The entire lawn is done in lights with light projected onto the tree, and with classical music playing
Seasonal light show at the Botanical Garden. This looks like a real WOW, judging from my 4:00 pm visit yesterday, before the show began.
From our Guest Speaker, Carl Nolte, at our General Meeting last Monday, December 8th.
By Carl Nolte, Contributor Dec 13, 2025 San Francisco Chronicle
Good cheer and good slogans are all around us this time of year. “It’s a December to remember!” the ads say, hoping to sell a new car wrapped in a red ribbon parked under a Christmas tree. That would be a big holiday gift for sure, something to remember for years. But most things people keep in their minds for years are the small things: the special little gifts that mean a lot, a warm drink on a chilly night, a wintry fireplace.
I’m thinking now of a small adventure, something ordinary, something different for a December to remember.
There are things every San Franciscan should do at least once. It’s something ordinary and special: a summertime baseball game, a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, a touristy ride on a cable car. Mine is a nighttime trip on a ferry.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/nativeson/article/night-ferry-sf-bay-ride-21236323.php
Greg
Quick and Dirty
Good cheer and good slogans are all around us this time of year. “It’s a December to remember!” the ads say, hoping to sell a new car wrapped in a red ribbon parked under a Christmas tree. That would be a big holiday gift for sure, something to remember for years. But most things people keep in their minds for years are the small things: the special little gifts that mean a lot, a warm drink on a chilly night, a wintry fireplace.
I’m thinking now of a small adventure, something ordinary, something different for a December to remember.
There are things every San Franciscan should do at least once. It’s something ordinary and special: a summertime baseball game, a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, a touristy ride on a cable car. Mine is a nighttime trip on a ferry.
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There are famous views from the bay by day, but just after sunset and just before dawn, the whole region changes. The bay itself changes from blue and gray to black marked by occasional red lights on buoys that mark the path across the water, by the sweep of white beams from light house signals. The Bay Bridge, the unglamorous sister of the Golden Gate, glitters after dark like a movie star on Oscar night.
I took a ride late the other day, a quick, small adventure, just to Oakland and back, a round trip that took a bit more than an hour. The boat was the San Francisco ferry Cetus, 135 feet long, 400 passengers, cruising at 27 knots, just over 30 mph. The Cetus is named for a galaxy far away.
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This Cetus sailed from San Francisco at 4:30 p.m., just as the day was fading away, heading under the Bay Bridge, past Yerba Buena Island and up the Oakland Estuary to Jack London Square.
I’ve always liked the ride up the estuary, past big container ships working cargo in Oakland, past docks lined with tugboats, past the Bay Ship & Yacht shipyard. It’s a glimpse of world trade, big ships, railroad trains, big rig trucks, commerce, set against a narrow arm of the sea. We pulled up at Jack London Square after a 25-minute trip, right on schedule.
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Jack London Square is always interesting, but I had no time to go ashore in Oakland because of a pressing appointment in San Francisco. So I got back aboard the Cetus for the ride back.
The boat was nearly full on the eastbound trip, people heading home, after a day’s work, some taking a nap, some tapping away on laptops, a working commute.
But the boat was nearly empty on the way back to San Francisco. I had the upper deck nearly to myself, except for a young couple sitting together, arm in arm, talking and watching the silvery wake.
Others leaned over the rail as if sniffing the cold wind. It’s been chilly this year, not the icy cold of the Midwest, or the snowy winter of the East Coast, but a West Coast cold, the air dank, the kind of chill you feel in your bones. Time to break out the winter coat.
Once out of the estuary and out in the open bay, we could feel the ferry roll just a bit, as if moving to the last of some faraway storm, a small touch of the distant Pacific ocean.
Halfway there, and then San Francisco, framed by the Bay Bridge, the city at twilight with the sun behind the tall buildings, the holiday lights just coming on. Almost dark, but not quite. By day it’s easy to see the city’s problems, but by night it’s magic.
Riding the ferry Cetus at dusk on San Francisco Bay between the city and Oakland presents a unique view of the bay.
Carl Nolte/S.F. Chronicle
Some of us remember an older San Francisco and an older ferry, maybe one of those big white old paddlewheel steamers that the writer Charles McCabe compared to “little old ladies, walking on the water.” That city had fewer skyscrapers then, but it had big red neon signs facing the bay. One advertised Wellman Coffee, the other had a big red globe. “Sherwin Williams Paint,” it said. The sign blinked. It flashed, “Covers the Earth.” Maybe nights were darker then, and my imagination lighter, but I never forgot those nighttime ferry trips.
There were other adventures, especially in winter when the tule fog comes creeping in from the San Joaquin Valley. I remember one wintry ferry trip on a foggy morning 20 years ago when I was based briefly in Marin and rode the early morning commuter boat from Sausalito. The shore disappeared only minutes after the ferry pulled out into a world of gray.
The ferry skipper blew the whistle every minute or so. The passengers could hear the sound, bouncing off the shore; we could hear Alcatraz but not see it, hear the sound echoing from an invisible city as well, and the warning whistles of other boats heading our way. I thought of Jack London and the ferryboat collision in the fog that opens his classic novel “The Sea Wolf.” I thought of the ship Cosco Busan lost in the fog crashing into the Bay Bridge.
Nothing happened on my own gray voyage. No drama, just a small adventure.
But I bet the same adventures happen every foggy morning, especially on the early morning runs aboard the Vallejo ferry on famously foggy San Pablo Bay.
The season is right for a small voyage just now. The San Francisco Bay Ferry is offering discounts for what the agency calls “ferry powered winter adventures.” Youth under 18 can ride for $1, and a $20 24-hour pass good for all routes is being offered through January. There are some exceptions. The holiday discounts are not good on Golden Gate Ferry boats, and no ferries will be operated on Christmas or New Year’s Day.
Dec 13, 2025