Photo by Zach Franzen
Words by Benedict Tufnell
The Golden Bears of the University of California, Berkeley crew team during early morning practice in January on their home waters of the Oakland Estuary. Oakland sits just across the bay from the city of San Francisco, which provides the backdrop here. The team shares the estuary with the Port of Oakland, one of the largest container shipping ports in the United States and the first to be established on the Pacific Coast. It is not unusual for crews to be dwarfed by enormous passing vessels as they judder into port having cruised under the Golden Gate Bridge and alongside Alcatraz Island just moments before.