The Angels' Island

On Angel Island people asked me how I got such a great assignment.  Well it wasn’t hard, between the isolation of living on Angel Island itself, totally unattractive to anyone with a family, and the Superintendent's reputation for being a micromanager, there weren’t many takers.  A few Rangers were interested but as soon as they looked into it, they backed off.

I went to Angel Island November 17, 2007, 10 days after the Cosco Busan oil spill.  The island was still coping with the spill when I arrived.  The cleanup on the island’s shore went on for months afterwards.   I had my own personal crisis, having recently separated from Susan.  At Angel Island no one knew her or anything about my marriage and how it ended.  As far as anyone knew Suzette was my girlfriend and she started coming over to the island and was an immediate hit with the island residents, they all seemed to like her. 

The island itself was another beautiful place, 800 acres, about one square mile, sitting in the middle of San Francisco Bay with a view of the City, the East Bay, the San Rafael Bridge and Richmond, and a mile from Tiburon across a very rough piece of water.   

I told people that coming to Angel Island I had had a religious conversion of the Park variety, from the Devil’s Mountain to the Angels’ Island. 

The island was a favorite camping spot of the local Miwok people for over 5,000 years, then part of a Mexican land grant where they ran cattle, and then an Army Camp from 1862 until 1962.  After 1862 it was a Federal island and in addition to the Army post they used it for a quarantine station and an immigration station with detention barracks.  The Chinese, mostly young men, were detained for interrogation about their documents and their detentions ranged from weeks to years. 

Most of the human history was on the edge of the island surrounded at an elevation of about 150 feet by the Perimeter Road. 

Richard Dana in his book Two Years Before the Mast, wrote about Angel Island in the 1830s.  He called it Wood Island.  The Whalers who stopped in the Bay took on wood at Angel Island for rendering whale blubber.  By the time the Army occupied the island in 1862 photographs show it nearly completely bare of trees.  The Army planted Eucalyptus trees around their structures supposedly to prevent malaria and left the rest of the island alone.  Over the 150 years the Army stopped grazing and wood cutting the interior of the island restored itself with a dense covering of live oak and California chaparral.  Above Perimeter Road, we tried to keep the island as natural as possible.  The biologists battled invasive species removing Eucalyptus and Monterey pine. 

The views from Angel Island are the best in the Bay Area.  We could see the City as if we could reach out and touch it, the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the East Bay and the North Bay.  From the top of the island I could look over the Berkeley Hills and see Mount Diablo. 

Angel Island was a much quieter park than Mount Diablo.  The only way to get to the island was by ferry or private boat.  We had spaces for 30 boats to moor overnight in Ayala Cove and 10 campsites.  Alcohol was fine on the island.  The café sold beer and wine.  People brought their own, but the costs of getting to the island kept most of the rowdy 20 somethings away.  Public drunkenness was an occasional problem but easily handled. 

There were fewer accidents on the island, but as the only Ranger I responded to all of them.  Even when Eric Knapp joined me in 2009 we still responded together, so the only accidents I missed were when I was off the island.  We only had one serious police incident the whole time I was on the island, a drunk who called in a bomb threat and then said he was armed and was going to kill himself.  Eric and I went searching for him.  We found him in the bushes on the east side of the island and arrested him.  We never found any weapons.

Law enforcement was very low key, most of it was enforcing fees and boating regs for the private boaters who came to the island.

The housing at Angel Island was amazing.  I was given a choice of houses, the Pharmacist’s house in Ayala Cove or the newer Coast Guard house at Point Blunt.  Point Blunt has an incredible view, but it’s windy and often foggy.  .  I chose the Pharmacist’s house, an 1890 two story Victorian house with a wraparound porch.  It was up the hillside from the beach at Ayala Cove.  The house was cold and drafty but beautiful.  Ayala Cove is where all the ferries came in, the Park offices are there, a café, a picnic area and a small beach.

The house is up from the picnic area and 100 yards up the road from the Park Headquarters.  Even though it was within sight of most of the activity of the Park, it was still quiet and out of the way. 

There is no bridge to Angel Island.  The only way to get there is by boat or swimming.  I had first gone to Angel Island in a kayak from Sausalito and for a number of years that was the only way I got there.  It’s a strenuous kayak trip against strong and rough currents and constant headwinds it seems.  Before I had decided to work there I had only come ashore at Ayala Cove and Camp Reynolds, both on the western side.  I kayaked around the island a number of times, but I’d never really got up on the island to explore.  I’d seen the east side from the Larkspur Ferry and all the houses and buildings at East Garrison seemed mysterious and forgotten. 

So just prior to taking the job at Angel Island I went to the island by way of the Tiburon Ferry.  Once I moved on to the island the regular means of getting on and off were the Angel Island Ferry and the Park’s 50 foot crew boat which ran a regular schedule of 8:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.   The Ferry ran for the tourists hourly on weekends and during the visitor season three or four times a day during the week.  During the winter the ferry ceased operation on weekdays except for charters. 

Living on Angel Island was wonderful but it was also like being exiled.  Even though it was only a mile from Tiburon and within sight of most of the Bay Area, it seemed very far away.  I enjoy unusual and remarkable things and living on an island was a remarkable experience.   Knowing the boat schedule was very important as it was the only way of getting off the island and back on.  If I needed milk, I drove or walked down to the docks on Angel Island, got there in extra time and waited for the ferry.  There was nothing more frustrating that to get to the dock just in time to wave good-bye to the departing boat.  If I were operating either of the Park boats myself there was preparation time.  It took 10 minutes to get across the strait and then the tying up, disembarking and a four block walk to the parking lot where we kept our vehicles for use on the mainland.  Until the last year on the island I could use the Park’s boat for trips, but these had to be scheduled and announced well ahead of time so everyone had an opportunity.  There were no spur of the moment runs to the mainland.

So that quart of milk took about an hour and a half to two hours if I planned it just right. 

I could have gotten my own boat, but maintaining a boat is a lot more trouble than a car.  People joke it’s like having a second wife.  And there are no public docks available in Tiburon.  Tying up required borrowing space, permission and avoiding spaces when they were needed.  The whole thing made it nearly impossible.  To rent a space was hundreds of dollars and the only thing available was all the way over in Paradise, about five miles away.  Dave had a whole course and qualification system for the crew boat and only a few of us qualified to operate that boat and a 16 foot inflatable with a large outboard motor on it.  Even that ended with a new superintendent in 2011. 

I lived on Angel Island for four years.  At first it was a novelty and I enjoyed it, but as time wore on the inconvenience of it began to weigh heavier and heavier.  The worst part was scheduling a return from the mainland.  After Suzette moved on the island and we had Paloma, if we were to go shopping or just to visit the mainland we would have to schedule it in such a way that we could return to Tiburon in time for the boat.  

There was a lot of waiting around because we had to get there early enough to make sure we didn’t miss the boat.  The islanders were well known at the town library and the café on the corner near the docks. 

I remember one time we went to LA by car.  We drove back overnight so Paloma would sleep through most of the trip and scheduled our return to catch the morning crew boat to the island.  It’s hard to be precise about time with a 400 mile trip and we gave ourselves plenty of time to make the ferry.  We arrived in Marin before 5:30 a.m.  The boat schedule for the island was 8:30.  We went to the 24 hour Safeway in Corte Madera.  We shopped for things we needed and bought some morning snacks and then returned to to the car to wait for the ferry. 

We still had 2 hours before the boat left Tiburon for the island.  Of course, there we were, Paloma, Suzette and me, our luggage and the debris of the trip in the car.  The security guard for the shopping center, drove around us every 10 minutes for the two hours we waited.  We looked like a homeless family living in the car.   That was the worst time but we often felt like a homeless family looking for a temporary camp until it was time to catch the ferry. 

On a busy summer weekend there could be 5,000 visitors to the island or more.  Most of those would arrive by ferry and leave by ferry the same day.  So the earliest visitors arrived at 10:30 a.m. and the latest left at 5:30 p.m.  There was space for 30 boats to be moored and there might be a 100 people in the moorings but they stayed on their boats overnight.  We had 9 campsites distributed around the island and maybe 50 people used those.  During the winter on a weekday or rainy weekend we might have 10 visitors, a couple of moorings and no campers.  Except for busy weekends which were only half the year the only residents on the island were the Park employees and our families, about 25 people. 

After sunset and before mid-morning it was very rare to see anyone on the island.  There were 80 or 90 deer on the island, hundreds of raccoons, harbor seals in two different locations and a host of owls, hawks, and seabirds.  There were no rattlesnakes, no coyotes and no bobcats or mountain lions.  It was an idyllic place.      

The Superintendent at Angel Island was Dave Matthews.  Before I went to Angel Island I met Dave and decided at worst he had to be better than my supervisor on Mount Diablo.  He seemed like a good guy.  I worked with Dave for three years and at times it got a little crazy.  He was a micro manager.  He was always changing things, couldn’t leave anything alone and something I didn’t expect he was always battling with the forces of evil, park vendors, partners, maintenance people from the mainland and management.  There were things Dave could have done or more often not done that would have made working there easier but basically Dave was a good guy, honest and a reliable friend.    

When I first got to Angel Island Dave and I were the only Rangers.  I was replacing Hector Heredia.  Hector was an odd character, a real wannabe cop, he had been heavy on enforcement on an island where there was a rare need for it.  Dave had to fish him out of trouble with the visitors a number of times.  After I’d been there awhile I began to realize Dave’s MO included surrounding himself with dysfunctional people who needed his help to stay afloat.  His most loyal follower was Jean Orchard, a Park Aide.  Jean had a serious alcohol problem and a year after I got there had to be fired for testing positive for cocaine.  Dave tried to get her a job on the mainland.  His reasoning was that drug testing was an island requirement because of crewing the boats.  It didn’t apply to working as a park aide on the mainland.  The Tamalpais Sector people thought that hiring a coke addict made no sense at all and didn’t accept Dave’s recommendation. 

It was a blow to my ego to realize why Dave so readily recruited me to be a Ranger on Angel Island.  As a 61 year old Ranger over the hill and wounded by Bill from Mount Diablo,  I was another one of Dave’s cripples needing his protection.  

I felt like Dave made a mistake in my case, but that’s probably not true.  I flourished under Dave’s protection.  He excused my failings and appreciated I didn’t do anything without checking with him first.  As a veteran of the military and 9 years in a Japanese environment, I was a well practiced follower and I think Dave appreciated that.   

Dave was a good guy.  I liked him.  He put people and family first, but he couldn’t resist manipulating all of us.  Dave, like me was that frustrating mix of sterling qualities and raging faults.  Dave battled everybody, the district, our vendors, the ferry boats, the Coast Guard, anyone outside of his circle and caused us problems with nearly everyone.  The Coast Guard generally avoided the island and treated us like lepers. 

When we had the fire he insisted that he should take overall responsibility for the investigation since it was his jurisdiction.  Cal Fire, of course, didn’t see it that way at all.  The Cal Fire investigators were very competent and knew what they were doing.  Dave interfered so badly with the Cal Fire investigators that after a month or so they wouldn’t talk to us.  That was also part of Dave’s MO, to get in a power struggle with people we should have cooperated with.    

I  really enjoyed Angel Island and I hated it at the same time.  I hated that the visitors mostly wanted a character like Mickey Mouse at the docks who would wave at them and stand in pictures with their family.  I did that and enjoyed it, but a lot of the time I was the only one at the docks, during the week and in the winter and being a dock aide, smiling and waving wasn’t always that much fun.  It was a day tourist venue and the tourists could be demanding and shallow. 

I also disliked the arrogance of the boat owners, both the ones on the dock who avoided paying fees whenever they could and the ones in the moorings a few of whom displayed an arrogance of property and disrespect for the Park.  On the other hand some of the boat owners were extraordinarily nice and I got to know and appreciate the regulars.  It was one of the pleasures of being a Ranger.    

I liked our vendors.  I got to be good friends with the people at the café.  Maggie, the ferry boat operator is a special friend.  Living in a village was interesting.  I used to say if something happened on the island, it only took 15 minutes for the people on the other side of the island to know about it, unless it was a secret, then it took a half hour.  Being the Ranger for the local Park was also very interesting.  I knew the businesses in Tiburon and the local bank manager.  From doing medicals together I knew the firefighters.  Walking down the street in town whether I was in uniform or not I was well known character and exchanged greetings with people along the street.  That was different than my usual experience of being anonymous nearly everywhere.  

In my second year we got another Ranger, Eric.  Eric was a character.  He had a droll sense of humor.  He had been a Ranger for over 25 years and was pretty well burned out.  He didn’t much like the visitors and he quickly got off on the wrong foot with Dave and kept making it worse. 

Eric was called the ghost because he was hard to find.  But when I needed Eric he was always there.  There were a few times when we went out on gunfire or other questionable calls, where we didn’t know what we were going to and I always felt safe with Eric at my side.  He was experienced, competent and courageous.  Other things about Eric didn’t count much in comparison to trusting him with my life, which I did without hesitation. 

He and Paloma had a special relationship.  To her he was Uncle Eric and anybody who is friends with Paloma is OK.  Paloma also got the benefit of being in a village where everyone knew her and loved her. 

Mount Diablo

I went to Mount Diablo State Park in July, 2005, my first assignment out of the Academy. My ranking in the Academy gave me a choice between Mount Diablo and Ventura State Beach. I wanted to go to LA. Susan was working down there and we had an apartment and I was ready to return to LA, particularly the mountains and the wilderness down there. But Ventura was the closest slot available. At Ventura State Beach alcohol is a problem, Hell’s Angels and meth addicts and it was nearly 100 miles from LA. I decided that wasn’t for me, I don’t like the beach, and the enforcement there looked to me like cowboys and Indians. Susan and I wanted either LA or San Francisco.

The disadvantage of Mount Diablo was that the actual assignment included being in charge of the museum and souvenir shop at the top of the mountain. I really didn't like the idea of becoming a shop keeper after going through the Academy. I didn’t become a Ranger to be a shopkeeper. I visited Diablo and they seemed eager to have me, so I took the Diablo assignment. I didn't think it would be that bad but it's not what I wanted to do as my first assignment when I became a Ranger.

Mount Diablo is 20,000 acres, 45 miles east of San Francisco. It sits right where the weather of the Bay Area and the weather of the Central Valley meet and it can go either way depending on which way the winds are blowing and where the pressure systems are for the day. I had been to Mount Diablo in 1995. We drove to the top and looked around. That time I was very unimpressed, a 3,837 foot peak with a parking lot and gift shop at the top.

In the Academy when I made my visit to Mount Diablo, it was a beautiful spring day with light fog on the south side, hanging between the blue oaks which were just beginning to bud. It was magical and a beautiful place. When I began working there, I came to appreciate what a gem Mount Diablo was.

At 3800 hundred feet it wasn’t much of a peak but between the Bay and the Valley it was the highest point, looking across to Mount Hamilton which anchored the South Bay. All the hills around it were much smaller and it sat on the edge of the Valley like a giant viewing platform giving a view from the Sierra Buttes above Sacramento and sometimes even Mount Lassen down to Yosemite in the South. On a clear day we could see out to the Farallon Islands 30 miles west of San Francisco.

Mount Diablo is the center of its world, one side facing east with Western Junipers and Gray Pine and the other side facing west with Blue Oaks and Live Oaks. There are Coulter Pines like the ones in the mountains facing LA and Madrones that always made me think of Oregon. For plants in the Bay Area it is as far east as they go and plants from the Sierras stop their western march at Mount Diablo and the same is true for the North and the South. Mount Diablo really is the center point for California. We had our own Manzanita, Mount Diablo Manzanita and the Mount Diablo Globe Lily along with Mount Diablo Buckwheat and Mount Diablo Sunflowers and many other endemic plants. We had two breeding pair of Golden Eagles.

The Miwok people in the Sierras and in the Bay Area were created on Mount Diablo. After being there a short time I realized Mount Diablo for the first people was the Garden of Eden, the sacred place, the center of the world, where it all began.

Even in modern times Mount Diablo gathered legends about itself. Everyone in the Bay Area called it the tallest mountain the Bay Area. It wasn’t. Mount Hamilton well within sight of the Bay was three hundred feet higher. Everyone said that the view from Mount Diablo was the largest view in the world except for Mount Kilimanjaro. From the rooftop viewing platform on top of the museum you could hear that ten times a day. It wasn’t. That particular piece of information had turned up in the newspaper in the 1930s and was groundless but had been repeated so often that people came to believe it.

But these made up myths about Mount Diablo just acknowledged that there was something about Mount Diablo that people couldn’t quite explain, something very special and sacred, and so people made up stories about Mount Diablo just to make sense of it. There was a whole story about how the mountain was a misunderstanding by the gringos of the original Spanish and that it really wasn’t named for the devil.

My own story which I could never verify but made sense in terms of the history of the mountain is that it was named by the missionaries from San Jose. The area around Mount Diablo was a good distance from Mission San Jose and the local people sought refuge on the mountain. It also was the Miwok Garden of Eden, a very sacred and holy place to the Miwok. In Europe anyplace named for the devil is usually a former sacred place to pre-Christian people. I thought the same thing probably occurred at Mount Diablo. The missionaries told their neophytes it was the Devil’s Mountain and they should avoid it. It made more sense to me than trying to claim that the most prominent geographical feature in the area, called Mount Diablo for over a 150 years, had been named by mistake.

An evangelical Christian from the nearby town of Oakley has been campaigning to change the name of the mountain. So far he has been unsuccessful but he keeps trying. The first attempt to change the name of the mountain was in 1863.

When I was working there I saw a Buddhist group at the mountain one day. They were staying at Juniper Campground and then I saw them again at the summit. The group of about 50 people all seemed to surround a monk that they were very protective of. I approached the group. The followers began to move in defense of the monk and then he signaled his followers to let me through and I met the Sogan Rinpoche, the sixth reincarnation of the Sogan Rinpoche from Tibet. The Venerable Sogan Rinpoche was a delightful and very personable gentleman who was delighted to meet and chat with a Ranger from the mountain. We talked about the sacredness of Mount Diablo and agreed that it was a very sacred place. It was where the Sogan Rinpoche came each year to do his earth blessing.

I often heard people say that Mount Diablo had been sacred to the Miwok people. And I tried to correct that and told everyone that would listen to me that yes, Mount Diablo was sacred to the Miwok people but that it was still sacred to the Miwok people and not just to them but that it was simply a sacred place and the Miwoks are aware of it and so are many other people. Yes, it was sacred; and it’s still sacred today.

One summer evening, closing the Park I kept coming across small groups of Muslim Americans, people with young families. They obviously didn’t want to leave the Park and when I went to talk to them, I learned they were from a Muslim Center in San Ramon and they had come to observe the new moon that marks the beginning of the month of Ramadan. For these Muslim Americans with roots from all over the world, just like many other people in the Bay Area, Mount Diablo is a sacred place. Finally they all gathered in a particularly good spot to see the new moon and began praying. They invited me to pray with them.