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One day if I go to heaven… I’ll look around and say ‘It ain’t bad. But it ain’t San Francisco.

Herb Caen

I’m going to miss the fog.

The fog, affectionately known as Karl, has been my companion on many late night hikes, bike rides, and camping trips. It has kept me cool in what would otherwise be an unbearably hot summer and provided hours of entertainment as I watched it roll into the bay. When I first arrived in San Francisco after twenty five years of a generally fog free life I was fascinated and had to learn more. Now that same fascination is leading me away from the fog.

The summertime heat in the Central Valley creates a low pressure zone and the dense marine layer travels along the pressure gradient from the ocean to the Central Valley. Most of this fog travels through the largest gap in the Coast Range, the Golden Gate, and results in a blanket of fog gently pulled over San Francisco on hot summer days. This fog is a critical source of water for coastal ecosystems. Summertime fog hours decreased by a third in the 20th century due to climate change. In my seven years in San Francisco I’ve noticed less fog and more hot days each year.

The fog inspired me to learn about San Francisco Bay. I studied some geology, oceanography, geography, and ecology to learn more about how the Bay Area became what we live in today. I swam in the bay and learned how storms affect local conditions, the causes of the tides, and more about currents than I ever thought possible. This knowledge was put to the test in my final grand adventure in San Francisco, my Bay to Breakers swim from the Bay Bridge to Ocean Beach.

I love nighttime in the city. It’s emptier, quieter, a little more adventurous than the day. It’s easier to hear the waves and the wind. Street lights are diffused through the fog. The bay at night feels even more adventurous than being on land yet somehow seems less remote. I think it’s that I stare constantly at the city lights when I swim while I ignore them while bathed in fog hiking through a eucalyptus forest.

It started as an offhand comment, the way that all great adventures do. I trained all winter for my swim but the best water conditions during the time I wanted to swim were at night around the new moon. I didn’t want to worry about sunburn on my swim and mentioned that I would be happy to swim around San Francisco in the dark. The tidal conditions really were better at night so my pilots agreed to a 3am jump at the Bay Bridge, hoping to get first light as we exited the Gate.

I’m grateful to my wonderful pilots Barry and Jon who share my curiosity about the bay. I learned so much about currents and what can happen in a strong ebb from them as we planned the swim. I encouraged them to take risks with my course so we could improve our knowledge of the area outside the Gate. San Francisco is a notoriously difficult area to navigate. Barry and Jon planned a great swim and they kept me informed about their concerns and questions so that I could learn from them. It made me more confident getting into the water.

Sometimes the best laid plans and thorough preparation aren’t enough to make something happen. My first Bay to Breakers swim date was pushed due to SARS-CoV-2. Then there were tide and wind concerns. Finally, in a parking lot at 1am we decided that the winds were too much of a problem and Bay to Breakers wasn’t going to happen. Back in January I had a grand idea that I would make this swim my last big adventure in San Francisco and my first big adventure back east would be a swim across Boston Harbor. That Boston swim was already cancelled and it seems fitting now that B2B would be too. I was bested by the Earth again, not for the last time, and it is when I humbly bow to respect the Earth’s power that I learn the most.

When I first came to California I was struck by how much bolder everything was than the east coast environment I had grown up with. The mountains were bigger, the oceans rougher, the temperatures more extreme, and the rain storms much stronger. I sit in my car at the beach while the wind rocks it side to side. I bailed on my first bike ride in the rain after two miles of dodging branches, over correcting on slick roads, and burning at least a thousand calories batting my eyelashes rapidly to keep the driving rain out. Growing up in New England I knew the weather can be crazy but California is where I internalized the lesson that my parents tried to instill in me as a kid: the Earth always wins.

Now, I am packing up the last seven years of my life. I moved to San Francisco on a whim. I had no reason to be here and I didn’t know who I was when I arrived. Seven years and many adventures later, I’m being called away. I think I could live the rest of my life in San Francisco and be happy but I would always be searching for something else. I’ve had a very happy life here and the city guided my struggles to find a purpose. For the last three years I have been working full time at discerning exactly what my calling is.

In a twist of fate, my calling is taking me from my chosen home back to my childhood home which I worked so hard to escape from. When I was seventeen life in a small New England town was my idea of hell. I worked hard in school so that I had options when it came time to leave. A month before my eighteenth birthday my parents drove me to Washington and I never went back. Now, I’m moving to a town with one sixth the population of my oppressively small hometown along the same river that I never explored as a kid. When I think about my future life in Vermont, along the river that I worked so hard to escape from, I’m now filled with curiosity and excitement to explore all the forests and mountains that I never knew as a kid.

San Francisco earned its reputation for cold summer days because of the fog. The cool damp climate of San Francisco is what made me realize how much I love the cold. Karl was my gateway drug into cold climates. I’m moving back to New England to study cold climates, specifically, the climates of the polar regions. San Francisco teased me with her fog and rough water and now I need to know more.

A San Francisco without the fog wouldn’t be the same city I fell in love with. My San Francisco is cold, windy, rocky, sandy, and hilly; tough but resilient, just like the chert that forms the backbone of the city. Each year I notice more hot summer days and each year I grow crankier as the city warms and people flock to the usually empty beaches. As the Earth warms the fog will decrease. Studying climate change is the best way I know to help the city that has given so much to me. We may not be together for quite some time but I won’t forget you San Francisco.