My Birthday Week

My birthday week 2025 kicked off early at Roberto’s place in Menlo Park. To get here I traveled 509 miles from Southern California. We set the alarm for 5 AM, bleary-eyed but pumped for our personal watercraft adventure ahead. By just shy of 7 AM, we were chowing down on breakfast, the sun barely creeping over the San Francisco horizon. Roberto, always the over-prepared host, whipped up scrambled eggs, scones, and a frothy latte from his fancy coffee machine for me—since he doesn’t touch the stuff.

Over breakfast, we got to talking about past motorcycle rides—those wild Mexico adventures and the crew we rode with. We laughed about the Olympic Peninsula trip during the COVID days, when my 2020 BMW GSA 1250 was still shiny with barely any miles. Now, in 2025, “Gordo” has racked up over 62,000 miles, mostly from tearing through Mexico. The conversation spiraled to other COVID-era rides, like the one down the coast.

Then I spotted a wooden cutting board on Roberto’s counter. “Yo, isn’t that the one Mike’s dad gave you?” I said. I was there in Atherton when Mike handed it over. His dad, over 90, still crafting those colorful, small-square wooden boards. We cracked up, memories stacking up like the miles we’d ridden. Soon, we’ll be off to Vietnam for a ten-day dirt bike tour, but for now, it’s all about the watercraft trip from Oyster Point Marina to Sacramento.

Roberto’s gear is a gearhead’s dream—more than he’ll ever need: two Garmin GPS units, a trip plotter for deep-sea fishing, even a Sea-Doo Fish Pro with a Garmin Echomap 62 for navigating the darkest ocean depths. But with all that gear comes chaos. At Oyster Bay Marina in South San Francisco, Roberto realized he’d misplaced the locking pin for his trailer dock box. “You know I travel light, man,” I said, showing him my Garmin boating app on my iPhone the day before—simple, reliable navigation. That’s my style.

We met Jim Smith, the harbormaster, a fellow watercraft nut stoked about our five-day Delta expedition. He handed Roberto a float plan form, saying, “Fill this out and stick it on your windshield.

If you don’t come back, we’ll know where to look.” Roberto filled it out with his usual overzealous precision. We paid the $16 launch ramp fee, but as I prepped my watercraft, thinking Roberto was ahead of schedule, he rolled up late. “Ralph, you’re gonna kill me,” he said, grimacing.

He’d forgotten something else. Now decked out in his Mustang PFD—loaded with a survival knife, personal locator beacon, VHF radio, and more—I sighed, quoting some old wisdom: “If you’ve got 100 minutes to do something critical, spend 99 thinking it through and one minute acting upon the problem.” Roberto clearly skipped the thinking part. I didn’t have a hacksaw—mine was in my motorcycle tool bag, not my watercraft kit—so he unhooked the trailer and sped back home, an hour round trip.

By 7:51 AM, I was waiting at the marina, the water flat calm, the sun casting an orange glow over the date palms lining the causeway. The air was crisp at 64°F, with a high of 81 expected. A ferry pulled in nearby, shuttling commuters to downtown San Francisco. I thought again about asking the harbor patrol for a prybar to bust open Roberto’s Master Lock—it wouldn’t take much—but held off.

Sure enough, Roberto was back within the hour, key in hand, and we launched without further drama.

We cruised past biotech giants like Cytokinetics, their sleek buildings a stone’s throw from Oyster Bay Marina, and headed through the Bay, passing Angel Island, Treasure Island, and Alcatraz in the distance. The Bay Bridge loomed, shrouded in misty clouds, so we steered clear, aiming for the Sacramento River. I was navigating using the Garmin boating app with my iPhone secured using quadlock mounted to the ram mount on my Yamaha FXHO.

The ride was mostly smooth, and by late morning, we pulled into Benicia’s marina, a historic town that was California’s third incorporated city and briefly the state capital in 1853-54. Its waterfront, once buzzing with Gold Rush ships, still had that old-school charm. After fueling up—$50 for Roberto, $100 for me to top off my two 5 gallon cans—we walked three blocks to Bella Sienna for some upscale Italian. The waitress had me at mashed potatoes and gravy, and the blackened mahi mahi was outstanding. We skipped dessert, and by mid-afternoon, we reached our cabin in Walnut Grove, wiped out from the 75-mile haul on the water crossing under the Bay Bridge, Richmond Bridge, Carquinez Bridge, Benicia Bridge, and finally the Antioch Bridge.

We each had our own room at the B&W resort $102 each) for the privilege and that included overnight docking by the California Delta, the soft lapping of water against the dock lulling us into a deep nap. When we woke, the sun was slanting through the cabin’s window, casting a warm glow across the wooden floor. Our stomachs growled. “Man, I’m starving,” Roberto muttered, stretching with a yawn. I pulled out my iPhone and scrolled through options near Isleton and Walnut Grove. The town’s got history—founded in 1850 by John W. Sharp, who used its walnut and oak groves for steamboat fuel, it became a key port on the Sacramento River. By the 1870s, it was a trade hub with canneries, hotels, and a theater. Chinese immigrants from Zhongshan and Sze Yup built the Delta’s largest Chinatown, turning marsh into farmland, while Japanese settlers shaped a vibrant Japantown, known for pear orchards. A 1915 fire razed the Chinese quarter, and WWII internment hit the Japanese community hard—both towns are now National Historic Landmarks.

My screen lit up with a hit: Pizza Factory, a short watercraft ride away. “Roberto, they’ve got pizza,” I said. “Does it ever not?” he replied, standing up. I checked Uber—$40 fare. “Nah, too steep,” I said. “Let’s take the jet skis.” Roberto nodded, and we grabbed our life vests, heading to the dock where our watercraft bobbed gently. The Delta shimmered under the late afternoon sun. I checked the time—pizza would be ready at 5:30 PM. At 45 mph, we’d have five minutes to spare. Pizza Factory’s hours lined up perfectly. We hopped on, engines humming, probably tracing the same river routes 1870s ferries plied. We docked near Walnut Grove’s marina and climbed the stairs to Pizza Factory. The smell of warm dough and cheese hit us hard. Our pizza and salads were ready. I sipped a Lagunitas beer; Roberto stuck with mineral water. “Good call skipping the Uber,” Roberto said. Next door, an ice cream shop’s Open sign caught our eye. “Obviously,” I replied. We grabbed cones and sat inside, watching the historic bridge that once united the town’s divided halves, savoring the treat as the sun dipped low. We cruised back to the cabin just as the last light faded, full and content after day one.

The next morning, the sun was just cresting as I kicked off the second day of my birthday week. We headed to the Sacramento Marina, docked in our covered boat slip ($50), and Ubered to the Vagabond Inn in Old Town Sacramento. We toured like tourists, then hit the Michelin-rated Camden for dinner. After, we napped at the hotel. Waking up, we checked out the finest railroad museum in the country, then Ubered to Sana’a Cafe at 901 K St, Sacramento, CA 95814, for a final latte, baklava, and assorted desserts. The next day, we returned to the Sacramento Marina, turned in the key fob for the clubhouse, restroom, and showers, and paid our $50 slip fees. With our watercraft already fueled, we had two options: break the return trip into two days or gun it in one.

Clouds were forming, but the wind was calm. We cruised down the Sacramento River, and partway through, Roberto spotted an island cut that looked like a shortcut. It was a solid move, passing huge ships heading to Sacramento before we hit Benicia. At the marina, we loaded our final 10 gallons of fuel into our thirsty watercraft and decided to beat the weather back to Oyster Point. We hit some light chop just outside San Francisco but made it to Oyster Bay Marina by 1:30 PM. We debriefed, high-fived, and I texted the harbormaster to cancel our float plan, which had us arriving tomorrow.

Back at Roberto’s in Menlo Park, we washed down the jet skis, showered, and headed to the finest ramen spot in the area: Ramen Nagi at 541 Bryant St, Palo Alto. A Tokyo transplant founded in 2004 by Chef Satoshi Ikuta, it’s been drawing techies, students, and ramen heads since its 2018 U.S. debut. Pro tip: get there early to beat the rush. And that, my friend, is how I spent my birthday week on a watercraft adventure. As Anthony Bourdain once said, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” This trip, with its mix of good eats, history, and shared memories, felt like a taste of all that—and this concludes a perfectly executed birthday week.

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