Rambles: San Francisco

Disclaimer: I make no profit from my writing and do not own the Star Trek franchise or the canon characters.

Captain Carhart signed his name on the PADD and handed it to Kirk, who signed his name. With those signatures, Jim stood relieved of the command of Enterprise for the next thirty days. Carhart, the lead engineer for Enterprise's refit would be responsible for every inch of the ship until the end of the dockside availability.

Jim took the turbolift heading for his quarters. His bags were already in his BOQ room at Headquarters. Looking at his PADD one last time he looked at his "to do" list. There was only one item left undone. He had several days of field research left for his paper, "Trade-routes, Sail and Strategy." There were documents and maps that were not available in digitized form. He would have to go to the libraries that held them. Then he would write it up and submit it to the Continuing Education Board at the Academy. He walked out of his quarters heading for the transporter and his first day of research.

Jim stepped off of the transporter platform at the Academy, determined to have a good time. He had what he considered his rambling kit with him a reproduction engineer's bag. Today he had loaded it with a small first aid kit Bones had designed specifically for Jim. It was divided into two sections a small but versatile kit for any emergency situation that Jim might find himself in. (Not that anything would happen.) In a separate compartment of the first aid kit Bones had included several hypo spray units preloaded with antidotes to Jim's worst allergies. In addition to the first aid kit Jim had put in a small sketchbook, assorted pencils, and a PADD. Jim's drawings would never get him confused with Da Vinci, but he enjoyed sketching points of architectural interest, ship rigging details and other things that caught his eye.

Jim walked at a steady pace from the Presidio aiming initially for Fort Point and the Golden Gate Bridge. He was headed for the Balclutha and the Maritime Museum. The only drawback to heading that way was that he might be spotted by tourists and he wasn't sure that he wanted to risk that. He was not taking the direct route, he wanted to walk along the beach and sneak up on the ships at the museum.

As he walked, he remembered one of the first lectures that Capt. Pike had given in his tactics class. He had stated that the most gifted tactical officers were students of not just military subjects, but students of trade patterns. He had also said that any officer who wanted to make the leap from tactics to strategy needed to understand how trade routes, navigation challenges and economics combined to create points of influence. As he recalled that lecture and others, he decided that he would chance the crowds and spend some time in the Museum looking at the ship models.

When he arrived at Ft. Point he turned to the right and walked along the edge of the Bay, stopping from time to time to look at the islands. Today Alcatraz caught his eye. In the early days of the California gold rush, Alcatraz had served as a coastal defense fort. With the common cannon of the day the fort could cover a radius of over 4 kilometers. He sat for a bit between the dunes and Crissy Field, and considered the effect of the batteries at Ft. Point, Ft. Mason and Alcatraz. He thought that he would not have wanted to be leading a flotilla into San Francisco Bay during the days of sail.

He stood up and continued walking along the beach front toward Ft. Mason, as he came around the point and could see the municipal pier and the museum ships he was struck by the contrast between the Balclutha and the C. A. Thayer. The Balclutha excelled in her day in the carriage of goods over the deep ocean, at the expense of maneuverability and a large crew needed to operate her sails. The Thayer excelled in coastal trade, carrying lumber from Seattle to the rail heads in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The two ships were a classic example of Captain Pike's theory. Schooners were poorly suited to long haul shipping on the long runs of the Pacific and Global trade routes. By the same token no sailor in his right mind would try and load logs on the wire chutes of Mendocino on the Balclutha, she was just too big and clumsy.

Kirk walked along the shoreline towards the Museum building. When he got to the Museum he climbed up the bleachers on the Hyde St. side and found spot with a good view of the ships. Sitting down he pulled his sketchbook and pencils out of the bag and roughed out the two ships that he was concentrating on. As he sketched he added details from his knowledge of ships so that his drawing included furled sails on the yard arms of the Balclutha. The Thayer also had furled sails when he was done. When the sketch was finished he pulled a small sprayer and applied a clear sealant to the page so that the pencil would not rub off when he closed the book.

After everything had been returned to its place in the bag, he looked up and realized that it was nearly noon. His belly was also sending him messages of discontent. It was time to find someplace to get a bite to eat.

To put it mildly most seafood disagreed with him and he didn't want to risk Bone's wrath. Fisherman's Wharf was off the list both because of the tourists and the fact that the smell of the boiling clams, oysters and lobsters made him sick to his stomach. He decided to look for one of the smaller bakeries in the area avoiding two or three of the ones most likely to have tourists. He remembered that there was a bakery just off of Washington Square so he made his way to the Hyde St. Cable Car turnaround and then to Columbus Ave.

Though he considered it against the spirit of rambling, he was hungrier now and didn't want to back track or find that the place he remembered was closed or out of business, so he pulled out his PADD and pulled up the restaurant finder application. He was pleased to discover that the little place he was headed for was still in business and open.

It was an old school deli and he ordered a chicken salad sandwich at the counter then sat down in a small booth at the back of the deli. With his back to the wall and a view of the street. His position had certain tactical advantages. He had a good field of vision and the approaches to the table were limited. As he realized this he grumbled to himself that he needed to stop thinking like a starship captain for a few days. It was the curse of being good at his job, always seeing the tactical situation, and trying to fit it into the strategic situation and its requirements.

He took out the PADD that he had been using for his research, and brought up his copy of The Young Officer's Sheet Anchor. Though he was a trained Starfleet Officer there was much old sailing jargon that had gone by the boards over the years and when reading period literature helped in visualizing and understanding the equipment, operation and maintenance of ships.

He jumped to a book mark and looked at a page showing yardarm rigging, he reached into his bag and found the sketchbook and compared his sketch to the pictures. He decided that he had done a good job with the rigging in his sketch and turned his attention to the sandwich, sipping his coffee between bites.

He considered a cannoli, then remembering Bone's lecture to him about watching his weight, he decided to have a second cup of coffee. Over the second cup he made travel arrangements to Key West where he would be checking some documents at the Mel Fisher Museum.

Author's Notes:

Thanks also to Starquilter57 for betaing

Balclutha and Thayer are real ships and can be found at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park.

Darcy Lever's book The Young Officer's Sheet Anchor. A book dating from the age of sail, read by several generations of Merchant and Naval officers as they learned their trade.

The Mel Fisher Museum in Key West, Florida is not only a treasure museum but a rich trove of documents on the seagoing trade of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.