Every now and then, when the sand moves, you can see the remnants of shipwrecks on the shore of Ocean Beach -- and yesterday, folks enjoying the warm weather at low tide caught a glimpse of the remains of the clipper ship. A pirate ship? A tragic capsizing? What's the word?
Well, the King Philip sailed in the mid 1800s, and primarily carried guano or lumber. On its final voyage, it (she? Is the ship a she if it's/she's named after a male?) sailed to the Golden Gate to assist another ship in distress, but drifted loose of its/her anchor and ended up capsizing in Ocean Beach. All the sailors escaped safely.
The King Philip is usually underneath the sand, but was revealed once before in the 1980 El Nino. It's still visible as of the running of the story, but may get buried under the tide any moment now. So go check it out!
There are over 100 shipwrecks in the waters off the San Francisco Bay Area coast, including the Tennessee, a Gold Rush steamboat that sank in 1853 near Marin City, the Reporter, a schooner that sank in 1876 and whose remains are intermingled under 5 feet of sand with the King Philip on Ocean Beach, and the City of Rio de Janiero, which sank in 1901 off Point Diablo.
Picture of the King Philip ship from the National Park Service website.
