Byways Around San Francisco Bay

<h2><SPAN name="topic14" id="topic14"></SPAN>Fog on the Bay</h2> <p>One could hardly find a more perfect morning than this in early March. The sun was heralded over the hills in a blaze of glory; meadow larks strung like beads on a telegraph wire were calling their cheery notes, and robins were singing their overture to the morning sun.</p> <p>Boarding the Key Route train, I soon arrived at the Oakland mole, to find it crowded with a restless tide of humanity, waiting impatiently for the overdue boat. Each arriving train added to the congestion, until the building between the tracks and the gangway was crowded with anxious commuters.</p> <p>Finally, after much speculation as to the delay, the tardy boat arrived, and a steady stream of people flowed by the three gangways to the upper and lower decks. The last straggler was on board and the gangplank lifted, reminding me of the stories I had read of raising the drawbridge across the moat of some ancient feudal castle, and leaving the mole with its imitation portcullis behind we steamed out into the bay. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and there was not enough wind to straighten out the pennant from the masthead.</p> <p>We were hardly opposite Yerba Buena Island, however, when we ran into a fog that completely engulfed us. To plunge from bright sunlight into a blanket of gray mist so dense that one cannot see fifty feet in any direction, has just enough spice of danger about it to make it interesting. It was like being cut off from the world, with nothing in sight but this clinging curtain enveloping one like a damp cloud, settling like frost on everything it touches, and glittering like diamond dust.</p> <p>An undercurrent of anxiety pervaded the ship, for we were running with no landmark to guide us, and with only the captain's knowledge of the bay and the tides to bring us safely through.</p> <p>Passengers crowded to the rails, straining their eyes into the dense smother, while whistles were blowing on all sides. The shrill shriek of the government tug, the hoarse bellow of the ocean liner, and the fog whistle on Yerba Buena Island, all joined in a strident warning, sending their intermittent blast over the water.</p> <div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/125.jpg" target="blank" name="image125" id="image125"> <ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src="images/125.jpg" alt="FOG ON THE BAY" /></SPAN>FOG ON THE BAY</div> <p>Our engines were slowed down to half-speed, or just enough to give her steerage way, while the anxious captain peered from the wheelhouse with one hand grasping the signal cord, ready for any emergency.</p> <p>The sea gulls that in clear weather follow the boats back and forth across the bay by the hundreds, were entirely absent, except for one sturdy bird that, evidently bewildered, had lost its way in the fog, and had alighted on the flagpole as if for protection.</p> <p>Suddenly across our bows a darker spot appeared, which gradually assumed shape, and a Southern Pacific boat loomed like a specter from the smother of fog. The size was greatly enlarged as seen through the veil of mist, and the dense smoke that poured from her funnel settled around her like a pall, adding greatly to its weird appearance.</p> <p>Our captain was on the watch for just such an occurrence, and three short, sharp blasts from our whistle notified the oncoming boat that we had stopped our engines. But the tide was running strong, and we drew closer and closer together, until we involuntarily held our breath, and nerves were strung to the highest tension. The great screws churned the water into foam as we slowly backed away from each other, like gladiators testing each other's strength, and the Southern Pacific boat vanished into the fog like a ghost, swallowed up, as if wiped from the face of the waters, sending back its deep bellowing whistle as if bidding an angry defiance to the elements.</p> <p>Slowly we moved forward, feeling every inch of the way, like one groping in the dark, passing boat after boat without accident. One, a three-masted schooner, loaded with lumber, came so near that we could toss a stone on board, and a woman who stood in the bow waved a large tin horn at us, and then applied herself to blowing it most industriously.</p> <p>At last the bells on the piers at the ferry came floating across the waters, faint at first, but growing louder as we advanced, and never did bells sound sweeter or more welcome I imagine they were thrice welcome to our captain, for they gave him the direct course to our anchorage. Slower and yet slower we moved, our screw scarcely making a ripple on the water, for many other boats were cautiously feeling their way to their respective berths, and we must use all our caution not to run foul of them.</p> <p>At last came the cry from some one, "There's the light," and flashing out from the pier, its electric rays cutting its way through the wall of fog, shone that intermittent flame, and we knew that only a few feet away was the dock and safety.</p> <p>As the crowd hurried from the boat, anxious to reach their several places of business without further delay, many turned and looked up at the wheelhouse, to see the man whose nerve and faithfulness to duty had piloted us safe to port. In that blue-uniformed figure, still standing with hand upon the wheel, we saw a person boyish in appearance, but every inch a man.</p> <hr /> <div class="figcenter"><SPAN href= "images/topic15.png" target="blank"><ANTIMG width-obs="100%" src= "images/topic15.png" alt="Meiggs' Wharf" /></SPAN></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />