08 Jul View from the Water

I started this week off by going sailing out on the Bay on the park’s very own ship, the Alma.

Sailing on the Bay

From the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park website:

Alma is a wooden-hulled scow schooner built in 1891 to carry bulk cargo. The flat-bottomed hull was designed to navigate the shallow waters of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta and to rest on the bottom at low tide. With few bridges and connecting roads, scow schooners delivered goods all over the Bay and Delta much as trucks do today. By 1880 there were 250 sailing scows on San Francisco Bay.

Visitors can go out on this ship for an afternoon sail on the weekends and an interpretive ranger comes along (with the ship’s crew as well) and gives talks. I went out  for the first sail of the season with visitors. Save