Bay Area’s convergence point hip to be squared
The high seas have their mysteries, and nowhere are they more mysterious than a littleknown spot in the northeast corner of San Pablo Bay.
Here something happens that happens nowhere else in Northern California. It’s the place where four Bay Area counties come together at a single point. The borders of Marin, Contra Costa, Sonoma and Solano counties converge in a patch of dull blue water about 5 miles southwest of downtown Vallejo.
It must mean something, right?
“I don’t know what,” captain Hugo Knef said the other morning, from the bridge of the Vallejobound ferry boat, Lyra.
It was a clear, cold, calm morning on San Francisco Bay as, precisely at 7: 35 a. m., Knef expertly eased the Lyra away from Berth B at the Ferry Building. He said, in the interest of discovery that all sea captains share, he would try to maneuver the Lyra as close to the spot as he could.
In the scope of his duties, Knef has passed not far from the spot — known to cartographers as a quadripoint — several times every day for a dozen years or so without having any idea of its existence. County lines are not drawn on nautical charts and sea captains have enough other things to worry about.
“I suppose something like this spot had to happen somewhere,” Knef said. “Might as well be in the middle of the bay, where there’s nothing to argue about.”
In places besides San Pablo Bay, things that meet at four corners are a big deal.
In the Southwest, the spot where Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico come together is a popular tourist draw called Four Corners Monument. Motorists pay $ 5 to visit the spot and take pictures of themselves standing in four states at once. And there’s a spot in the middle of southern Africa, where the countries of Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe meet, although you can’t get there on the Vallejo ferry.
During the pandemic, Four Corners Monument — the place where the four states come together in the Southwest — is
closed. For now, anyone in the Bay Area seeking out a quadripoint has little choice but the Vallejo ferry.
Ferry operations manager Peter Belden said ridership on the Vallejo ferry is off a staggering 90% during the pandemic, and the line is trying anything it can to drum up new customers. Vallejo and San Francisco are worthy destinations, he said, and a spot in the middle of San Pablo Bay is pretty wonderful, too.
The captain steamed northeast, nearer and nearer to the spot while
staying close to the safety of the main channel. Knef said he couldn’t get too close to the fourcounty spot because most of San Pablo Bay is shallow — no deeper than a swimming pool. Ship captains who run into bay bottoms, or icebergs, usually find themselves out of work or worse.
Two flocks of surf scooters flapped by, oblivious. To starboard, the oil tanker Emerald Spirit continued on its course to a refinery and didn’t seem too particular about which county
it was in. A small motorboat with two anglers aboard also passed by, with bigger fish than cartography to fry.
Precisely at 8: 08 a. m., Knef slowed the Lyra to a crawl. “Abeam portside,” he said. That meant look over there, to the left.
And there it was. The only point in Northern California where four counties meet turns out to be a lovely gray place full of nothing. Not often does a boat with a schedule to keep take a moment to pause and reflect, but that seemed to be what the good ship
Lyra was doing.
On the bottom deck sat a passenger. His name was Oscar Schrag and he was the one and only passenger on the 7: 35 a. m. run to Vallejo. Ferry traffic is way down during the pandemic and, in the reverse commute direction, there is usually only a small handful of passengers. Today, Schrag was the entire small handful.
He said he had no idea why the boat had slowed. Told that it was because the vessel was passing the only spot in the region where four counties converge, Schrag looked out the window and searched, unsuccessfully, for something worth looking at.
“I supposed there’s some cultural significance to it,” he said. “Who knows? It’s not particularly important, but it’s interesting.”
He went back to his book. A moment later, the Lyra was all business, resuming its run to Vallejo at 40 miles an hour.
“We’re so fast, we can go a little bit out of the way sometimes and it doesn’t matter,” Knef said.