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SF Bay Notes An independent journal from the piers, ferries and islands of San Francisco Bay

Logistics

Planning

The unglamorous page: streetcars, parking reality, sold-out boats, and what I do with the rest of the afternoon.

The Embarcadero looking north — Ferry Building clock, the piers, and the island on the horizon.
The Embarcadero looking north — Ferry Building clock, the piers, and the island on the horizon. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

I get more mail about this than about the audio, which tells you something about travel. People can imagine the island. They cannot imagine the Embarcadero at 8:40 in the morning with a stroller and a parking app that has given up. Here is how I plan it when I am taking someone who has never been.

Getting to Pier 33

The F-line streetcar is the sentimental choice. It runs along the waterfront, it is slow in a useful way, and it drops you into the right century. I use it when I am not in a hurry and when the cars are not already packed with people who had the same idea. Check the day’s service before you romanticize it. Streetcars take days off too.

An F-line car on the Embarcadero. Slow, useful, and not always running the day you need it.
An F-line car on the Embarcadero. Slow, useful, and not always running the day you need it. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

The Embarcadero walk is the one I recommend if you can do a mile without turning it into a project. From the Ferry Building you follow the water north. You will pass other piers, a few food carts, and enough joggers to remember that this is a real city, not a set. The walk calibrates you. You arrive already looking at the Bay.

Parking is the part I will not pretty up. There are lots and garages in the neighborhood. They fill. They cost what waterfront parking costs in a city that would rather you took transit. If you must drive, arrive earlier than you think and treat the walk from the garage as part of the visit. I do not circle. Circling makes people late and short-tempered, and the boat does not wait for your mood.

Why boats sell out weeks ahead

This is not a marketing mystery. There are a limited number of boats and a limited number of people the island can hold without turning the paths into a procession. In high season — summer, holidays, those clear October weekends — the departures disappear well before the date. I say this editorially, not as a sales pitch: if you have a fixed week in July, look sooner than feels reasonable. If you are flexible, watch shoulder days and weekday mornings.

I do not sell anything and I will not pretend I can hold a space for you. Official channels are the only channels. When a friend asks me to “just grab two,” I send them to the operator and I go make coffee.

Morning versus evening

Morning departures are my default for first-time visitors. The light is cleaner, the wind is often slightly less theatrical, and you still have an afternoon in the city. You also meet the island before you are tired from a day of walking hills. Evening departures are the ones I keep for myself, or for people who have already seen the cellhouse in daylight and want the other weather. The city turns on. The audio changes key. You will want a warmer layer than pride suggests.

If fog is thick in the morning, I still go. If a storm is doing something serious, I wait. There is no prize for collecting a miserable crossing.

Nearby pairings

Fisherman’s Wharf is the obvious neighbor and I will not pretend I love it. I walk through for the working boats and I leave before the candy-apple part of the street takes over. If someone in the group wants the postcard, we give it twenty minutes and we go.

The Ferry Building is the pairing I actually like. It is south of the pier, it has food that is not a performance, and it sits on the same walk. I do it after the island more often than before, because I come back hungry and a little windburned and I want to sit down. A coffee and something salty. Then the streetcar or the walk back toward Market.

The Ferry Building after a morning on the water. This is where I sit down.
The Ferry Building after a morning on the water. This is where I sit down. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

I do not try to stack the island with Angel Island on the same day. That is two different shapes of tired. Save the second island for tomorrow. The Bay will still be here.