11-04-19 (SF_trip)

Golden Gate, California. Open to the public when the docents are giving tours. For more about Point Bonita see the enclosing photo.

This building, below the lighthouse proper, housed the steam engines that powered the foghorns (more or less like traditional locomotive whistles). It's not routinely open to the public. For more about Point Bonita see the enclosing photo.

Golden Gate, California. Open to the public when the docents are giving tours. For more about Point Bonita see the enclosing photo.

On the north side of the entrance to the Golden Gate. It's been operating since 1855; first with whale oil (to 1870), then kerosene (to 1913), then oil vapor, and finally (since 1927) an electric incandescent lamp. It's still in operation, but is now fully automated, the last lighthouse keeper leaving in 1982. It was the last lighthouse on the US west coast to be automated. One weekend day it's partly open for tours, with docents available, and I lucked out when I happened to be there! The light is perched on some tall offshore rocks, and is accessed by a rather spectacular footbridge (left insets). At night in a storm it must have been exciting, to put it mildly! The right inset shows some gargoyle drains over the windows, which were supposed to help wash the salt off the windows, but according to the docents didn't work very well. The building below (inset below left), which is not open to the public, used to house a steam engine which (among other things) ran the foghorns. The keeper's cottage, however, was torn down. There are still foghorns operating, but they're electrically powered and on the pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge. The conditions today show why they're still necessary! Presumably the name is a partial translation of an original Spanish "Punta Bonita," "bonita" meaning "pretty" in Spanish. It was originally a diminutive of "good" and is thus equivalent to the Scottish "bonny."

On the Point Bonita lighthouse, north of the Golden Gate. They were supposed to funnel rainwater onto the lighthouse windows to wash the salt off, but according to the docents didn't work very well! For more on Point Bonita see the enclosing photo.

In the Marin Headlands, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, looking southeasterly. The Marin Headlands and vicinity had hosted a variety of military installations for over a century. When the military relinquished the land in the late 60s because the installations had become obsolete, developers wanted to snatch it up. Fortunately, the land was turned over to the Park Service instead, and the area has become an incongruous patch of nearly wild land right at the edge of the metropolitan area.