Trip Prep and nearby ocean traveling

In order to get ready for our longer trip we spent 72 hours on the boat in ocean waters, Feb. 16th, 2008 and cruised approximately 137 nautical miles. It definitely was different than the 17 days we spent cruising the delta. I never thought I would have "landsickness", but the rolling in the ocean created a much more intense after effect.
Casting off from Grand Marina in Alameda, we headed over to the Presidio Yacht Club located under the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We spoke with the Habor Master, Louis about a guest slip and then with the Travis Air Force club manager. The club manager shared his perspective that he preferred "the delta", if you run into trouble it is 60 feet either way to swim to shore!
True as that may be, and as beautiful as the San Francisco Bay, Delta and Sacramento river systems are, the ocean is a robust and wonderful experience.
We left the Presidio and cruised about 25 miles to Drakes Bay, an excellent natural anchorage. We joined three sailboats, one crab boat and a fishing boat in anchoring, our second anchoring event.
We set the anchor in about 20 feet, of water, 120 feet of rode on a good sandy bottom, no kelp or grass. We did some dead reckoning and set the GPS anchor alarm. And of course, like good paranoid sailors, we woke up every other hour to check our position. We definitely moved with the current and wind, but at morinng ended up about 10 feet from our initial position.