Overlooking an underwater graveyard
Hundreds of ships have been wrecked on the rocks and beaches around San Francisco Bay; many during the Gold Rush in the 1850s. Some ships foundered around Fort Point, which is underneath what is now the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Others were thrown up on Ocean Beach. The most famous of those, in 1878, was the King Philip, a three-masted clipper ship, the skeleton of whose hull is still visible occasionally.
Long before this, however, the carnage had already led to the building of a brick-and-concrete lighthouse at Point Bonita on the Marin Headlands, in 1855. The tower stood 306 feet above the ocean. The problem was that the light wasn’t visible to approaching ships because fog along the West Coast of the United States, unlike the East Coast, settles at a higher altitude. In 1877, the lighthouse was relocated to another site just 124 feet above sea level.
Info
Address Point Bonita Trailhead, Field Road, Sausalito, CA, 94965, www.nps.gov/goga/pobo.htm | Public Transport Bus: 76X (Field Rd & Light House stop) | Hours Sat–Mon 12:30–3:30pm| Tip Wear good walking shoes and many layers of clothing to protect yourself from the cold winds.
And still there were wrecks. On the morning of February 22, 1901, the iron-hulled, steam-powered passenger liner, the SS City of Rio de Janeiro hit a reef close to Fort Point. The ship, filled with Asian emigrants—and American crew members who couldn’t speak Chinese—was returning from Hong Kong. The ship sank in just twenty minutes. A court finding later noted, “The fog was so dense that the day afforded no light. It was very dark, but the water was smooth.” Of the 210 people on board, 82 survived. In July 1902, the ship’s pilothouse washed up on Baker Beach. Inside was the partly decomposed body of the captain, William Ward, who had once vowed he would go down with his ship.
To reach the lighthouse, drive along the road that winds up the Marin Headlands until you reach the trailhead. A short, steep pathway leads down to a hand-carved tunnel framed in bright red ironized stone. A suspension footbridge carries you above the furious waves to the lighthouse, whose light can be seen from 18 miles away.
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