My First CA Geocache: The Wave Organ

I wanted to make my first California smiley a special one, so I spent several hours researching all of the best that The Bay area had to offer and, with the help of my friend Deena, found a wonderful hidden jewel of a cache that sounded perfect (listen...haha, get it!)...the Wave Organ!

Together, Deena and I and her two mini cachers set out for the eastern edge of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in San Francisco, which is a tiny spit of land juts into the bay. If you walk out to the end, you can see San Francisco's skyline on one side and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other.  And just in case the actual place wasn't special enough on its own (which it was!), there was a an unexpected surprise happening in the park just across the little inlet...a spur of the moment Dave Matthews concert that the city had requested of him to perform as a pre-Super Bowl treat!! But, I digress...



Signing the log and getting my CA souvenir!

The geocache - Sounds of the Bay  (GC30CB), which is a traditional hide, was a fast and easy one. It did not take more than a mere moment upon arrival to realize that this was going to be one of those caches that make the entire game worth playing! The view was stunning and the history was just as captivating.

Exploring the Wave Organ

The Wave Organ is a work of environmental art, an acoustic sculpture, created by Peter Richards and George Gonzales in 1986.



One of the acoustic pipes

Here is what its creator, Peter, had to say about his work of art in an interview:

 "The whole thing is constructed from stones that came from an old Gold Rush-era cemetery north of the city," explained Peter. "It was moved to make way for a housing development, and the stones were brought here." Sticking up like periscopes among the carved granite blocks were over a dozen listening tubes.

 And the sound? It's like listening to the world's largest sea shell. It's like distant drums, muffled cymbals, quiet thunder. The variety is endless, and the sounds of the pipes are punctuated by the cries of gulls and the barks of sea lions. The sounds of ships' horns drift across the bay, and little waves slap against the stones.

The Wave Organ's music is a symphony of land and sea, complex, subtle, powerful, hypnotic.

It is definitely one of the places I would recommend a person to visit when in the SF Bay area! The best time to be there is about an hour before sunset, at 5:30 PM when the high tide rolls in.  We really enjoyed listening to the pipes and hearing the sounds of the sea their magical story out for us!

listening closely to the magic