Issaquah Dock Houseboat Walk
Landmark · Gate 6 Road, Sausalito, CA 94965
Verified September 2026
Photo by Frank Schulenburg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The most-photographed stretch of Sausalito's floating-home community, a walk past dozens of houseboats built from everything from ferryboat hulls to WWII surplus lumber. The dock is named for the old ferryboat Issaquah that once lay at Gate 6. By the 1960s a jumble of improvised floating homes stretched from Gate 3 to Gate 6, and the community only got sewer hookups and formal approval after years of clashes with the county. It sits in the Waldo Point Harbor area, where Otis Redding stayed on a houseboat in 1967 while he started writing '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay'.
What To Expect
There's no gate at Issaquah Dock and residents are used to visitors, but the docks are their front yards, and many of them ask you to admire the boats from shore. Keep your voice down, because someone on a night shift may be asleep a few feet from the walkway. Give yourself 20 to 30 minutes to take in the range of styles, from converted tugboats to elaborate multi-story floating homes, with flower pots along the planks and names and odd decorations on many of the homes. Locals tend to prefer the term floating homes to houseboats, so use it and you'll make friends. The famous Otis Redding houseboat belonged to concert promoter Bill Graham, though sources disagree on which one it was, so treat any sign claiming to know as a guess.
Getting There
Take Bridgeway to Gate 6 Road, on the north end of town past the Bay Model. Parking is the tricky part: the Waldo Point Harbor lot works for a short visit, and surface streets nearby work for a longer walk. Enter Gate 6 Road into your GPS rather than the dock name. From there it's a flat walk along the docks and shore. See the site's Sausalito Houseboats guide for the full community history and visiting etiquette.
Good To Know
Free, open year-round, no set hours. Dogs are not welcome on the docks, no bikes, and no smoking anywhere near the wooden walkways. This is a residential neighborhood, not an attraction built for tourists, even though it draws plenty. If you'd rather see the inside of a floating home, look for the annual Sausalito floating homes tour, or read the houseboats guide first.
Our Take
Go on a weekday morning if you can. It's quieter, the residents are more likely to wave than sigh, and the light on the water is better than the afternoon glare. Then have lunch nearby and let the Otis Redding story sink in: a man from Georgia sat on a dock in this exact mud-and-plank community and wrote about the tide rolling away.