Sailing through history: Oakland harbor tours offer unique peek into port’s past and future

NOVELIST GERTRUDE STEIN was wrong when she said there’s no there in Oakland. There’s definitely a very big “there” there called the Port of Oakland.

While officials bicker back and forth over what to call the port’s Oakland International Airport, the 875 waterfront acres (of about 1,300 acres of the entire seaport) on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay just keeps shuffling cargo in and out of Northern California.

Most people passing through the area tend to fixate on the giant cargo cranes that urban legend says may have inspired George Lucas’ design of the intimidating Imperial AT-ATs in the Star Wars movies. But there’s a lot more going on down below.

You don’t have to have your own boat to get up close to the enormity. The port takes people out once a month until October to get a good look, and the view is incredible.

As is the price, which is free.

“We sell out within minutes of tickets going on sale. We only (offer) tickets month to month,” said David DeWitt, a PR specialist for the port who acts as a tour guide this particular Friday night. “We do it every year, though we stopped for the pandemic.”

“The most popular part is when we’re out by Yerba Buena Island and we go under the bridge and people get pictures of the bridge and the city behind it,” DeWitt said.

Since the trip is timed to slide under the Bay Bridge area just before sundown, it’s definitely the climax of the 90-minute tour aboard the Blue and Gold Ferry. But there’s so much more before it.

History and a whole lot of stuff

There’s a lot going on around the port and up and down the estuary that people just don’t typically see. At least not from the water. The tour is narrated and there’s a lot of big numbers and history tossed about.

According to the California Association of Port Authorities, the port serves a “local market” of over 14.5 million consumers, 34 million within a seven-hour drive, and 50 percent of the U.S. population by rail.

The Port of Oakland handled more than 2 million, 20-foot-long containers in 2023. That’s a lot of stuff being moved.

Once the ferry pulls past the massive military transport ship, USNS John Glenn, it’s on to rows of cargo ships stacked with thousands of cargo containers on freighters being offloaded 24/7 by those giant cranes seen from the Bay Bridge and Alameda. Seeing the operation up close from the water side, with nothing impeding the view, is absolutely fascinating. The operation is like a giant game of Tetris with stacking, restacking and fitting rectangular containers moving in and out of the port.

“The unit of measurement for these ships is called TEU, which are 20-foot equivalent units,” DeWitt said. “A lot of these are going to be like 40-footers. And so, if some of these ships carry 10,000 TEU, that means there’s at least 5,000 containers on the ship. And this is just what you see.”

Yes, we pass the infamous Howard Terminal, where the Oakland A’s wanted to build a baseball stadium. But no one talks about that this evening.

Many of the other 700-plus acres of terminals and what they do are identified by the onboard narrator, as is the former Schnitzer Steel facility, now owned by Radius Recycling. They buy and export scrap metal — mostly from vehicles — to steel mills in Asia that frequently comes back to the U.S. in the form of new cars.

This evening, the mountains of twisted metal looks like the special effects-enhanced aftermath of a disaster film (which may not be coincidental, since the narrator explains the company was founded in 1906 — the year of the Great San Francisco Earthquake.

Massive, mighty cranes

The largest terminal, SSA Marine (all the port’s terminals are commercially leased out to various cargo companies), handles more than 6,000 truck transactions a day and as many as 15 vessel calls a week during the busy shipping season.

The port has 18 deep-water berths for ships to dock and 33 giant cranes to load and unload ships. And, from the water, calling the cranes “giant” doesn’t feel like hyperbole.

And about those cranes, according to our tour guide: The tallest is 440 feet high — as tall as a 44-story office building.

The cranes can lift 65 tons at a time, which is about the weight of a dozen elephants.

One of those monsters weighs about 1,600 tons, or 3.2 million pounds.

The cranes can also lift at a speed of 230 feet per minute. They used to run on diesel fuel, but now they’re 100 percent electric.

There’s no official word from the narrator whether Lucas was inspired by the design. But seeing the real things in action makes them seem way more impressive than the big screen machines.

The port’s top three export partners are China, Vietnam and Taiwan. Those containers include fruits, nuts and vegetables from the Central Valley; wine from the Napa Valley region; beef, pork, and poultry from the Midwest, and lots of other items we eat and drink every day.

Most of the goods coming back are from Japan, Taiwan and China.

So as your brain nearly overloads by the relentlessly fascinating facts and figures, the breeze picks up and the boat emerges from the tightness (about 1,500 feet across) of the estuary.

The evolving waterfront

Middle Harbor Shoreline Park extends out on 38 acres from the middle of the port. The area is on the site of the former Oakland Naval Supply Depot, which played an important role in World War II. At this location, civilian and military workers processed and shipped electronics, weapons, clothing, food, fuel, and medicine. Now it’s a public park created by the port with walking paths and picnic areas.

The park surrounds more than 180 acres of shallow water habitat for aquatic species and birds. The narrator said the Golden Gate Bird Alliance has identified Middle Harbor Shoreline as a “birding hotspot” and leads frequent birding tours here. It’s open to the public from sunrise to sunset.

It’s not long until the narrator points out you’re 60 feet above BART’s Transbay Tube, which makes you briefly try listening for trains. On the port’s north side, you hear about the port’s dive team — four full-time divers constantly inspecting the port’s 25,000 pilings.

On the north side is the state-of-the-art $50 million Seaport Logistics Complex on the site of the former Oakland Army Base, which was built in 1941 and closed in 1999. The base has since been divided into two parts, one owned by the port, the other by the City of Oakland. Both contain warehouses holding goods for transport.

The next leg takes the ferry toward Yerba Buena Island, which the narrator said is named after the town that became San Francisco. The island used to be called Goat Island until President William McKinley and Congress built a naval training station there. The lighthouse on the island belongs to the Coast Guard district commander.

Most people never see this view of Yerba Buena. The short leg by the island and under the west side of the bridge is worth the trip by itself.

The captain pauses for a lot of photo-taking, then it’s back down the estuary. It’s the most informative, scenic, and affordable 90-minute boat tour people may ever take.

Registration for the July 12 tour starts at 8 p.m. on July 1. There are 230 spaces available on each tour and each person may reserve up to four (4) tickets per boat tour. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. The port only takes reservations online, though walk-ins are accepted 30 minutes before the tour.

More information is available on the Port of Oakland website.

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