We made our way to the Maritime Park (all of a block from Ghirardelli Square) and watched several guys digging in the sand while we ate lunch. Turns out the guys who were digging were from the Art Institute nearby and they were going to work on some sand art as a way to relax after some big tests. They offered to share their digging tools with us if the kids wanted to dig in the sand too....duh - took about a nanosecond for kids to accept the offer. Pretty much every time we've made castles at the beach, the kids have lamented not having big shovels and buckets...and now they had about 4 different types of shovels and a few hoes and rakes along with some 5 gallon buckets! Their fort had some SERIOUS water trenches outside the 2-ft walls and I think the kids would have been happy to dig at the beach for the rest of the day!
We happily discovered that the Maritime Park is actually the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park administered by the National Park Service...which of course meant another opportunity for a Junior Ranger badge! Cousins Christian and Haven joined the ranks of Junior Rangers too as everyone learned about the perils of navigating ships into San Francisco Bay, the most common types of ships and how Argonauts (gold rushers who arrived by ship) often just abandoned their ships in the Bay in their haste to get to the mountains! Found out that ships use specially trained Boat Pilots to help navigate into the Bay. The Boat Pilots go out to the ships before they go under the Golden Gate Bridge and help avoid underwater hazards while dealing with tricky tides and winds. The Pilots on San Francisco Bay reminded me of the pilots that help ships navigate from the Pacific Ocean up the Columbia River on the Oregon-Washington border!