In this aerial photo of Commodore Marina, note the circled blue, green, and yellow colored PARKING areas. They are for parking during, low, high, and very high tides, respectively. The red area is Commodore 11, your destination! 

Living on the Bay comes with tides; it's part of what makes a visit to Commodore 11 both an adventure and a pleasure! When high or very high tides occur you must park appropriately to avoid saltwater damage to your car. AND YOU SHOULD plan your comings and going so you can get to Commodore 11 without unexpectedly having to wade between Commodore 11 and your car. 

During a sufficiently high tide, parts of our pathways are covered with anywhere from 1/8" to 12" or more of baywater. The flood period can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours. 

Houseboat residents deal with the adventure (or inconvenience) of high tides by knowing when high tides are coming, AND

*       Parking on higher ground BEFORE a high tide (cars can get ruined!)

*       Wearing waterproof shoes. With 24 hrs notice, we can loan boots

*       Planning coming and goings around these times

*       Staying at home (or staying out!!!)

It will be up to you to lookup the tides (using a tide chart) during your visit. Resources for that are at the bottom of this page.

Summer and Fall 2023— Specifics 

Not all high tides are the same.  During a storm, either wind or rain can make the actual tide higher. This summer,  snow melt from the massive Sierra snow storms of Winter 2022-23 seem to have raised all tides by several inches. 

So read the following carefully...

TWO WARNINGS. During a sufficiently high tide...

1.  If your car isn't parked in the right place, it may sustain salt water damage.

2. You may not be able to walk to and from Commodore11 and your parking spot without some wading

To be safe, I added 8" to the following guidelines; you don't have to do any math, just read the tide chart*

• Up to 5.2 feet. Whenever the next high tide will be less than 5.2 feet, park in the BLUE lot, and you will be able to walk to/from Commodore 11 without encountering water. Always park in the BLUE lot unless your car will be parked when the tide is higher than 5.2 feet

• Up to 6 feet, park in the GREEN lot. If you don't want to have to wade, plan your comings and goings to and from Commodore 11 so you don't have to!

• Over 6 feet, park in the YELLOW lot.

PURPLE  lot— Park here briefly for loading or unloading only. Then repark elsewhere or you may get towed.

RED area—  Commodore 11. Welcome aboard!

*If you have an iPhone, install Tide Alert from the App store. The app has a free trial period. I LOVE this app. The interface lets you scroll thru the hours to see how high the tide is at any moment during the day or night. And it's beautiful!  Sometimes I just twiddle with it, thinking about the sun, moon, gravity, the stars and how wild a journey we are all on. To use it you have to set it to this tide station: "Sausalito, Coe Dock, S.F. Bay"

*One the web:  https://www.tide-forecast.com/locations/Sausalito-Corps-of-Engineers-Dock-San-Francisco-Bay-California/tides/latest