The Barbary Coast [1] has a wild story about this (now) nature sanctuary back in the Gold Rush era. There was a lot of money to be made feeding and housing the gold miners flooding into SF. That's literally where the whole "don't look for gold, sell pickaxes to the miners" business idea comes from. Some people found out that you could eat the huge eggs of some bird that lived on the islands. Maybe the murres. It was a pretty lucrative business selling the eggs in SF. There was a fight over rights to collect eggs on the island resulting in 2 deaths. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_War
[1] Can't find the reference now, maybe it was a different book
SF history is fucking wild - my personal favorite story is that a number of the bars in the financial district got their land by basically buying and scuttling ships when the city announced the landfill project that created the current coastline to secure the rights to the filled in land: https://www.kqed.org/news/10981586/why-are-there-ships-burie...
My favorite is the guy who had a business shuttling people across the Golden Gate via row boat. Had a big Bowie knife hanging off his neck. Halfway across the water he would stop and basically say "so here's the deal. You give me everything you got or I throw you overboard here." Apparently he got away with it for quite a while but eventually tried it on the wrong dude. Said Wrong Dude killed the row boat guy, tossed him overboard, and rowed himself the rest of the way to SF.
My dad got to go out there in the 90s on an unusual artist permit and painted landscapes for a few days. It sounded incredible. There was white shark research going on and he saw a seal get eaten through a spotting scope.
His website is tonykingart.com. It is sorely in need of an update. I don't have any photos of the Farallon paintings, but a small one hangs in my childhood bedroom. You could contact him through his site and I'm sure he'd oblige!
I have been shark diving at the Farallon's. We didn't end up seeing any sharks, but it was a remarkable experience. We sailed on a 65ft research sailing vessel and the crew was incredibly professional and a lot of fun. You can book at https://sharkdiveadventures.com/dive-locations/farallon-isla...
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] thread[1] Can't find the reference now, maybe it was a different book
It's too foggy to get a nice view of Sutro or the Golden Gate
The close-up view of the cove is pretty satisfying