The Napa River opens onto hundreds of narrow channels like this.

Winter on San Francisco Bay belongs to the powerboats. The sailors have all spring, summer and early fall, but we get the winter. The water is flat calm and glassy, at least when the storm window is closed and it’s not blowing a hurricane from the south. Motoring is as smooth as it gets all year long.

Crash went the rubrail, bang went the ventilator grill, boom went the teak railing! It was an exciting weekend on the water, but in the end, no one was hurt.

There is an annual boat decorating contest at Oyster Cove Marina. Mary Buckman always takes first prize, but some of the rest of us still participate - where there are lights, there is hope. Last year, Mary decorated her boat with port and starboard teddy bears - green teddys on the starboard side, red to port.

Poor Mary B got hammered last weekend coming back from Ballena Isle Marina, normally a pleasant beam reach. The weather on Sunday wasn’t nearly as mild as it had been when she left Oyster Cove the day before. The wind kicked up from the northwest, making her sail home a slog to weather. As we all know, a gentlewoman never, ever, sails to weather. The unexpected rough water brought things crashing down inside the cabin. Shelves emptied themselves onto the cabin sole, lockers deposited their contents and Harry the cat hung on for dear life.

Sweetie and Cabo Bob are headed over to the KKMI boat yard in Richmond this weekend to attend a diesel maintenance class. I think this is a great idea because knowledge is power, and if we, God forbid, ever had to replace one of the engines on the Dancing Dragon, we would be as good a sunk. I’m not sure what a replacement engine would cost for our boat, but it must be at least 40K, which is about 35K more than I have on hand at the moment. Just thinking of having to replace an engine makes me shudder and quake.

That blasted leak is back, damn! When we bought the trawler in December of 2004 it had a terrible leak in the guest cabin. We didn’t notice it right away because the previous owner had covered the damage with wall paper. After we had the boat home for a few weeks, the wall paper began to sag and water stains began to soak through. Peeling the paper away from the teak wall revealed a hideous sight – the blackened wood that water damage left unchecked leaves behind.

I know lots of single women who own and maintain their own boats. The Divine Esther is a frequent subject of my column. Her boat Meri Mate is probably the most Bristol Yacht in our marina. This past summer, she saved herself $12,000 by removing the teak decks from the flying bridge on her CHB trawler and then filling every screw hole with epoxy, then surfacing and painting the deck with non skid.

Kim HaworthBoth Dancing Dragons at the brokerage dock.