A smallish, fairly deep and clear lake, with beaches, sandbars and rock islands, a forested shoreline, about one mile long and just over two miles wide. Water levels are controlled by a regulator, and there is no water exchange with the ocean; the lake is quite isolated. An unnamed bay on the east side of the lake near its outlet. This bay can be viewed from a small hilltop with a viewpoint at its southern end, and a boardwalk that meanders around its eastern shoreline. A large area of this bay is a protected State preserve, with views of both the bay and the Lake. Lake Merritt, once a saltwater lagoon for grazing cows and gardens, where the city center now stands, and later a shipbuilding and boat-building hub, with a large boat builder’s colony. Today the Lake is still in an artificial basin and not a natural lake. It’s a lakelet, really, but with most of its water going into the San Francisco Bay, not the Pacific Ocean. A fairly large and deep basin. We’ve been unable to view it; we have not yet been able to find a good vantage point from which to photograph it. The San Francisco Bay, the third largest bay in the world. This bay is really a complex of waterways, channels, straits, narrow passages and islands stretching about 250 miles from the Golden Gate in the north to the Golden Horn in the south. Many of the cities and towns of California are located on the shores of the bay and its channels and tributaries. About 95 percent of the Bay’s volume of water comes from the Pacific, with the remaining 5 percent coming from the Sacramento River. The large freshwater portion of the Bay, known as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, empties about 150,000 acre-feet of water into the bay. Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers also drain the north and south respectively. The Sacramento River at its mouth ends up in Suisun Bay, about two miles from San Francisco. To the south of the San Francisco peninsula, the bay’s saltwater portion is very shallow and narrow, making it easy for ships to enter its mouth at the Golden Gate. The bay is bordered on the west by Marin County, then the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo and Alameda, and finally by Contra Costa County. Most of the Bay’s shoreline is highly urbanized, with little of its eastern shore area, mostly in the Richmond and Oakland areas, protected, or even public. For example, much of the Birds Point Area is a protected park; there is also a state park just south of it. A small, fairly high island at the north end of the Bay with trails. This island is part of Alcatraz Island Recreation Area, which also includes Alcatraz Island itself and a number of other small islands and reefs located just offshore, all of them under the jurisdiction of the federal government. For a couple of weeks each year in May, the island and reefs are open to the public for hiking. There is an entrance fee for the weekday tours, and you must register for the tours to gain access to the island. The Alcatraz Island Visitors Center provides an overview of the island and is also the starting point for boat tours to Alcatraz and for the various trails on the island. Sacramento River, the largest river in California, draining a large portion of northern California, and contributing some water to the San Francisco Bay. Although the Sacramento River is dammed to control the water level of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, most of it still drains to the San Francisco Bay via Mokelumne and Cosumnes rivers, via Pardee Creek, an estuary and tributary of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River’s headwaters are in the Trinity Mountains. There are several dams along its length, including the Folsom dam and the Anderson–Knox dams, which form the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The river empties into Suisun Bay near Benicia. There are a number of water reclamation facilities along the river, including the Keswick and Sutter Buttes water reclamation facilities. A dammed portion of the Sacramento River at the west end of Folsom Lake. This area is a part of the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area. The Folsom Lake Recreation Area stretches about two miles along the north bank of the Sacramento River, bordered on the west by the Sierra Nevada mountains. A large portion of the recreation area is owned and managed by the Department of Water Resources. Folsom Lake (named for John Bidwell, who first established it as a diversion dam in 1849) is a large artificial body of water. It is the result of three dams that impound the Sacramento River. The Sacramento Valley Water Conveyance Project of the late 1950s and 1960s, was part of a major series of projects designed to bring more water from Northern California into Southern California. (The Central Valley Project eventually supplied more than half the fresh water to southern California, including the vast Imperial Valley and other agriculture-heavy areas, and the Los Angeles River watershed.) A portion of the original Sacramento River where it empties into the Suisun Bay. The Suisun Bay is about two miles wide at the mouth. This section of river is lined with sloughs and wetlands, and tends to be narrow and shallow, although this is a recent condition. It used to be a larger river, with natural meanders and levees for most of its length. Suisun Bay is a north-to-south estuary where the Sacramento River and the Carquinez Strait meet. The Suisun Bay project is the longest of the San Francisco Bay Area water supply projects. It brings waters into San Francisco Bay from a number of tributaries, including the Sacramento River, and the north and south forks of the San Joaquin River, and the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta water system. The canal and canalized rivers feed water to the San Francisco Bay through Suisun Slough, through a canal that runs from Suisun Bay to Bodega Bay, into the Santa Clara Valley and eventually to San Francisco. San Francisco Bay is fed by Suisun Bay, as well as by the San Francisco Slough, Carquinez Strait and a number of other lesser rivers. The Fremont Powerplant that supplies energy for the city of Fremont. This dam is named after Thomas Fremont who was a businessman and one-time California governor. The dam is also the home to the Sacramento State Fish Hatchery, which releases approximately 40,000 salmon smolts into the river each year. To get to the hatchery, you must first get to the dam. The dam has a small attraction park which features various displays of the dam, fish, wildlife and some of the local plant life. There is also a restaurant in the park, a miniature railway, an amusement park and a children’s playground. A state wildlife management area around the south shore of the San Francisco Bay near the Point Pinole Marina. This area protects some of the remaining old growth redwood forest in the San Francisco Bay Area. Point Pinole is a peninsula that juts into the Bay and marks the eastern point of the San Francisco Bay. Some of the main attractions at Point Pinole are the Point Pinole Plaza, Alcatraz lighthouse, the Seacrest fishing pier and a large community recreation center for local residents. An old concrete bridge spanning the Sacramento River over a railroad trestle just south of where the river empties into Suisun Bay. Another crossing, carrying trains, was constructed in 1913 and dismantled in 1992. An abutment was rebuilt on the new bridge, but the old bridge was not removed. It is now the sole remaining bridge spanning the Sacramento River, that is in decent condition. A portion of Suisun Bay north of the Napa-Fairfield-Vacaville Bridge at the north end of Suisun Bay. The Sacramento River and the Napa-Fairfield-Vacaville Bridge form Suisun Bay, which stretches from Suisun Bay up to San Pablo Bay. The bay is about two miles wide at its mouth, and about 3.6 miles wide at the area we visited. It was dredged for a new bridge in 2003, which opened for use in 2005. We were unable to visit the new bridge, so we