Historic Life-Saving Service Cemetery

This is a tiny hilltop burial ground honoring four surfmen who died during the first few years of the station's operation. It is a small, quiet stop rather than a headline sight, but if you care about Point Reyes maritime history it gives the shipwreck stories a human anchor. Visitors often describe it as quiet with few other people around.

The United States Life-Saving Service opened a Point Reyes station in 1890, staffed by a keeper and seven surfmen, on a lonely stretch of Point Reyes Beach, also called Great Beach or Ten-Mile Beach, notorious for pounding surf and bad weather. The crews patrolled Point Reyes Beach and Drakes Beach watching for wrecks, and fourteen major shipwrecks plus countless smaller incidents are recorded from the old station's years of operation. During the first few years, four surfmen died and were ultimately buried here.

A very small cemetery with grave markers ringed by a white picket fence, tucked inside a dense copse of eucalyptus near the head of Schooner Bay. Visitors also mention the surrounding views opening up from the small hill. It is a modest, understated site, not a monument.

The turnout is small and the site is easy to miss from the road, so watch for the sign rather than the cemetery itself. The path is narrow and unpaved, and one visitor reported the final stretch overgrown in late July, so expect a rougher tread at times. There are no other facilities at the cemetery, so plan stops elsewhere. Pair it with the rest of your drive out toward the lighthouse and treat it as a brief, reflective detour.