After a day of hiking along the Bay and discovering parts of San Francisco, Maggie and I continued our exploration and completely embraced our “nerdtastic,” tourist sides. Those personality traits are very alive and well. No shame, people.
I’m thankful for friends’ willingness to experience the randomness of new places. Those are the people I appreciate when traveling. That’s why I end up taking pictures in bubble gum alleys and scouting out tiny hole-in-the-wall diners in Portland. So when Maggie heard rumors of The Wave Organ in San Francisco, of course we made it our mission to find it.
After parking too far away and walking way more than we needed, we came upon the Dr. Seuss-esque Wave Organ that you may find only if you are really looking.
The Wave Organ is a wave-activated acoustic sculpture that jets out from a small boat harbor in the Marina district of San Francisco Bay. The project was a collaboration between a sculpture and master stone mason in the ’80s. The installation include 25 organ pipes made of PVC and concrete located within the site, allowing the rise and fall of tides. Sound is created by the impact of waves against the pipe ends and the movement of water in and out of the pipes.
The sun set as we walked to the Wave Organ, and had completely fallen over the Golden Gate by the time we headed back to the car.
That’s pretty cool. I remember sitting on a boardwalk in Croatia at sunset, listening to the wave activated acoustics underneath. Such a brilliant idea that could be utilized in so many more places. Xoxo
Thanks a great deal for furnishing these types of a fascinating and unique perception into this appealing
and debatable subject!
Hahaha, nerd status. This definitely describes why we are friends. Everyone else looks at me like I’m crazy when I’m like, “See there is this wave organ, but I don’t know where it is really…”