New Year’s Day at Año Nuevo State Reserve on the San Mateo County coast wasn’t too crowded considering the pleasant, mostly sunny weather and the serendipitous name. Punta de Año Nuevo was spotted by Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaino on New Year’s Day in 1603. Visitors can do quite a bit of exploring in the park, even without going on the ranger-led tours out to the tip of the peninsula, where elephant seals breed in the winter. A crude lighthouse, on Año Nuevo Island (once part of the peninsula), used to warn mariners of the rocky point. It was replaced by a buoy in 1948, and sea lions have replaced the light-keepers in the old building.

Seven miles to the north, the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, built in 1872, continues to warn sailors of that point. Pigeon Point was named for the clipper ship Carrier Pigeon, which wrecked on the treacherous rocks there in 1853.

The steamship schooner Point Arena was built in 1887 to carry large loads of cargo in and out of the California coast’s ‘dog hole’ ports. In 1913, Point Arena was taking on tan bark at Pigeon Point when rough seas dashed her on the rocks. Her stunned crew could only watch helplessly as she foundered. A hazard to navigation, her hull was burned - anyway, it would have looked bad to let a shipwreck sit on the rocks below a lighthouse. The piece on display at Año Nuevo washed ashore there and was uncovered by storms in 1983.

Sailors traveling up and down the coast would still be advised to steer clear of this stretch, and continue on to Santa Cruz to the south or Half Moon Bay to the north instead.