Point Bonita Lighthouse - Helping to Provide Safe Passage for 152 Years

The whales we hope to spot on an SFBay Whale Watching trip are likely to be seen several miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge, on the way to the Farallon Islands. So what is there to see enroute? Aside from the world’s most famous bridge, that is? How about the Point Bonita Lighthouse, whose beacon has been guiding mariners into the Bay for 152 years.

With hundreds of ships entering the bay in the early years of the Gold Rush and by one historical account 23 ship wrecks between 1850 and 1854, Congress recognized the need for navigational assistance and authorized funds for several Bay area lighthouses.

The original 1855 Point Bonita Lighthouse was built higher up from the current location, on a cliff jutting out from the southernmost tip of Marin County, near the entrance to the Golden Gate.

But there was a problem with the original Point Bonita lighthouse that nobody foresaw. Engineers had sited it high upon the cliff, just as they had been accustomed to doing so on the East Coast.

Trouble is, the Golden Gate area experiences a natural weather phenomenon known as “high fog” which meant that the light projected out at exactly the same level as the thick fog and simply could not penetrate it (for both a scientific and elegantly written discussion of this and the rest of the San Francisco area’s crazy micro-climates, I wholeheartedly recommend Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region by Harold Gilliam).

In order to function, the lighthouse had to be moved closer to sea level. The “new” and currently operating lighthouse opened in 1877.

The Point Bonita Lighthouse is the only American lighthouse reached by a suspension bridge. This picturesque bridge, the location of the lighthouse at the end of long rocky spine, the Golden Gate Bridge looming over its shoulder, and the spectacular view from the boat, makes the Point Bonita Lighthouse an extraordinary aspect of your SFBay Whale Watching excursion.

Photos by Ed Estes and Kathleen Jacques. Text by Kathleen Jacques.