Suisun Bay

Coordinates: 38°04′N 122°04′W / 38.07°N 122.07°W / 38.07; -122.07

Suisun Bay (/səˈsuːn/ suh-SOON) is a shallow tidal estuary in northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, forming the entrance to the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, an inverted river delta. Suisun Marsh, the tidal marsh land to the north, is the largest marsh in California. Grizzly Bay forms a northern extension of Suisun Bay. The bay is directly north of Contra Costa County.

The bay was named in 1811, after the Suisunes, a Native American tribe of the area. The word originates with the Patwin.

On the west, Suisun Bay is drained by the Carquinez Strait, which connects to San Pablo Bay, a northern extension of San Francisco Bay. In addition to the major bridges at the Carquinez Strait, it is spanned in its center by the Benicia-Martinez Bridge and at its eastern end by the State Route 160 crossing (Antioch Bridge) between Antioch and Oakley.

It is the anchorage of the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, a collection of U.S. Navy and merchant reserve ships, which was created in the period following World War II. The Glomar Explorer was anchored here after recovering a sunken Soviet submarine in the mid-1970s (see Project Azorian). Many ships were removed and sold for scrap in the 1990s, but 80 ships remain, including (until 2012) the World War II battleship USS Iowa (BB-61). In 2010, plans were announced to remove the mothball fleet in stages, with final removal by 2017.