Tomales Bay is a long, narrow

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine ge ...

of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

Marin County Marin County is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is acros ...

in northern California in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. It is approximately long and averages nearly wide, effectively separating the

Point Reyes Peninsula Point Reyes (, meaning "Point of the Kings") is a prominent cape and popular Northern California tourist destination on the Pacific coast. Located in Marin County, it is approximately west-northwest of San Francisco. The term is often applied ...

from the mainland of Marin County. It is located approximately northwest of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. The bay forms the eastern boundary of

Point Reyes National Seashore Point Reyes National Seashore is a park preserve located on the Point Reyes Peninsula in Marin County, California. As a national seashore, it is maintained by the US National Park Service as an important nature preserve. Some existing agricul ...

. Tomales Bay is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy.State Water Resources Control Board ''Water Quality Control Policy for the Enclosed Bays and Estuaries of California'' (1974) State of California On its northern end, it opens out onto Bodega Bay, which shelters it from the direct current of the Pacific (especially the

California Current The California Current is a cold water Pacific Ocean current that moves southward along the western coast of North America, beginning off southern British Columbia and ending off southern Baja California Sur. It is considered an Eastern boundar ...

). The bay is formed along a submerged portion of the

San Andreas Fault The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). ...

Oyster farming is a major industry on the bay. The two largest producers are

Hog Island Oyster Company Hog may refer to: Animals * Pig ** Usually referring to the domestic pig ** Sometimes referring to other animals in the family Suidae, including: *** Warthog *** Red river hog *** Giant forest hog * groundhog * hedgehog * hog (sheep), a yearlin ...

and Tomales Bay Oyster Company, both of which retail oysters to the public and have picnic grounds on the east shore. Hillsides east of Tomales Bay are grazed by cows belonging to local dairies. There is also grazing land west of the bay, on farms and ranches leased from Point Reyes National Seashore. The bay sees significant amounts of water sports including sailing, kayaking, fishing and motor boating. Watercraft may be launched on Tomales Bay from the public boat ramp at Nick's Cove, north of Marshall. The

sand bar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. It ...

at the mouth of Tomales Bay is notoriously dangerous, with a long history of small-boat accidents. The

California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, commonly referred to as OEHHA (pronounced oh-EEE-ha), is a specialized department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency ( CalEPA) with responsibility for evaluatin ...

(OEHHA) has developed a safe eating advisory for fish caught here, based on levels of mercury or

PCBs Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, Toxic Substances Contro ...

found in local species. Towns bordering Tomales Bay include

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

, Inverness Park, Point Reyes Station, and

Marshall Marshall may refer to: Places Australia * Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria Canada * Marshall, Saskatchewan * The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia Liberia * Marshall, Liberia Marshall Islands * Marshall Islands, a ...

. Additional hamlets include Nick's Cove, Spengers, Duck Cove, Shallow Beach, and Vilicichs. Dillon Beach lies just to the north of the mouth of the bay, and Tomales just to the east.

History

The area is the unceded territory of the Coast Miwok. Documented villages in the area included ''Echa-kolum'' (south of

), ''Sakloki'' (opposite

Tomales Point Tomales Point is the North-Western tip of Point Reyes Peninsula. Bodega Bay is to the North, Tomales Bay is to the East, and the Pacific Ocean is to the West. The point is accessible only via a 9.5 mile hike (out and back) along Tomales Point ...

), ''Shotommo-wi'' (near the mouth of the Estero de San Antonio), and ''Utumia'' (near Tomales).

Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...

is thought to have landed in nearby Drakes Estero in 1579. Members of the Vizcaíno Expedition found the Bay in 1603, and thinking it a river, named it ''Rio Grande de San Sebastian''. Early 19th-century settlements constituted the southernmost Russian colony in North America and were spread over an area stretching from Point Arena to Tomales Bay.Historical Atlas of California The

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

North Pacific Coast Railroad The North Pacific Coast Railroad (NPC) was a common carrier narrow-gauge steam railroad begun in 1874 and sold in 1902 to new owners who renamed it the North Shore Railroad (California) (NSR) and which rebuilt the southern section into a standar ...

from

Sausalito Sausalito (Spanish for "small willow grove") is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located southeast of Marin City, south-southeast of San Rafael, and about north of San Francisco from the Golden Gate Bridge. Sausalito ...

was constructed along the east side of the bay in 1874 and extended to the Russian River until it was dismantled in 1930.Dickson, A. Bray ''Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods'' (1974) Trans-Anglo Books Tomales Bay State Park was formed to preserve some of the bay shore; it opened to the public in 1952. Popular units of the park include Heart's Desire Beach and Millerton Point. The

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It i ...

, signed in 1971, listed Tomales Bay as a wetland of international importance. The Giacomini Wetland Restoration Project, completed in 2008, returned to wetland several hundred acres at the south end of the bay that had been drained for grazing during the 1940s.

Marconi Conference Center

The Marconi Conference Center State Historical Park preserves a small hotel built by

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi bei ...

in 1913 to house personnel who staffed his transpacific radio station nearby. The hotel and the associated operations building and employee cottages were built by the J.G. White Engineering Corp under contract to Marconi.

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Com ...

purchased the station from Marconi in 1920. The station was closed in 1939, though other nearby radio stations on the Point Reyes Peninsula still operate today.

Synanon Synanon is a US-founded social organization created by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California, United States. It is currently active in Germany. Originally established as a drug rehabilitation program, by the early ...

, a drug rehabilitation organization and cult, owned it from the early 1960s until 1980, when it was purchased by a private foundation and given to the state in 1984 to operate as a conference center.

Gallery

Image:Tomalesbay01.jpg, View of Tomales Bay towards the north File:Tomales Bay as viewed from Tomales Point Trail 3.JPG , Entrance to Tomales Bay as viewed from Tomales Point, looking south Image:Former North Pacific Coast Railroad grade adjacent to Tomales Bay.JPG, The former grade of the

follows the east shore of the bay. Image:Marconicenter02.jpg, Marconi Conference Center File:Where Tectonic Plates Go for a Swim.jpg, Satellite picture of Tomales Bay

References

External links

Tomales Bay SPMarconi Conference Center SHPMarconi Conference Center
{{Authority control Bays of California Bays of Marin County, California West Marin Landforms of the San Francisco Bay Area Places with bioluminescence Ramsar sites in the United States

History

Marconi Conference Center

Gallery

See also

References

External links