Fort Ross Cove

Fort Ross Cove is a sandy-bottomed cove at the base of the trail down from the reconstructed Fort Ross stockade, the southernmost outpost of Russian America. The Russian-American Company ran a sea otter hunting and provisioning base above the cove from 1812 to 1841, with Alutiiq and Kodiak Alaska Native hunters brought south to work the outer coast. Kashia Pomo people had lived on this stretch long before contact, at the village of Metini nearby. The fort was sold to John Sutter in 1841 when the fur trade collapsed, and the site is now Fort Ross State Historic Park.

Along the north wall of the cove sits the wreck of the SS Pomona, a 2,742-ton passenger and freight steamer of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company that struck the outer wash rock in dense fog on March 17, 1908. Salvage stripped the superstructure and cargo, but the steel hull and machinery remain. Depths on the wreck run 40 to 60 feet, with wreckage stretching about 700 feet along the bottom. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NR #07000306, 2007), and artifact removal is federally prohibited.

The cove floor is sand at the center and cobble along the flanks. A rocky reef biome covers the boulder and bare rock along both walls, where sea urchin barrens have kept the structure open. Seasonal bull kelp grows on the wreck itself and along the outer edge each summer and fall, putting the outer cove in the kelp forest biome during the warmer half of the year before the annual single-stipe growth dies back through winter. State Parks documents the canopy floating over the wreck in the calmer months.

Scuba on the SS Pomona is the defining draw, with constant surge and dense summer kelp both documented as complications on the wreck. Freediving and shore fishing draw use inside the sheltered cove, and the cove is one of the few sanctioned kayak launches on the north Sonoma Coast, used for cove diving and as a jump-off to the outer reefs.

Parking is the paved lot at the Fort Ross visitor center, with a short walk down to the cove. The day-use fee is $10 per vehicle, and kayak launching is included.

Fishing and spearfishing are legal here under standard California regulations. The wreck itself is a federal historic site, so removing any part of the ship is prohibited even though take of fish and invertebrates around the reef remains lawful.