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"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang
But a whimper."
TS Eliot, also somewhat obsessed with armageddon.
And lo... the world goes on.
In my happy place. Rain coming down--in sheets, buckets, garbage cans. Spent the day yesterday tracing the original coastline of Yerba Buena Cove. The ultimate SF history geek thing to do. The sort of thing everyone tells me I will have no time for once Lombard of the Intertidal Jr. arrives in about two months.
So getting my last wandering-around-San Francisco-retracing Yerba Buena Cove days in.
Clark's Point. The northern boundary of Yerba Buena Cove, now located somewhere below the intersection of Broadway And Battery Streets.
Started at Clark's Point (buried under ten feet of concrete) and walked down to Rincon Pt (which has a bridge tower on top of it now). Making sure to follow the contours of the old shoreline as delineated in the 1849-51 maps as much as I could. I've always found these early SF maps confusing because no two are alike. Finally realized why (slow learner). A map of SF made in January of 1850 is going to look entirely different from a map made 6 months or 11 months later--so fast was the rate of development. Unreal. All the dirt excavated to build those early houses was dumped on the shoreline. And if you figure 50,000 houses were built in the first two years after the gold rush... that's a lot of dirt.
All that remains of Rincon Point: buried under several hundred thousand pounds of concrete and steel.
Happily, there are plenty of maps out there detailing the original contour of SF's shoreline for the lunatic fringe of the history buff contingent.
Most of these are from the Madrina Group site
And from www.foundsf.org
Original shoreline map with "points" drawn in by MFN Editorial Dept.
I guess I'm particularly obsessed with YBC because... well because for one thing it's where everything began (Richardson settled there, Montgomery came ashore there, etc). For another it was a cove. I mean, you look at the SF shoreline now, it's sort of a gentle, cove-less curve. Nothing particularly notable about it. But back in the pre-gold rush days it had as many coves as the Marin shoreline from the North Tower to Point Bonita.
The main coves from north to south were these: Marina/Harbor View, North Beach, Black Point Cove, Yerba Buena and Mission Bay. Nice to think about these gentle coves and the wildlife therein. We're talking salt marsh galore. Eel grass. My gawd. Imagine the eel grass. The fishermen here know what I'm talking about. (My friend John Foss, fisherman, fishmonger and rover of the coast has "eelgrassroots" as his email address). But they never had a chance (the coves I mean). The early settlement of San Francisco was, as we all know, a furious and ungentle affair. We've all seen the photographs of the hundreds of abandoned ships along the bay. These ships contributed heavily to the filling of Yerba Buena Cove... as you can see below.
Yerba Buena Cove same year as the map above, 1851.
Trying to think of a local area where one might get a sense of what the SF shoreline was once like... It's kind of tough because in the case of North Beach cove and Black Point you had a combination of rocky and muddy intertidal. I can't think of a place that combines these features now. Belvedere maybe? Hmmmm. Definitely plenty of subtidal eel grass in there. In fact that's the reason the herring spawn near Belvedere.
Unfortunately most of our salt marshes are now way up (and down) at the ends of the bay. (Imagine pre-columbian horseneck abundance in Mission Bay!) Hmmm. Gotta think about this one for a while. The early settlers all described three things: mud, sand dunes and shallow water.
Yerba Buena Cove 1853
It's quite possible I suppose that the ecosystems of those coves are simply lost to us forever. But it's not too hard to imagine them. Thinking of some of the coves on the south side of Tomales Bay... maybe...
Here's an interesting (and quite illustrative) quote. This comes from the log books of Father Pedro Font, who was sent to scout out the bay in 1776.
March 29, 1776:
"Passing through wooded hills and over flats with good lands we encountered two lagoons [Yerba Buenba and Mission Bay?] and some springs of good water with plentiful grass, fennel and other useful herbs, we arrived at a beautiful arroyo . . . It [Mission Creek] enters the plain by a fall which it makes on emerging from the hills, and with it all can be irrigated, and at the same fall a mill can be erected, for it is very suitable to that purpose."
An artist's rendering of the Portola expedition. (FYI: Would've credited it but I could not find the artist's name. Downloaded the image from these guys: exploresf).
A waterfall where Mission Creek came out of the hills. What hills? The hills above the Mission. Potrero? The Castro? Delores Ave? Huh. Here's a bit on Mission Creek:
"On April 5, 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza’s party rowed up Mission Creek from the bay to establish a mission. April 5 is the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows (Nuestra Señora de los Dolores)—thus the name Mission Dolores. {MFN Editorial Machine: Are we then to assume that the stories of the two sobbing Yelamu are false?} The creek they entered wound through marshes to a tidal lagoon. The creek probably spanned a width of forty feet or more and, at 100 to 200 cubic feet per second, offered enough current to require real effort in the arms of the rowers. The bay-bound water was sweet and excellent for drinking (as it still is today), though brackish as it mixed with salty baywater."
{My bad. I don't remember where I found this quote. FoundSF most likely}
Estero de Limantour
Actually, thinking now of some of the coves in Tomales Bay... also Estero de Limantour... I bet they were not so very different from Mission Bay... food for thought. Anyhoo. Here's some early maps to gawk at (above). Not sure why the rain brings out these melancholy reveries.
Where the hell are the herring?
Kirk-out
The Spinnaker at Spinnaker Point, in the pseudo waterfront town of Sausalito
Gawd help me. I just spent half the day driving around Marin County looking for the little guys. Yikes. 40 bucks in gas and 6 dollars in bridge tolls. What am I rich?
No.
And there's nothing like driving around the Marin county bayfront shoreline for a few hours to remind oneself of this.
Looks like some big flocks of birds off Belvedere. One of these days I'm gonna nail a Belvedere herring run. There's one little stretch of accessible shoreline in Belvedere and there's no way they can keep me out! Beware ye 1 percenters, I'm coming in there with 25 igorots armed with nets, fillet knives and jars of vinegar (for pickling). We will not be stopped!
Seriously though, how lame is it that there isn't a single #$%&++#@%$%!!! piece of public shoreline between Elephant Rock Pier in Tiburon and the Romberg center! Unreal, I drove back and forth for like 20 minutes trying to find a way down to the shoreline but we the people of California have been summarily shut out. Isn't there a law about this somewhere? Public access to the shore? Maybe I imagined it.
McSpinnaker
Unfortunately, the Monkey Face News and Intertidal Report (a scattered and irreverant blog of marginal cultural significance) brings you the sad news (only really felt by like 5 guys) of a pier closing down. For the half a dozen or so herring fishermen who used to fish Spinnaker Pier... I offer condolences. Just try to remember the good times. They can't steal our memories... waaaaaaahh!
You might think a restaurant that has prospered by its 50 year association with the area might be able to mustre a little tolerance for fishing, but I guess they can't.
One of the the new signs on McSpinnaker pier.
Imagine the horror of having to watch people catch a local fish while you eat your overpriced seafood!
Now the way I see it there could only really be two parties that might have put this sign up.
2. The City/Harbor of Sausalito.
In either case I'm pissed. What the hell? I mean is it really so hard for the people of Sausalito to endure a few herring scales on a seldom-visited pier for a week or two every year? Really? No nets? No fishing? What the fuck else would bring someone to that pier? The views of people eating over priced mediocre food?
The earth shaker is very upset with Spinnaker Restaurant
Spinnaker restaurant. I mean "spinnaker" is a reference to sailing for Poseidon's sakes. It's a nautical thing. It sits in Richardson's Bay. Gimme a friggin' break! People go to this place for the seafood, don't they? Misdirected people, sure, but people nonetheless. God forbid there should be a few herring scales and some milt lying on the pier next door. Oh my gawd the poor customers of Spinnaker might actually see people catching a few local fish (quick someone call PETA! ) while they eat their local (no doubt dragged) petrale sole--caught 30,000 pounds at a time. Not to mention the mahi mahi and swordfish fillets no doubt long-lined along with how many seabirds and turtles per annum? All the way from where? Hawaii, the Phillipines, the soon to be fishless wastes of Oceania? And brought all the way to Sausalito in an attempt to keep everyone thinking that Sausalito is some kind of authentic seafood hub, and that (Mc)Spinnaker Restaurant is something other that the overpriced ocean front Denny's that it actually is.
I will call the city of Sausalito tomorrow to try and figure out who put this sign up. But it's hard for me to imagine it isn't McSpinnaker. If it is... to paraphrase the dwarf: (dwarves on my mind a lot lately having recently seen the new Peter Jackson):
"Rest assured there is one net flinger in Mordor who still draws blood!"
{If you're here for Champion de la Banana's curbside sturgeon notochord removal video, scroll down to the entry for Nov 30 2012}
Okay. It's official. The first herring run of winter 2011-12 occurred on Nov 29th a mile from where I was filming Champion de la Banana and his sturgeon. Only one person there to witness it and for some reason he chose not to call me till the next day. Thanks dude. I went down yesterday to check for eggs and sure enough, found some light spawn, on the lowest Mastocarpus papillatus.
If a tree falls in the woods and there's no one there to witness it... Last year there were 11 in-shore spawning events from Point Richmond to Coyote Pt., and I was there for 9 of them. I don't think anyone other than a commercial herring fisherman saw that many in-shore spawns. It's now three years in a row I've missed the first one. Oh well.
FYI: the first spawns of 2011 and 2010 occurred on Dec 5th. Would be interesting to see if they spawn on the same day three years in a row. Probably not a bad idea to look for birds on Dec 5th. Though, with all this rain, I suspect it's gonna happen today or tomorrow.
Pallas's seminal, Zoographia Russo-Asiatico
Clupea pallasii... My favorite thing about Milton Love's seminal work Certainly More... (than I want to write in this link) is all the emphasis on early scientists. The "pallasii" of Clupea pallasii (Pacific herring) refers to eminent zoologist/explorer Petrus Simon Pallas. A German ex-pat who found a career for himself as Catherine the Great's favorite zoologist. Doesn't appear that he "discovered" the Pacific herring, but rather someone else, thinking fondly of him, supplied the epithet.
Try to picture what it would have been like to explore the Russian wilderness in the 1700s. My gawd but these early biologists were made of sterner stuff... even if they don't look particularly macho (hey this would've been a great outfit for Hector the anti-macho-man Camacho).
The great scientist/explorer Pallas, and arguably the greatest benevolent despot the world has ever known (kinda cute too). By the way, when Pallas offered to sell his specimen collection to Catherine for 1500 rubles, she gave him 2,000 and hired him on as the personal tutor for the Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine.
Catherine The Great
And while we're going off on a tangent. Let's set the record straight on Catherine. Most of you guys, if you're like I used to be (until the fishwife schooled me on the subject) probably raise your eyebrows a tad when Catherine the Great is mentioned. I did too for years. Something involving a horse and a crane and a great splintering of bedboards, springs and human bones. Even the most cursory examination of the matter will prove that this story is a complete fiction, invented largely by contemporary people that couldn't stomach a woman of Catherine's greatness. Wow, a liberated female ruler who supported the arts and sciences like no other, had an entire epoch named for her, brought her nation into the modern age and embodied in the truest sense the concept of the benevolent despot. I know, let's spread a nasty story about beastiality so the whole world can forget what an incredible human being she actually was.
The Monkeyface News, an intertidal fishing blog of marginal cultural significance, is here to set the record straight on Catherine The Great!
And you came here for herring! Bah! Humbug!
Attending birthing classes with the fishwife today... so if the herring spawn I won't be there to see it and you can all write in to tell me how great it was.
Kirk-out
