Samoa, California - Samoa Peninsula

Samoa Peninsula

The coastal bar separating Humboldt Bay from the Pacific Ocean has been breached by a dredged channel to allow commercial shipping to enter the bay. The north jetty has unusual concrete breakers known as dolos, which resemble toy jacks. The breakers were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to withstand the area's heavy seas, and were featured by Huell Howser On PBS's "California's Gold" (Episode #803). Samoa peninsula includes the Manila and Samoa Dunes, some of the most ecologically diverse areas in California, and stretches to the Arcata Bottoms. The peninsula is about ten miles (16 km) long by one mile wide. This area is vulnerable to tsunamis as its average height above sea level is only 3 feet (0.91 m). It also contains the unincorporated community of Manila and a United States Coast Guard station. Residential expansion is proposed that would double the size of Manila, which currently has neither fire or police services of its own. The ZIP Code is 95564. The community is inside area code 707.

The seaward side of the peninsula is Samoa Beach. The great green combers of winter gales hump and crest about a half-mile offshore where the 30-foot curve parallels the shoreline. During such storms, little can be seen between the breakers and the beach except the smoky spume of crests blown off by the wind. Varying currents and a high incidence of foggy days caused mariners to call the approach to Humboldt Bay a "graveyard of the Pacific" in days before modern navigational aids were available. Even when the fog bank was no more than a threat on the horizon, landmarks on the higher ground east of Humboldt Bay were obscured by a low overcast of smoke from lumber mills and homes using wood fuel.

Despite the construction of the Humboldt Harbor Light and the Table Bluff Light at least twenty-seven vessels had gone ashore in this vicinity before the cruiser USS Milwaukee (C-21) grounded here on 13 January 1917 and broke up in the pounding surf. The cruiser, disregarding recommendations of local mariners, was attempting to salvage the submarine USS H-3 (SS-30). The submarine had gone aground on 15 December 1916; and its crew were living in tents on the beach. The submarine was later salvaged by the Mercer-Fraser Company building a track of balks across the Samoa peninsula and jacking the submarine up onto rollers to be towed across and relaunched into Humboldt Bay.