Have You Seen the Daughter of Mount Tamalpais?
Vikas Kapur recently won a copy of Tales of the Fish Patrol by Jack London, when he was the first to read and respond to a story about our new Latitude 38 bookstore. He subsequently sent in a couple of photos and a track of his Saturday sail out of Sausalito, aboard Modern Sailing’s Beneteau 41. During the sail he took the shot below, showing the symmetry of the hills in the foreground and Mount Tamalpais in the background.
One of the crew noticed this alignment a few years ago and called it “Mt. Tam With Her Daughter.” Most who’ve sailed this classic loop think they’ve seen it all, but there’s always something new to notice.
While we keep looking at various tracks on the Bay, we wonder if anyone has ever tried to spell their name or create some type of art with their sail track. Either way, this 27-mile loop of the Bay, with an average speed of five knots, offers the endlessly stunning views of various parts of the Bay and a broad, comfortable spectrum of Bay sailing conditions.
This coming weekend doesn’t look as good as the last one, but there’s plenty of good sailing ahead.
I learned the story of the “The Sleeping Maiden” from my father years 60-70 years ago while sailing on the Bay and looking at Mt Tamalpais from a distance…here’s
some more info:
“The name Tamalpais was first recorded in 1845. It comes from the Coast Miwok name for this mountain, támal. Various folk etymologies also exist. One holds that it comes from the Spanish Tamal paÃs, meaning “Tamal country,” Tamal being the name that the Spanish missionaries gave to the Coast Miwok people. Another holds that the name is the Coast Miwok word for “sleeping maiden” and is taken from a “Legend of the Sleeping Maiden”. Supposedly, the legend is that the mountain’s contour reflects the reclining profile of a young Miwok girl who was saved from a rival tribe by the shuddering of the mountain. However, this legend actually has no basis in Coast Miwok myth and is instead a piece of Victorian-era apocrypha. The “Sleeping Lady” story was the creation of playwright Dan Totheroh, who wrote the first play performed at Mt. Tamalpais’ Mountain Theater about Tamalpa, the Mountain Queen.
(I like the sleeping maiden story handed down by my father best….)