|
San Pedro Rock, standing guard
San Pedro Rock, that ship's prow that juts into the storm tide at the
southern end of Shelter Cove, thrills me every time I see it, and that has
been thousands of times in the almost 36 years I've lived in Pacifica.
Never have I looked at that proud sculpture without exulting just a bit.
It's jagged, it's rugged, it's moody, it'a arrogant-- if you can say those
things about something inanimate.
But the rock does live. It responds to weather. It appears almost soft in a
sunny haze. It's gray and somber in a wet, high fog. It shines proudly
white in a bright sun. It changes every day and every hour.
It guards our southern bastion, as Mussel Rock guards our northern gate. No
city ever had two finer portals. The guardian has been called San Pedro
Rock, Pedro Rock, Schumacher Rock (after an early Pacifica mayor, Gerry
Schumacher). Gerry was honored in a lighthearted moment during a council
meeting back in the early sixties. I'm not sure whether they were honoring
him or kidding him.
Up close, this distinctive piece of geology shows strong evidence of the
forces that created it. Originally, millions of years ago, it was laid down
absolutely flat, gathering tiny layer upon tiny layer, in an agonizingly
slow process. Then it was buried deeply within the earth, and moved by
powerful forces which squeezed it and twisted it until what had lain
horizontal now stood vertical. Waves, water, wind and time, lots of time,
have done the rest.
The rock is an enemy to ships that misjudge it or lose power near it, but
it's a landmark to thousands of others that pass it by. Back in 1966 a
commercial fisherman lost his boat to the rugged rocks, and a Tribune
photographer was honored statewide for his prizewinning photo that so
graphically portrayed the pathos and grief he endured.
Perhaps even gray whales have it engraved on their memories to guide them
as they glide by on their way to Scammon's Lagoon in Baja from their arctic
feeding grounds.
Birds which never show their beaks inland put down regularly on San Pedro
Rock and streak it with their guano.
In the roiling waters around it, abalone used to cling to the rocks and
grow large. Longtime skin divers have told me that 50 years ago the water
was bright and clear, but civilization and sewer outfalls have turned it
turbid.
Due north from the landmark the next landfall is Marin. From San Francisco
south, San Pedro Rock is the westernmost part of North America. As the crow
flies, the next landfall south is the Antarctic continent.
Pedro Rock and its tough twin, Mussel Rock, have changed little since first
seen by Gaspar de Portol‡ and his men. They are both the children of great
faults, the Pilarcitos and the San Andreas, the end result of thousands of
earthquakes over millions of years, pushing, ever pushing them out to sea.
Long after the fishing pier has been beaten into the ocean, San Pedro Rock
will still guard our southern flank.
If you wish, you may read some previous Reactor columns at Paul Azevedo's website, http://www.thereactor.net/ or e-mail him at Paul@thereactor.net
|
