Always Drawn Back

My son Steven remarked to me that I had “just scratched the surface” of our vacation in San Francisco in my recent compilation on the subject.  He was right, of course.  Like all major cities, San Francisco and its environs are a large subject.  One week is nowhere near enough time to take in everything the region has to offer.  This realization makes it easy to understand why some people return to the same places repeatedly.  They simply want to experience everything in their favorite vacation spots.

San Francisco, with its surrounding waterways and with the happy memories it that holds for me, remains one of my favorite locations for both vacation and nostalgia.  It’s difficult to mentally separate even the present-day city from the memories of the happy golden years that I spent aboard ship.  With these thoughts in mind, let us once again take a stroll through the town and along the waterfront and perhaps even another voyage across the bay.

Starting in the historically Italian North Beach neighborhood on Sunday morning, June 8, 1980, we come upon the Church of Saints Peter and Paul:

Operated by the Salesian Fathers, who provided the photograph, this church offers Masses in English, Italian, and Chinese, and its façade displays the famous opening line of Dante’s Paradiso:

La Gloria di colui che tutto muove per l’universo penetra e risplende.[i]

This verse rendered into English becomes:

The glory of him who moves all things through the universe penetrates and shines.

Returning to this church with Steven on Saturday, August 2, 2025, I photographed this inscription for both old times’ sake and posterity:

In concurrence with Dante, I’ve long regarded the Deity in seafaring terms, as the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe, and I’ve seen his glory countless times both on the world’s oceans and in the celestial sphere above them.  Saving this thought for another day, however, we next climb Telegraph Hill and proceed to the Coit Tower to take in the view of the harbor front.  With Steven on that same Saturday, I recorded this northward view which shows the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien resting quietly alongside her pier:

Next, this eastward view shows several of the old freighter piers as well as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island:

For comparison, here is the same view on that June Sunday in 1980:

Looking northward that same afternoon, we see a scattering or recreational craft on the bay:

Since the development of containerization, most of the cargo is now handled at more modern facilities in Oakland.  These old piers have been repurposed and now host an assortment of offices, restaurants, retail shops, museums, and some light industry.  Their facades have been cleaned up and now present a pleasing aesthetic at street level as we see here on the last day of July of this year:

At the approach end, however, some of the old piers seem less well preserved but sport vestiges of their glory days.  Here is Pier 33, seen from the ferry Alcatraz Flyer on Tuesday, July 29, 2025.  Note the very faded but still legible inscriptions of the structure’s former tenants: the Union Line, the Pacific Far East Lines and the Furness Lines:

Also on that same overcast morning we see the Coit Tower by looking upward from street level at the waterfront:

Forty and more years ago, two ferry lines connected San Francisco with the communities of Sausalito and Larkspur to the north of the city.  Now, a vastly expanded fleet also links the city with Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, and Richmond.  The voyage to Oakland took Steven and me under the Bay Bridge on Thursday afternoon, July 31.  This was my first time sailing across the bay and passing beneath the Bay Bridge since the Comet returned from Japan early on the morning of Easter Sunday, April 22, 1984.  It felt great to be back and crossing the bay again, especially on such a bright and sunny afternoon:

Most of the ferries that serve San Francisco begin and end their voyages at the iconic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street.  In the 1980s the front of this building was obscured by an ugly, unfinished, and never-used elevated expressway.  Irreparably damaged in the earthquake of 1989, it was subsequently demolished, and the classical façade of the Ferry Building was once again exposed to the light of day.  Since then, the Ferry Building has been completely refurbished and restored to its former grandeur.  Now, besides hosting ferries, its cavernous interior contains retail shops, restaurants, and other travelers’ services.  Its clock tower, seen here on Saturday, August 2, is visible from all around and stands out as one of the gems of the city skyline:

The rejuvenation of the iconic Ferry Building leads me to recall that in my teenage years I had developed an interest in architecture and even looked into studying it formally at the university level.  To my great adolescent dismay, however, I discovered that it was a five-year full-time program that led to the degree of Bachelor of Architecture, and that was followed by a two-year full-time program that led to the degree of Master of Architecture.  Seven years in college!  I was horrified, and so I never pursued the matter further.  But my interest in the subject has remained with me through all these years, and I found San Francisco to be an architecture lover’s dream.  I suppose entire books have been written on the subject, but I’ll content myself with a few amateur photographs.

Three stops on the subway from the Ferry Building is the Civic Center.  Presiding over this campus is the San Francisco City Hall, a building that looks more like the capitol of a state or country than of a city.  Here we see it in less-than-ideal photographic conditions in the early evening of Tuesday, July 29:

Sharing the Civic Center acreage with City Hall are the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Opera House, the Supreme Court of California, the Asian Art Museum, the Federal Office Building, the Herbst Theater, and the Graham Civic Auditorium. While they are all architecturally significant structures on their own, together they form an even grander masterpiece that can rival any European capital.  On the lighter side, the Civic Center, and particularly City Hall, were portrayed in the James Bond film A View to a Kill in 1985.

More sublimely, in the nearby Mission Dolores neighborhood, the original Mission Dolores chapel, dating to 1780 and erected by the Spaniards when they first brought Christianity to the region, still stands and remains in use.  Miraculously, this building survived the earthquake and fire of 1906 while the entire surrounding neighborhood was destroyed.  Here we see the interior of the colonial Mission Dolores on Friday, August 1:

Adjacent to this venerable structure stands a newer basilica that features non-identical twin spires.  This is the taller of the two on the same day:

Surmounting the main altar of the basilica is a dome complete with pastel-colored stucco-like walls supporting a red tile roof, all key elements of Spanish Mediterranean architecture:

For many years, San Francisco had a large Spanish Mission style railroad station at the corner of Third and Townsend Streets.  Unfortunately, this magnificent building was demolished in the postwar era.  Happily, however, as part of California’s more recent investment in public transportation, classic railroad stations in nearby cities have been restored and rejuvenated and are now heavily used.  On Thursday morning, July 31, Steven and I visited the lovely Southern Pacific station in San Jose which still proudly bears the name Southern Pacific Lines over its center arched window:

The interior, also renewed and refurbished, has a bright and airy atmosphere enabled by the oversize arched windows, another architectural feature that the Spaniards brought with them from the Mediterranean:

While these and many other cultural aspects of San Francisco and its environs combine to make it a fascinating seaport and a world class city, my favorite part remains the ocean.  Accordingly, then, I will indulge myself for a moment and revisit the city’s oceanfront.   On Friday morning, August 1, Steven and I rode the Judah Street trolley to the end of the line at the western edge of the city:

We disembarked from the trolley, hiked the short distance through the dunes and across the brown sandy beach to the sea:

Standing at the water’s edge, we gazed upon the great Pacific Ocean.  A low overcast, a gray veil of fog, and a cold onshore breeze laden with salt spray combined with the mild surf to form a magnificently beautiful and inspirational sight.  Only a few other people were there, mostly joggers and dog walkers who did not linger.  Thus undisturbed and undistracted, we stood there and stared at the sea and sky and watched and felt the unceasing motion of the wind and waves.  Time itself seemed to stand still.  In the back of my mind, however, I realized that the time we had at this spot would be much too short and would pass much too quickly.  I would have been perfectly content to remain there in front of the Pacific Ocean all morning and then return after lunch.

Eventually, Steven said to me, “Well, I know you could stay here all day, but I’m getting cold.”  He was not dressed as warmly as I was, and my paternal concern for my young son overrode my desire to stare at the ocean all day.  Reluctantly, then, and with many backward glances toward the sea, I walked with him back across the beach and through the dunes to the trolley stop.

It felt very difficult to leave this beautiful location, but it had indeed been a great privilege, especially after so many years, to have stood again before the great Pacific Ocean.  The scriptures enjoin us to “stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).   Surely the oceanfront is a holy place, one where we can at least temporarily escape the world of human concerns and be inspired and edified by communing with the Deity through the sublime magnificence of his Creation.  While standing in this holy place, Steven and I truly saw “The glory of him who moves all things.”

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[i] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I. v. i.  

The Night Watch

 

Sitting in the darkness at the water’s edge at Falmouth Beach on Cape Cod on Wednesday, September 22, 2021, I gazed into the night and almost felt as if I were aboard a ship at sea.  I could have been on the bridge wing of the Rigel or the Waccamaw or the Victoria or the Bartlett.  Overhead, the full Moon shone down on the surf and sand from the west.  In the south, the constellation Orion, with its navigational stars Rigel and Betelgeuse, hung in the heavens just offshore of Martha’s Vineyard.  This great island, with its omnipresent cloud cover, loomed large but subtle on the southwest horizon, a dark gray mass on a darker sea and sky.  Additional stars interspersed with cumulus clouds dotted the sky in all directions.  A cool breeze from the south hurried across the black expanse of Vineyard Sound, and on the beach the calm rush of the wind combined with the gentle landing of the waves to produce a musical harmony capable of lulling one to sleep.

But I had not come to sleep.  Instead, I had made the twenty minutes’ walk through dark and deserted residential streets from the Mariner Motel to Falmouth Beach to look upon the sea at night, to watch the night become twilight, and to see the Sun rise out of the sea and usher in the new day.  I had witnessed this on the 4:00 to 8:00 morning watch aboard ship many times.  I had also spent many hours in the dark on the 12:00 to 4:00 night watch.  On both schedules, I always enjoyed seeing the stars in the firmament overhanging the ocean, and when sailing coastwise, seeing the navigational lights beckoning seaward.

Three such lights shared navigational duty tonight.  Two miles to the southwest, the Nobska Lighthouse flashed white every five seconds.  Four and a half miles to the southeast, the East Chop Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard flashed red every six seconds.  And closest to me at a half mile to the east, the breakwater light marking the entrance to Falmouth Harbor flashed green every three seconds.  Finally, a small scattering of street and window lamps contributed their soft luster.

As on a many a dark night at sea, the black canvas of this dark night at the seashore was punctuated by starlight, moonlight, shore lights, and diligently flashing navigational lights.  It was a masterpiece of both divine creation and human habitation.  The night had an ambiance that was palpable and distinct and spiritual.  It was quiet, but for the sounds of wind and wave, yet it spoke volumes at the sublime level, far above human speech.  The magnificence of the night at the seashore was ineffable.

Like any form of perishable art, however, it could not last.  Fifty minutes before sunrise, the first faint stirrings of daylight appeared on the eastern horizon.  Light gray at first, then a gradually brightening and spreading luminosity replaced the darkness of the night.  The stars faded into invisibility.  The Moon, soon to set in the west, lost some of its brilliance.  The sea and sky changed from black to several shades of blue.  Precisely at 6:30am, the upper limb of the Sun emerged in the east from below the horizon.  The night watch ended, and the day watch began.

I was no longer alone, as several other folks had come to the waterfront during the interval of twilight to watch the sunrise.  Some remained in their cars and drove away, presumably to work, after the big event.  Others stood on the beach or sat on the seawall, some in small groups and some alone.  A few stayed and continued to gaze upon the sea as the Sun rose higher in the sky and the brilliance of the daylight increased.  Seagulls, ducks, and cormorants emerged from their nocturnal hiding places and began swimming and flying in search of food.  On the water, the ferries Island Home and Katama emerged from their overnight berths in Woods Hole and Vineyard Haven.  The first voyages of the new day were beginning.

I began the business of the day by returning to the Mariner Motel through streets no longer dark and deserted but humming with activity.  Miss Patty and I had places to go and things to do, and we needed to get underway.  Whatever the day ahead would bring, it had already started in a most outstanding way.  Spending much of the night almost but not quite at sea enabled me to commune with the cosmos and experience an epiphany.  Tomorrow and the next day I would return to Falmouth Beach and stand the night watch all over again.

Now for some pictures.  Joseph Conrad once described England as a place “where men and sea interpenetrate.”[1]  The same can be said of Cape Cod.  With a centuries-long history of seafaring, the Cape in our time is home to such sea-associated learned institutions as the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and just across the canal, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.  The Falmouth and Woods Hole Public Libraries offer books on maritime history and display nautical artwork created by local artists.  The Steamship Authority’s fleet connects Cape Cod with Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.  Additionally, private ferries, recreational yachts, and fishing boats are ubiquitous.

In our first photograph, we see the Nobska Lighthouse at dusk on Tuesday, September 21.  This is the largest of the lights that “shineth in darkness” (John 1:5) over Vineyard Sound. 

On the same day but before dusk, we see the ferry Island Home plying her route between Woods Hole and Martha’s Vineyard.  Here, she is just off Nobska Point.

Next, my favorite of all the art works in the Woods Hole Public Library is this beautiful model of the iconic British clipper ship Cutty Sark.  I had discovered this treasure previously and returned on Friday, September 24, to photograph it.

Finally, on the same Friday, we visited the statue of Rachel Carson, the famous marine biologist and author of books about the sea, which graces Waterfront Park in Woods Hole.   

 

 

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[1] Joseph Conrad, “Youth,” in Tales of Land and Sea, Garden City, NY: Hanover House, 1953, p. 7.

Watching the Waves

A very long time ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, my family vacationed in Falmouth on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  Many New Yorkers flocked to Cape Cod every summer in search of peace and quiet, rest and relaxation, and uncrowded beaches.  My parents and grandparents rented a cottage within easy walking distance of the beach on Vineyard Sound, and the six of us, including my brother and myself, stayed there for a couple of weeks every summer for several years.  I was very young then, so I remember these vacations rather vaguely.  What I remember better is my parents’ and grandparents’ subsequent reminiscences of these happy times.

 

Since then, I’ve scarcely given Cape Cod a thought, until quite recently.  A few years ago, in September of 2015, Miss Patty and I had some family history business in southeastern Massachusetts, and when we had finished up in Buzzards Bay, we drove across the Bourne Bridge to the Cape on the spur of the moment.  On this impulsive sojourn, we visited the historical society in Woods Hole and the lighthouse at Nobska Point.  Favorably impressed, we agreed that we must return sometime for a longer duration.

 

This second and extended visit to Cape Cod took place last month, five years after the first.  In three days we combined additional family history research with quiet moments at the waterfront  Returning to Nobska Point on Tuesday morning, September 15, we took in the magnificent view of Vineyard Sound, the island of Martha’s Vineyard beyond, and the ferries Island Home and Martha’s Vineyard plying their routes between the mainland and the island.  A pristine and peaceful location, Nobska Point silently invited us to linger and leave behind the cares and concerns of the world.  This we could not do completely, however, as the site was tinged with tragedy.  A bronze and stone monument surrounded by flowers and American flags commemorated the untimely death of Nellie Anne Hellernan Casey, a local resident who was killed in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.  Very sad, of course, but also very fitting.  The view of the sea beyond the memorial bespoke the necessary existence of a supreme Creator-God, and his revelation of the eternal Gospel gave assurance that his omnibenevolence would ultimately and inevitably prevail.  An atmosphere of peace and serenity thus surrounded the site

 

I could have gladly spent most of the day at Nobska Point, basking in its quiet beauty and peacefulness .  The strong, late summer Sun was becoming too much for Miss Patty, however, and we had additional ground to cover, too, so we needed to move on.        

 

Mid-day found us briefly in Hyannis, visiting the John F. Kennedy Memorial that overlooked the port.  Another beautiful site tinged with sadness, it also spoke silently of the Divine and exuded a sublime serenity.  In the distance, the ferry Eagle sailed across the placid surface of Hyannis Harbor as she departed for Nantucket, asserting thereby that despite tragedy, the voyage of life would always continue. 

 

These two spiritual havens on the Cape Cod seashore testified quietly of the Lord’s plan for his people, even in the face of tragedy.  The scriptural admonition to “let your hearts be comforted” came to mind, “for all flesh is in mine hands; be still and know that I am God” (D&C 101:16).. 

 

I have long thought of God in seafaring terms, as the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe.  Recognizing him thus as the supreme authority has enabled me, when considering events too monstrous for the human mind’s limited understanding, to accept what he said through the prophet Isaiah: “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9).  This counsel, coupled with the knowledge that we all came into this imperfect world to grow through experience and prepare for life in the perfect world hereafter, has given me a better understanding of the human condition and its ultimate purpose.

 

The next day, Wednesday the 16^th, we needed to leave Cape Cod and return home to Nashua.  Not too early, though, for I was in no hurry to pry myself away from the seashore.  That morning, I arose before dawn and made the twenty minutes’ walk from the motel to the beach on Vineyard Sound.  Few people were out and about at that time of day, so I had the waterfront almost entirely to myself.  Sitting on a park bench and facing seaward, I spent an hour and more in the gradually growing daylight feeling the onshore breeze and watching the waves wash up on the sand and then recede.  I would have been happy to remain there all morning.  Watching the waves has always helped me to feel at peace in an often unpeaceful world.

 

Additionally, as I gazed seaward I thought of the family vacations of so many years ago.  The cluster of nearby cottages where we had stayed was now mostly gone.  For a moment I wondered if my parents and grandparents, all of them now gone as well, could see me back at the beach where we used to go swimming.  After nearly six decades, I had returned to Cape Cod and rediscovered its peace and quiet, its rest and relaxation, and its uncrowded beaches.  A perfect setting for a memorable spiritual experience!

 

Now I would like to share a few photographs.  This first one shows yours truly at the age of two and a half on the beach in Falmouth in the summer of 1960.  Six decades ago now!

 

Fifty-five years later, on Saturday, September 19, 2015, we see the Nobska Light at Nobska Point in Falmouth:

 

On the same day, looking seaward from Nobska Point, we watch as the ferry Island Home approaches the terminal in nearby Woods Hole at the end of her voyage from Martha’s Vineyard:

 

Same ship; different day.  Here the Island Home sails in the opposite direction, toward Martha’s Vineyard, on Tuesday, September 15, 2020:

 

Same day; different ship.  I’m not entirely certain, but I believe this is the Martha’s Vineyard, returning from her namesake island and bound for Woods Hole:

 

Next, we view with sadness the monument to the local victim of the terrorist attack of nineteen years ago:

 

Now in Hyannis later on the same day, we visit the memorial to President John F. Kennedy.  Hyannis Harbor fills the background beyond the fountain and plaza:

 

Finally, watching from the JFK plaza, we view the ferry Eagle leaving Hyannis and beginning her voyage to Nantucket: