The hook
A wooden fishing boat that beached itself on the Tomales Bay mudflats decades ago and never left — listing in the reeds, weathered silver, one of the most photographed wrecks in California.
01Why it's worth it
The SS Point Reyes started as a 1944 WWII launch, worked the bay as a salmon boat, and sometime in the 1990s ran aground on the mud below Inverness and was simply abandoned — where it slowly became a beloved, melancholy landmark, the exact kind of accidental monument this atlas exists for. Its fame turned into its undoing: on a full-moon night in February 2016 a photographer's steel-wool light-painting reportedly set it ablaze, and it's been a fire-scarred, sagging shadow of itself since. That's the honest state of it: it's decaying, partially patched, and there's real talk of removing it entirely, so this is a "go before it's gone" pin rather than a pristine one. Even diminished, at low light with the bay behind it, it's a genuinely poignant stop on the drive out to Point Reyes.
02How to experience it
On Sir Francis Drake Blvd just south of Inverness, visible from the roadside pullout across the mudflat (it sits on sensitive tidal land — view and photograph from the edge, don't tramp the mud). Check a recent source for whether it's still standing before making the trip. Folds into any Point Reyes day with the oyster farms and the lighthouse.