Charlene had picked
up a Groupon for a "California Coast Eco-Tour" at San Francisco Whale
Tours. Various schedule issues put us on yesterday's 7:30PM tour,
just after sunset. So yesterday evening we went down to hang out in
the horror that is the Pier 39 area and wait for our ship to come in.
The tour is an
hour and a half or so, out around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate
to somewhare around Point Bonita, then back in. During the day we'd
probably have seen all sorts of wildlife, at night... less so. The
boat is this little catamaran, we couldn't remember if we'd gone whale
watching with these folks before but the boat was a nice stable ride
(although it did suck some diesel fumes over the transom) and I'd head
out the mumbledy miles past the Pacific shelf towards the Farallons
for some whale watching on it.
It's been a while since I've been down to the city, especially to sightsee, and it was cool to be reminded of the many sights I used to see regularly when I took the ferry in and out of San Francisco.
The new tower on
the eastern span of the Bay Bridge is looking amazingly huge.
By the
time we cleared the Golden Gate Bridge it was pretty dark. This would
have been a great trip a few weeks ago, now it was just a little too
late, but it was still nice to see the world from a different
perspective.
Coit Tower was all lit up, we think as part of the "Be afraid, continue to support the war profiteers" September 11th publicity campaign, but it did look kind of cool.
