Castro Point/Magnum Force

Last weekend was another weekend of taking the kayak out. This time around though I stuck closer to home and headed out North Richmond after the morning marine layer had lifted. A few weeks prior I had been on a date and the conversation had turned to various Dirty Harry films and SF Bay locations. I had oddly been struck that I had no idea where the ending of Magnum Force had been shot. The near ending of the film takes place aboard two WWII era light carriers (CVE's) and at the time I remembered that you could make out bridge in the background.

I think the consensus of the conversation had been that it was shot around Pier 54 in SF, but it seemed odd and I actually thought it had shot up in Suisson Bay area with one of those bridges in the background. So after the date I came home and did a lot of internet searching and found that it had been shot in Richmond area. It turns out that few military based BBS boards had hit the subject and tracked down two CVE's in question ("USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-166)" and "USS Rabaul (CVE-121" to be exact). Both had been stricken and sent to Richmond to be scrapped at this time.

The Pier in question (Point Richmond Pier 90)had been abandoned some time later and and over the decades since had collapsed. On one of the BBS boards it was indicated that collapsed pier was actually still findable depending on tide level and could be seen via google maps of the area. The area in question is just due north of San Rafeal/Richmond Bridge and part of it had been opened as a state park. I had actually once kayaked the area several months prior but had no idea of it's background at the time.

Anyway, so last weekend I took the kayak out to re-explore this area. I easily found the old pier, or what was left of it. Landing at the base of the pier wasn't that easy due to all the rocks and that it was all fenced off too (not open to the public). I kind of expected the state park rangers to show up and kick me out too. Oh well. The rest of the trip was kind of boring and the wind was kind of killer too, so kayak never tracked well in the water always wanting to veer starboard or larboard depending on where I was in the water. I also kept having my left foot fall a sleep. Ugh, which sucks.