Weekend mini-adventure: Vallejo

[rebeccmeister]

I couldn't go rowing Saturday morning, so scrottie and I decided we wanted to go on a bike ride instead. For a change of pace, I suggested we look into a partial route towards Petaluma, because we eventually want to bike up there to visit the Lagunitas Brewpub. On the local randonneuring list, someone had just posted about navigational logistics in the North Bay, and mentioned good food and drinks at the Mare Island Taproom in Vallejo. Sounded good to me!

On the outbound leg, Google gave us weird directions through Pinole and Hercules, sending us on a strange detour along some small bike paths. Eventually, we reached the Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge:



The last time we rode across this bridge was the Saturday after moving out here, when I wanted to wedge in a 200k permanent to keep working towards an R-12 Award (ride at least 200k a month for 12 months). On that prior ride, we didn't have time to stop and take photos, so it was nice to take a more leisurely pace and observe the Sacramento River Delta.

Here's the view north, towards Vallejo:


That's the mouth of the Napa River, separating Mare Island on the left from the mainland.

The Mare Island Taproom was in the ferry building in Vallejo, so I suppose if we didn't want to ride our bikes there we could have taken the ferry from San Francisco instead.



We opted to bike back.

Here's an interesting-looking business on the south shore of the Sacramento River delta, a restaurant called the Nantucket. It looked busy on a Saturday afternoon, even though the marina right outside looks like it has seen better days.



S is curious about the function of the barge-like boat in the center of the photo, which has a huge ramp on its back end.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

I did a little sleuthing (and recruited an vehicle nerd friend) and we have concluded the following:

-the boat was originally one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCM-8
-it was decommissioned and bought by a non-government owner in CA: https://boatdb.net/boat/824-1209611.htm
-the ramp is used to drive things on and off the boat, probably currently equipment and cargo, but originally troops, and the boat was likely used first in Vietnam

Also:
-the big rotting boat has been there since the 1980's and known as The Ghost Ship

[rebeccmeister]

Wow, thank you for the sleuthing! I'll point scrottie towards this. :^)

[bluepapercup]

I truly enjoy it. Researching random things is a thing I'm good at. Which is funny, because I'm not great at formalized research!

[scrottie]

The large one I was wondering about the most:

https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/the-nantucket-restaurant-crockett?select=6LvKkQowPA92AIwaJ4IL2w

Following your link, it seems like this Kenneth Carver fellow owns nearly the lot of them:

https://boatdb.net/port/crockett-ca.htm

Four of those were built by Marinette Marine (from Googling their hull numbers), but one is larger and aluminium, whereas three are steel (two of the smaller steel landing craft missing, sunk, or sold to salvage?):

https://boatdb.net/boat/824-1209611.htm

Not finding any references for "Crockett California Ghost Ship" etc, but it's interesting to find out that this is one person's private boat graveyard for Marinette Marine ships.

Also, semi-related, and not far away:

http://www.businessinsider.com/mothball-fleet-of-decaying-ships-off-coast-of-san-francisco-2014-10/#low-deck-these-ships-are-rusting-away-13

http://scotthaefner.com/beyond/mothball-fleet-ghost-ships/

[scrottie]

Edit: Okay, two of the smaller steel landers are visible there, so I'm not seeing one or it's gone.

[rebeccmeister]

This reminds me of the time when I followed a couple of "urban decay" blogs on LJ.

What's the fascination about, when it comes to old, decaying boats that are dropping heavy metals into waterways?

[scrottie]

There's museum appeal (preserved history) and exploration appeal (unravelling a complex system from inside of it, or trying to) and a sort of monument appeal (marvelling at the amount of human energy put into something).

Those put me into a reflective mindset.

I should have guessed that there would be security. That makes it more of a project than I'd take on right now, but I'm glad that other people have photodocumented it so I can marvel at it from afar.

[rebeccmeister]

I can appreciate those appeals, especially the archaeological element of not having everything specially prepared for a broad public audience. Those ships also come from a time window that's fascinating to consider, and it was interesting to learn that the fleet even contains/contained stuff from programs as recent as the 1990's (our tax dollars at work!).

But I guess my sense of caution and concern about lawbreaking strongly outweigh the appeal of going from the idea to action. At least other people have taken some photos for us.

[bluepapercup]

re: the last link - I was coworkers with Scott Haefner for two years, during the period he was planning and undertaking the mothball fleet work, and got to hear about it some of it firsthand. He's a really neat guy.

[rebeccmeister]

Wild!