The Farallon Islands are located 27 miles off the coast of California west of San Francisco. The islands are barren except for the significant marine ecosystem they support.

The Farallon Islands are located in the Gulf of the Farallones, designated a marine sanctury in 1981. The islands provide migratory destinations for many species including sharks, the great white shark in particular, migrating whales including orcas, the endangered humpback whales and blue whales. The Farallons are a nursery for harbor seals, elephant seals, harbor porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphins, rockfish, and seabirds including the Tufted Puffin. Twenty percent of California's harbor seals breed in the Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuary.
The Miwok Indians called it the island of spirits. Their boats crafted of tule reeds could not make it through the rough seas to the Farallon islands, but they sent their dead wrapped in the tule reeds to the island of the spirits.

Today, the island is inhabited only by research scientists cataloging the important species the live and pass through on migration and breed in the Gulf of the Farallons. A brackish spring supplies the only fresh water on the island, brown colored, the water once was contaminated with ecoli. All supplies must be shipped in and loaded on the island only when the waters are not too rough.

Nearby, The Cordell Banks, a submerged mountain range, mark the edge of the continental shelf.

Information on the Farallon Islands:

• Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Sanctuary Visitor Center at Crissy Field in San Francisco.
  The Presidio, Building 991
  San Francisco, CA 94129
  phone: 415-561-6622
  fax: 415-561-6616
  web: http://farallones.nos.noaa.gov
  email:farallones@noaa.gov
  or their main web site at: Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association The Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association (FMSA) is a non-profit, cooperating association that helps protect the resources managed by the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary through collaborative education, interpretation, outreach, and research.
• An Essay on the Farallon Islands

We provide Nature Tours to the Islands, we call them Adventure Tours because getting to the islands is an agressive trip. We hold the area with the upmost respect and run tours that take photographs and leave nothing behind. An expert naturalist will be on board to desribe what we see along the way.
Make your reservations online at www.sfbayimages.com, click on the date. This will take you to our photography site, so it is a little confusing, but there will be photos from the trips with the dates of the tours underneath them.

• Great White Sharks can be spotted October and November
  
• Whales Migrate North in the Spring and South in the Fall
  Check our schedule for trips at www.sfbaywhalewatching.com
  
  Make your reservations online at www.sfbayimages.com, click on the date. This will take you to our photography site, so it is a little confusing, but there will be photos from the trips with the dates of the tours underneath them.