Stroll beside the big boats
By Nancy Salcedo
Published: May, 2005
The sun is shining, the brisk sea air is blowing, and you are feeling invigorated and filled with energy. Sitting inside to eat sounds like a waste of a beautiful day, doesn’t it?
Why not pack a picnic lunch instead and go on a quick lunch-hour adventure?
There’s a diverse selection of cuisines to choose from in the Ferry Building, along with several organic marketplaces, so take your food to go and wander out into the sunshine
North of the Ferry Building along the waterfront is the Waterfront Historical District, centered around Pier 7, a public access pier extending 900 feet out over the Bay. The view from here across the water is truly magnificent.
Out here, you can see that the Bay Bridge is really two bridges, one meeting the rolling hills of Yerba Buena Island and an entirely different bridge from Yerba Buena to Oakland.
It’s also possible to see Treasure Island, which was created and attached to Yerba Buena Island in the 1930s to host the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition
This pier is the first perfect location where you can eat and take in the majesty of the sea
If you continue to go north, the station house of the San Francisco Bar Pilots Association at Pier 9 will be the next spot of interest
The bar pilots are to vessels in the Bay what air traffic controllers are to the airport
If you’ve ever marveled at the size of some of the container ships coming in through the Golden Gate, you can appreciate the skill required to maneuver those behemoths into some of the Bay’s smaller corners in port.
The bar pilots navigate Bay shipping lanes from the Golden Gate to Sacramento and Stockton–ranked as some of the most dangerous in the country–with a 99.74% safety record
The Association dates to 1835 and is a collective of captains on duty at all times, in all weather, to guide foreign vessels and those weighing 300 tons or more through the Golden Gate and in the Bay and Delta.
They use the bright orange pilot boats that you may see docked at Pier 9 to travel to the buoys outside the Golden Gate, where lies the enormous horseshoe-shaped sand bar that gives the pilots their name.
As a vessel approaches, a pilot boards via the rope ladder dangling over the side and takes the head navigation role on the ship and over any assisting tugs. In guiding the vessel to its destination, the process can take several days. Truly a sight to behold.
The next pier north is the home of Bay Delta Maritime, where you may see tugs waiting to escort tankers on the Bay. Mini-mights that they are, these vessels can pull a 70-ton ship and still stop to help put out a fire with their 1,200-gallon-per-minute fire pumps.
Here, you might glimpse Delta Jessica. Built in 1943 with the engine of a train, which was the convention of her time, she is the oldest operating workboat on the Bay. Her sisters today have tractor engines, but this one still rises to the occasion when all of the other tugs are out and Bay Delta gets a call to duty.
Lunch hour is almost over, better start heading back. Don’t forget your picnic basket and leftovers!
