden Gate Bridge from the beach.

After the beach we walked along the shoreline and had a nice late lunch at a brewery in Ghiradelli Square.

That evening Katherine found a vegan sushi resturant that she really wanted to try, and we managed to get in as a walk-up since we didn't have reservations. Fortunately although we had to wait a bit, it was quite good.

The following day Katherine and I were officially back to remote work, so I worked from the hotel while she went into her company's (satellite) office that was not far from our hotel.

Leg Photos

Trip Leg Navigation