The first on-the-water tour in Tideline Tours’ five-part series, on the vessel Peregrine, “Cruising Through History,” all led by award-winning San Francisco historian and bestselling author Gary Kamiya.
Departing from San Francisco Pier 15 (next to Exploratorium) at 11:00am.
This tour on the Bay describes the long centuries when the West Coast of North America was truly the end of the world, a blind spot on maps. The Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo first sailed up the California coast in 1542, but the Bay itself remained unknown to Europeans for 227 more years, until Gaspar de Portola's Sacred Expedition finally discovered it in 1769—and not by sea, but by land.
It wasn't until August 5, 1775—almost exactly 246 years ago—that the first ship, the 58-foot San Carlos under the command of Captain Juan Manuel de Ayala, sailed through the Golden Gate. Our boat will follow in the wake of the San Carlos, cruising past Ayala Cove on Angel Island, where the Spanish ship anchored for almost a month, and along the San Francisco waterfront.
As we sail, we'll learn about the simultaneously grand, pathetic, and tragic saga of the Spanish and Mexican colonization of California, and the long story of the Bay Area’s native people, the Yelamu. This first tour ends with the founding of Yerba Buena, a tiny hamlet filled with dreamers, drunks and escapists that would become the city of San Francisco.