The Day I Found a Secret Fleet of Jellyfish and Tiptoed Beneath the Golden Gate
Marshall Beach, San Francisco June 2025
Today was supposed to be another long run. The usual: out to Golden Gate Park, up the coast, across the bridge, back through Marin, rinse, repeat, feel superior. But after weeks of pounding the same route, I noticed something: low tide.
It was the perfect excuse to ditch routine and drop down to Marshall Beach. Known as San Francisco’s unofficial queer sunbathing outpost, it’s a fog-fringed, semi-nude stretch where the gays casually cruising for connection might overlap with people who take the Golden Gate Bridge very seriously. On warm days, it’s a low-key party. On cold ones, it’s just you, the sand, the surf, and the bridge.
When I got to the beach, it was completely still. The fog drifted low, curling over the bluffs and softening every edge, like someone had dialed down the contrast on the whole coastline. The sand stretched out in front of me, rippled and wet, with the tide pulled far back like it was holding its breath. It felt like walking into a place that hadn’t decided yet whether it was part of the city, with only the faint penciled line of the bridge in the distance to remind you.
And then: blue.
Tiny, glassy blobs were scattered across the sand like bits of seaglass or plastic. At first, I thought they were trash. Then I realized they were very much alive (or recently alive): velella velella, also called by-the-wind sailors. They’re jellyfish-adjacent drifters, each with a little translucent sail that catches the wind and propels them across the ocean’s surface. When the wind turns against them, they wash ashore in huge numbers, like the fleet launched for a face worth a thousand ships, scattered and sun-bleached and long past the story they were part of.
The older ones looked like faded bottle shards from a shipwreck afterparty. The newer ones shimmered like enchanted breadcrumbs to help the cliff cave dweller find their way back home from the kelp forest.
I kept running. Eventually, the smooth sand gave way to tide pools and slick rock. Clams squatted on every exposed surface, and to be honest, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Running turned into scrambling. I picked my way across the rocks, trying not to slide straight into a mussel colony.
Eventually, I popped out under the Golden Gate Bridge.
Not a viewpoint. The belly.
It felt like I’d wandered into a forgotten corner of a very large infrastructure project. The bridge stretched overhead, red and unmoving. Even though there must have been traffic, I couldn’t hear anything but the waves and wind. Around me, old concrete bunkers and rusted railings leaned into the salt air. I couldn’t tell if the structures were abandoned or just part of San Francisco’s ongoing commitment to dramatic, crumbling concrete. The whole place smelled like kelp and wet iron.
On the way back, the beach had changed again. A small flock of long-billed curlews had shown up, absurd birds with curved beaks like elegant question marks. They paced in the shallows, poking at the sand for whatever it is curlews eat. I have no idea what evolutionary task requires that much beak, but they looked serene and slightly annoyed in that dignified bird way.
Eventually, I said goodbye to the beach.
That stretch of my run on Marshall Beach, under the fog, with breadcrumb jellyfish, bird philosophers, and the forget-me-not bridge, was the part that stayed with me. Not in a spiritual way. More in a “this would make a fun blog post” kind of way.
