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The first surf spot in North Central California, and one of the most unusual places to go surfing on the planet, Fort Point is a left that breaks directly under the Golden Gate Bridge. On the best days, the wave starts around the point, directly under the bridge and wraps nearly 90 degrees into the cove on the inside.
Fort Point is an experience: safe and dangerous, beautiful and eerie, exposed and protected, easy and hard. All of these things at the same time.
Fort Point is safe because when the big, bad ocean outside the bay is closed out, blown out or otherwise unsurfable, Fort Point can be 4 to 6 feet, hot and glassy. During the winter, Fort Point is usually offshore and rarely blows out, even in the strongest northwest winds.
Fort Point is dangerous for a few reasons. When the ocean is pouring in and the tide is pouring out, there's a lot of water going every which way under the bridge. Outgoing tides rip through here like the Colorado River. On the strongest tides in the winter, the current flows out as fast as seven knots, too strong to paddle against. Another danger is that the break is lined with rocks, and there is a big rock in the middle of the break, marking the inside lineup. A wipeout on a big day here could be harmful or fatal if you get swallowed by the rocks. A lot of Fort Point locals wear helmets and those nasty rocks are why. Finally, it can be tricky getting in and out through the rocks that line the break. And then there's always the possibility of some nutcase jumping off the bridge and landing on your head.
Fort Point is beautiful because the view from the water at the Point is overwhelming: the Bridge overhead, the Marin Headlands to the northwest, Tiburon and Belvedere to the northeast and all of San Francisco straight inland. On a windy weekend, the Bay is a field of sails and boats, with container ships and freighters weaving through the chaos.
Fort Point is spooky because it's like surfing in the Land of the Giants. Everything around you is grotesquely out of scale: the bridge towers above you and the container ships are immense and close. And all that out-of-scale-ness makes you think of submarine-size great whites, but don't worry...too much. There's never been an attack at Fort Point, but in 1959, a man was killed by a shark at Baker Beach, less than a mile away.
Fort Point can be a pretty good wave. With the right angle on the swell and the right tide and the right wind, it's a decent left point: sometimes hollow, sometimes fun, sometimes blown and ragged and gnarly and challenging. This wave is the definition of fickle: tide sensitive, wind sensitive. Not the hollowest wave in California or the longest-walled or the fastest, but definitely in the top five for being an unusual experience.
-- Ben Marcus
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low and incoming
Medium period W, NW
chest-high to a few feet overhead
E, light NW
5
death boulders, abandoned Chevrolets
intermediate to advanced
shortboard, booties, safety net, bungee cord, anchor
winter
look for the bridge, follow the signs to Fort Point and park virtually on top of the break
Stifling
Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a Souther-man.
8, during an outgoing tide
5 plus. This is San Francisco Bay emptying, after all.
flying bodies, grouchy locals, foot-slicing boulders, errant container ships and getting sucked out to Potato Patch with the outgoing tide.
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Places to eat in San Francisco? Endless. Blindfold yourself, stagger 50 yards and most likely you will walk into a restaurant. We don't want to ruin it by suggesting anywhere, although we will suggest looking up www.SFGate.com.
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From the bottom to the top, there are no shortages of places to stay in San Francisco. If you're one of those big-shot Internet ding-a-lings with all the money in the world, you can spend $400 a night for a Premier room at the Fairmont Hotel. But you don't have to.
At the other end of the price scale, there are two youth hostels in San Francisco. The Fort Mason hostel is on the water, only a few miles from Fort Point. They charge $19 to $21 a night and who knows, you might meet some hot Norwegian chicks in lederhosen and backpacks. They say super markets and Laundromats are the place to meet chicks? Uh, uh. Youth hostels, baby. You heard it here first. Fort Mason, Building 240, San Francisco, CA 94123. Phone: 415-771-7277. E-mail: sfhostel@dnai.com. Web: www.norcalhostels.org.
There is another youth hostel on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge, at Fort Cronkite, about 15 minutes from the city and a mile from a decent little surf spot. This is a nice location, quiet, green, no traffic and far from the madding crowd. They charge $12 for adults, $6 for children and $26 for a couple. For more info, call 415-771-3645.
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Here's a statistic. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that in the past year, tourists spent an average of $17,000,000 a day in San Francisco, for a grand total of $6.6 billion dollars a year. Kind of unbelievable, no? What were they spending all that money on? In San Francisco, there are a lot of cable cars and Fisherman's Wharves and Alcatrazes and Bay Cruises and other goofy things for tourists to do. But what can you, a cool surfer, not a tourist, do in San Francisco when you're not surfing?
One of the best things to do in San Francisco is relatively cheap. Just get in your car and drive around, checking out all the different areas and views and scenics from up high and down low. It's fun to get lost in San Francisco, but you never get that lost. No matter how deep you are in the city, you're never far from the ocean. Just head east or west and you'll run into it, eventually.
For general sightseeing, drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, take the Alexander Avenue exit and check out the view of San Francisco from Hawk's Point in the Marin Headlands. You can see Fort Point, Ocean Beach and all the way to Pedro Point from up there. If the surf is huge, drive all the way out to the end of Point Bonita and take a look at The Potato Patch. It's quite a sight when the surf is giant. There's decent surf down at Fort Cronkite, and Sausalito is a nice place to cruise around and get a bite to eat when there isn't any surf.
If you want to get out on the bay, call Sausalito Bay Adventures and ask about renting a Boston Whaler. It's really fun to go cruise around Alcatraz and Angel Island. They charge $75 to $100 an hour, but what the hell, it's the 21st century, and money is raining from the sky: 415-331-0444.
If you're a sailboarder or a kite-surfer and the northwest winds are blowing, have a blast. The wind blows free.
If you're a golfer and you brought your sticks, we recommend the Presidio Golf Course, a beautiful course close enough to the ocean to let you keep an eye on the wind and the tides as you hit a few holes. For reservations call 415561-GOLF.
If you're a baseball fan, or even if you're not, you really should check out Pac Bell Park. They did a great job building this thing, and many consider it the best stadium in the United States. The Giants are up and down as much as the surf, and tickets can be hard to find sometimes, but go to the game and look for scalpers and you should be able to get in. Try to get seats in the Club section. Club gives you easy access to all the concessions, it's the best angle in the stadium and they even bring food to your seat. For info on the Giants, plug into www.sfgiants.com.
Moviegoers will enjoy the Sony Metreon at Fourth and Mission (415-369-6000). It has a zillion screens and an IMAX. Matt Warshaw saw George Lucas going into the bathroom at the Sony Metreon during the winter of 1999.
Do you love the nightlife? Do you got to boogie? San Francisco and the Bay Area have a thriving music/nightlife scene, from Opera to Blues. No room to list it all here. If you want to get the scoop on everything that is going on in San Francisco, log on to www.SFGate.com.
The South of Market area has a thriving club scene, but be careful which door you walk through. If you want to know which door to enter or avoid, log on to www.gaysf.com for a listing of all the gay bars. The titles of some of these establishments are pretty classic: Moby Dick, Hole in the Wall, Stud and Swallow.
To see a listing of clubs, check www.sfclubs.com and a Clubline number to call is 415-339-8686. We'd like to tell you more about these clubs, but we've been so busy putting this web site together, all we can do is listen to Christian music at our cubicles. We don't get out much.
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There are four along Ocean Beach. Big Yank Sports is on the Kelly's Cove end, hidden away a little on the corner of Balboa and La Playa: 415-666-1616. Bob Wise Surfboards is the longest-established surf shop at Ocean Beach. The current shop, very well stocked, is on Great Highway, before Golden Gate Park: 415-750-9473. SF Surf Shop is the only shop that makes custom boards, shaped by John Schultze. It's at 3809 Noriega St. and the phone is 415-661-7873. Web site is www.SFSurfShop.com. At the Sloat Avenue end, Aquaholics is a little ways up Ocean Avenue: 415-242-9283.
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