One of my favorite seaports, and arguably one of this country’s most distinctive cities, is San Francisco. I first went there aboard the Mercury in 1980 and later aboard the Comet in 1984. I have long wanted to return, but until recently had no occasion to do so. This changed when my son Steven had the unexpected opportunity to spend several days there as part of a larger itinerary, and he invited me to join him. Naturally, I jumped at the chance.
San
Francisco has a certain mystique that defies description. Largely surrounded by water, it has long been
a very important seaport, although it is much more than that. One of the cultural, educational, and medical
capitals of the West Coast, it abounds in diverse neighborhoods, eclectic
architecture, an intriguing street plan, excellent public transportation, and
tremendous natural beauty. In my distant
younger days, I reveled in exploring this great metropolis in my off-duty
hours. In my recent older days with
Steven, I resumed this exploration, but at a more sedate pace. We had a list of specific things we wanted to
see and do, and my favorites of these involved the ocean, the bay, and the
ships that plied them.
After
41 years, my first view of the bay came on Monday afternoon, July 28, 2025. Standing on the promenade behind the Ferry
Building, I felt awed by the sight. Beneath
a sunny blue sky, blue water stretched out before me. Alcatraz and Angel Islands stood out in the
distance. Ferries, sailboats, and other assorted
watercraft scurried to and fro. It felt
wonderful to be back after so much time!
Early
the next morning, on Tuesday the 29th, we boarded the ferry Alcatraz
Flyer for the short but pleasant voyage to the island. A strong breeze came into the bay through the
Golden Gate. It was a cool and cloudy
morning that soon changed to warm and sunny.
The self-guided tour of the historic prison was interesting enough, but
more so for me was learning that the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, established in
1854, was the first such aid to navigation on the American West Coast:
Also
more interesting were the views of the surrounding bay, prominent islands and
peninsulas, and commercial shipping.
The
highlight of our visit to Alcatraz came when we emerged from the prison and saw
the tanker
Harrisburg sailing into the bay from the Golden Gate.
She was bound for Richmond
[i], and we watched as she
passed between Alcatraz and the mainland:
Close
on the Harrisburg’s heels came the container ship Ever Mild. Appearing faintly at first through the mist,
she sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and soon afterwards passed between Alcatraz
and the city on her way to Oakland.
Ferries and sightseeing craft shared the bay with her:
Returning to the city about midday aboard the Alcatraz Flyer, we walked to Pier 35 where we came upon the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien. This was especially interesting. Named after a naval hero of the American Revolution, the O’Brien is a floating museum. A painstakingly preserved liberty ship from World War II, she serves as an educational vessel representing the approximately 2,700 such ships constructed in assembly line fashion during the war. She also serves as a memorial to the more than 6,000 American merchant seamen who perished at sea during the hostilities, a very sobering but often overlooked statistic of the war. The self-guided tour included the bridge and chart room, the engine room, one of the cargo holds, the crew’s quarters, the galley and chow halls, and the open decks. I found the 1940s state-of-the-art navigational equipment with its near-total absence of modern electronics particularly interesting. Steven found the machinery space with its twin boilers and single reciprocating steam engine fascinating. Steam propulsion and celestial navigation ruled the waves in the O’Brien’s day!Before we realized it, we had spent over two hours aboard the O’Brien. Hunger pangs finally jolted us out of the distant past and brought us back to the present. Before leaving the waterfront, however, we paused to take photographs. The first shows the vessel’s starboard side accommodation ladder:
Next,
we have a starboard quarter view of the O’Brien. Her stern faced the street, and her bow
pointed toward the open bay:
Finally,
we have a profile view of her port side, taken from an adjacent small boat
basin:
The next day, Wednesday the 30th, we left San Francisco early in the morning and traveled by train to Sacramento. Our purpose there was to visit the California State Railroad Museum. Along the way, the train skirted much of the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, to the northeast of the city:
Beyond San Pablo Bay, the train passed by Suisun Bay, the home of the anchored Ready Reserve Fleet. This has long been a collection of unused cargo ships held in reserve against a time of future national emergency in which they would again be needed. After I left the Comet in 1984, she went into storage in this anchorage and remained there for many years, with brief recalls to service in the Iraqi wars, before finally being slated for the scrap yard.[ii] Few cargo ships now remain of the dozens that had been mothballed in Suisun Bay, as this picture of the entire present fleet makes clear:
In Sacramento, the railroad museum was the main attraction; nonetheless, railroad history includes shipping history. In the old days, passengers and freight bound from points east to San Francisco disembarked from their trains at the end of the line in Sacramento, and then they sailed aboard river and bay steamers for the remainder of the journey. One of these vessels, the Delta King, now serves a different clientele as a floating hotel, restaurant, and theater:
The next day, Thursday the 31st, we sailed from the Ferry Building in San Francisco aboard the Carina to Jack London Square in Oakland. After passing beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the southern part of San Francisco Bay, complete with more anchored cargo ships:
Also along the way, we passed two noteworthy vessels docked in Oakland. First was the freighter Maunalei of the Matson Line. This ship sails on the California-Hawaii-Alaska domestic route, and Steven has seen her in Anchorage several times:
The second was the lightship Relief. Formerly a floating aid to navigation, she now rests quietly alongside a wharf in an industrial neighborhood. No information about her was available, but I hope that she is docked here awaiting preservation and not destruction:
After disembarking from the Carina, we walked around Jack London Square. Steven wanted to inspect the new Amtrak station; I indulged myself in a few moments of sentiment. When the Mercury was being taken out of layup and put back into service in 1980, her crew was housed temporarily at the Jack London Inn in Jack London Square[iii]. This arrangement lasted three weeks in May and June. Then the Mercury sailed on Father’s Day. At the time, I felt no particular attachment to this generally nondescript modern hotel. After 45 years, however, my outlook changed. As I stood in front of this building once again after so much time, it almost seemed unreal that I had actually come back to this spot. I had never expected to return, nor did I have any reason to do so until now. But it felt good to be back, and I was glad to see, with scaffolding in place, that Jack’s hotel was being well cared for:
Returning
to San Francisco aboard the Carina in the late afternoon, we passed the
container ship HMM Pearl as she headed for the port facilities on the
west side of Oakland:
On Friday, the 1st of August, we set out early and rode a trolley through the western part of San Francisco to the oceanfront. A beach and a high ridge of sand dunes separated the ocean from the city. So effective was this dividing line that, when we stood at the water’s edge, the city seemed so far distant as to not be there at all. Nothing of human habitation could be seen or heard, despite its close proximity. Instead, the sight of the open Pacific and the sounds of the surf and the cold onshore breeze prevailed. Fine particles of salt spray blew at us; a dense and gray overcast covered the sea; and distant fog obscured the horizon. And yet the sight was truly beautiful, even glorious and grandiose:
On Saturday the 2nd, our last day in town, we scaled Telegraph Hill and took in the panoramic views of the city and its harbor front from the Coit Tower. Despite a low overcast and thin fog, all of the port’s salient features were easily discernable. Afterwards, as we reposed again on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, two more noteworthy cargo ships came by. The first was the Torm Brigitta, shifting berths from Richmond to South San Francisco and seen here passing Yerba Buena Island:
The
second ship came along soon after the first and was the Peregrine Pacific,
bound from South San Francisco seaward and to Chile:
That Saturday evening, Steven and I departed San Francisco the same way we had arrived—on Alaska Airlines. While everything we had seen and done on this little vacation was an excellent experience, my favorite was simply standing at the edge of the open Pacific and staring at the ocean. It was cold, windy, foggy, overcast, and fourteen days’ voyage from Japan. None of these features would appeal to a tourist, but all of them invite the Spirit to abide with those “that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters” (Ps. 107:23):
The sight of the great Pacific Ocean called to mind the opening verse of Dante’s Paradiso, as it stood inscribed over the front doors of the nearby Saints Pater and Paul Church:
La gloria colui che tutu The glory of the One who
moves
muove per l’universo everything through the
universe
penetra e risplende. Penetrates and
shines.[iv]
This
glory, doubtless a major factor in the mystique of San Francisco, most
certainly penetrated and shone over the city, the harbor, the bays, and the
magnificent Pacific Ocean during my recent visit. May it forever remain.
[i] Information
concerning ports of departure and arrival from www.marinetraffic.com.
[ii] Information from www.maritime.dot.gov.
This website includes the Comet’s design features, construction
and configuration, deck plans, photographs, and historical narrative.
[iii] Jack London
(1876-1916), an iconic figure on the San Francisco and Oakland waterfronts, was
a merchant seaman and the author of The Sea Wolf, one of my favorite
books and a classic of the seafaring life. A statue of him now stands near the water’s
edge in the square that bears his name.
[iv] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso,
third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I, v. i.
