These cute electrical boats are the Segways of the San Francisco Bay

Last weekend, when I was sweating at my East Bay house, I kept coming back on an afternoon a few weeks ago getting off a wooden dock onto a 21-foot electric boat that was pushed off an Alameda pier and putt -putt-putted in almost silence into the Oakland Estuary, one of the dreamiest quiet corners of the San Francisco Bay.

It was the closest I will likely get to an uppercase C cruise in the near future (maybe ever?) And just the kind of wholesome – while also deeply weird, borderline surreal – escape I needed.

During a wonderful break from the stress of work and the relentless demands of our parents over the past 15 months, my husband and I managed to do the unthinkable: We had an appointment for lunch and during the week. We left our computers and young children behind, ordered a picnic lunch at an overwater cafe, and spun across the open water with little effort (and a relatively low budget).

There was music to put on make-up, a pretty solid picnic meal and rosé during the day (drank by me, the non-driver). All of this happened in a ship, a Bae Boat, which is a combination of a self-propelled gondola, a golf cart and a Segway. In short, they’re a little cheesy but extremely charming, the ultimate easy-to-live Bay Area machine.

The Taylor family takes one of their 21-foot Duffy boats for a spin in the calm Oakland Estuary.

Patricia Chang / Special for SFGATE

The boat was a pristine little thing with a scalloped bimini top and white vinyl pillows, a moving table, roll-up Isinglass windows, and a sound system connected to our cellphone playlists. The wraparound seating would have been terribly fun with a bunch of friends or family, but Tim and I felt self-indulgent having it to ourselves as we bounced around this cove of the larger, much more turbulent cove like a couple of medium-sized businesses. old tourists listening to Velvet Underground.

Bae Boats is the pandemic-era project of a Lafayette couple, Logan and Robyn Taylor, who invested in their small fleet of three Duffy electric boats, opened a business in Alameda’s Grand Marina, and rented them to multi-generation families who Meet for the first time time in many months, bachelorette parties and whoever still wants to spend a few hours circumnavigating the Oakland Estuary at a breezy 10 km / h. They are so easy to use that virtually anyone can ride them. Zero experience necessary.

Tim and I ordered sandwiches at Mosley’s Cafe, a tiny little spot at the end of Grand Marina Pier overlooking the water and the Coast Guard Island. It’s an awfully charming place to sit with a glass of wine or cold brew coffee and eat ham and white cheddar on a croissant or melted tuna. The menu is small but good for a picnic lunch on the water.

A picnic lunch box to eat on the water from Mosley’s Cafe in Grand Marina in Alameda.

Patricia Chang / Special for SFGATE

While we waited for our food, the Taylors took us to where we could – and definitely couldn’t – take the boat: past the Fruitvale Bridge, where the water becomes dangerously shallow and there are “large piles of metal” below and outside into the open space San Francisco Bay, where there is commercial shipping, high winds and, as I imagine, all sorts of liability issues. They gave us a CB radio to contact if there were any problems and to coordinate our return. After filling out the various release documents online, the entire process took maybe five minutes.

BAE Boats is an environmentally friendly electric boat rental company based in Alameda, California.

Patricia Chang / Special for SFGATE

Robyn Taylor explained that each of the boats is named after a place she and Logan traveled: Santorini, Greece, where they got engaged, Kauai, where they got married, and Théoule-sur-Mer, a village in southern France where they spent time with their children last summer. The company name Bae stands for Bay Area Electric, but its other meaning is obviously not lost.

Logan took us to the boat and showed us where the life jackets were, how to roll up the windows, and how to operate the quirky but straightforward ship. Our only moment of uncertainty came when we turned it on and heard almost nothing – it was practically silent compared to a traditional outboard motor. Otherwise, we were confident we’d take her for a spin, which Logan said was the first thing most people do: “We’ll watch them go out and make a donut right away.” And with that he pushed us off the dock.

After pushing ourselves away, we drove out of the marina and steered around yachts for sale and speedboats from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office before reaching the estuary’s open canal. Once there, we couldn’t resist doing what Logan had inadvertently suggested, and we turned in a neat, quiet little circle, quite gracefully. These boats are made for dummies.

BAE boats parked alongside the Alameda County Sheriff’s ships in the Oakland Estuary.

Patricia Chang / Special for SFGATE

We were wrong in the next two hours. We laughed at boat names that split into two schools: bad puns and humble showing off. Wet Dream and Berth Control vs. La Dolce Vita and Delta Dream. We drove past “anchor-outs”, as the boats are known that float around by anchoring and waiving marina slip fees. They are floating villages, the camps of water. We drove under the Alameda Park Street drawbridge, the cars roaring overhead, and snuggled up against the coast as we passed the new Brooklyn Basin, where an extravagant roller-skating scene took root on the historic Oakland Pier.

We drove past Jack London Square, home of the USS Potomac, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidential yacht, the so-called floating White House, thinking it would have been fun to stop on a Sunday afternoon when the farmers market is in full swing. But we went on, to the towering cranes and huge, intimidating cargo ships of Oakland Harbor. The 5-year-old in me loves to watch the containers being lifted and taken off, the trucks coming and going, the hustle and bustle on the water.

There we turned around before getting too involved in the mix of functioning boats and ferries. We drove past Alameda’s community of colorful houseboats, on which large signs warned not to send a wake in their direction that haunts every boater’s everyday life, as Tim and I are good on liveaboards ourselves. We still had time for one final detour, so we passed our boat, a 50-foot vintage motor yacht from Taiwan, and waved to my father, who was taking care of our sleeping 2-year-old while we had our fun little day Date. Our boathouse is very seaworthy, but we almost never go into the bay with it. Doing this is a project.

A BAE boat sails under the Park Street drawbridge that connects Oakland and Alameda.

Patricia Chang / Special for SFGATE

But being out on the water on the Bae Boat was such an irresistible way to spend an afternoon that Tim spent days getting our dinghy engine, which had been out of order for years, operational. Even though we lived in the same boat, we had somehow forgotten that a slow turn is exciting and relaxing, romantic and a bit silly at the same time. It’s a way of seeing a place radically differently and feeling almost weightless in the process. When we telephoned Logan that we were about to arrive at the dock, we had laughed almost non-stop for two hours, drank rosé while playing “Dancing Queen”, and seen our city through salty sunglasses – and we wanted more! .

BAE boats; 2099 Grand Street, Alameda; 510-457-1765. Rental rates start at $ 250 for groups of up to 10 people.