Escape to (and from) Alcatraz

My big day did not start too well – I tweaked my back somehow walking around, and it hurt pretty bad in the morning. A couple of Ibprofin helped, and I Uber’d over to the Alcatraz Ferry stop (Pier 33) rather than walking again. Good move. And, it was a crummy morning – cold, damp and a bit foggy. It’s summer in the bay, so this is pretty much the norm. The company managing the ferry does a really great job of handling the crowds (it was crowded), managing the groups getting on and off the ferry boats. I was there early, but they let me board a half hour before my allotted time. They have three or four different boats, all with multiple decks and snack bars. The ride was short – maybe 15 minutes.  Once you get to the island, a park ranger gives a welcome spiel, and then you are  pretty much on your own, and that worked fine for me. There is just sooo much to see. You do get a map ($1, optional), and it’s kind of hard to get lost on an island.

The next image, as you get close to the island, is a great view of what to expect when you get there. The very top of the hill (The Rock) is the cell block, which includes the lighthouse and warden’s house at one end. So much to wander through. It’s a steep path to the top (and an even steeper stair case on one side). The boat docks by the big building on the shore – an old fort/barracks, and the main entrance. At the other end, below the water tank, is the power plant and beyond that are even more buildings. There are paths circling the entire island as well. Plan to spend some time there, and wear good walking shoes!

I had spent a little bit of time checking out the National Park web site for Alcatraz, and knew a little bit about it’s history, but it is still amazing when you set foot on the island, and see all the old buildings, many just ruins. The first building you see when you get off the boat was an old fort turned into barracks (the big white building in the photo above), from the 1860’s. Across from that are the ruins of the officers club, now a hangout for Sea Gulls….which are all over the island. More on that in a bit.

I was planning to be on the island until there was nothing left to see, so I was in no particular rush to get to the main attraction, the cell block. So after spending some time photographing the ruins of the officers club and checking out an old cannon (a strange obsession of mine), I opted to first visit the Alcatraz gardens since they close off early. What a surprise – the gardens go back a long time, first started by the army – not a huge area, but some really beautiful flowers. Seems so out of place there, but there are gardens all along the island perimeter. 

Flowers everywhere….it’s a nice climate for growing things that like cool, damp weather.

And one more…

After that, I worked my way up the hill (very steep, but they do have a shuttle from the dock to the top), aiming for the audio tour of the huge cell block. Lots of signs pointing the way with gulls to provide encouragement.

A side note here…..the island is a nesting site for a number of birds, mostly gulls and comorents so there are a lot of interesting bird shots in this post. Like this one.

If you’ve never been to Alcatraz, it is an amazing place, worth adding to your list of parks to visit. The free audio tour is excellent – you get headphones and a small recorder, and it leads you through the tour, with directions, descriptions of what you are seeing, and recordings from former prison guards and prisoners. You sort of forget all the othe people wandering around, and just focus on the narrative. This tour covers most of what you would want to see in the main building – the cell blocks, dining hall, solitary confinement, library, the cells where some of the notorious criminals slept, and where the major escape attempts occurred. All described in detail on the audio. Once you are finished (and might need a break), you turn in the equipment, and you are on your own to wander the island (ending up in the gift shop of course). And there is so much more to see. And yes, there are bathrooms that are not in a cell.

Oddly enough, I did not take too many photographs in this building. All the cells kind of looked the same, and the interesting part was the story you heard on the recording about each stop. By the way, the shot above was not a miracle, having it free from the crowds. I used Google Magic Eraser. Poof! People gone (except for shadows)

I spent about four hours total on the island before I ran out of gas and took the ferry back. It was extremely windy, with all kinds of steep paths and stairways to climb, but all worth it. The views are incredible, and if you can stand the smell, there are some huge bird nesting areas to view.

In some places, the gulls were nesting right along the path, and you could see little, grey spotted chicks around the nests. Cute. 

After circling the island, and checking out the power plant and other buildings on the end of the island, I meandered slowly back down to the docks. I had enough. I hopped the next ferry back, found a nice comforable chair by the window, and enjoyed some quiet time, doing absolutely nothing. After disembarking (I love that word), I checked out some of the displays they have in the waiting area for the ferry – some large cannons (huge) from the old army installation on the island (Civil War era), and a big model of the island. I used the people-poofer on this photo as well.

I was initially pretty much convinced that I would just head back to the hotel on the way back, but then thought about the WWII Liberty Ship, the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, at the next pier. I always wanted to see that, so my day was not quite done.

I’ve always been something of a history buff when it comes to the Civil War and WWII. Not sure why. I had this thing for fortifications since my early childhood, when we visited Revolutionary War forts in upstate New York. I dragged my wife to a few of these piles of bricks later on – she suffered quietly through this obsession of mine. Growing up in NYC, my father used to take us to Manhattan for the annual Navy fleet weeks, so I’ve scrambled around all kinds of warships as a kid. There are not too many of the old ones left, so I try to visit any that are within striking distance, wherever I have lived. Jan and I did a tour of the USS Hornet a few years ago in the Alameda, and I think she enjoyed that one. Maybe because we visited the Hanger One distillery afterwards. At any rate, I’ve always wanted to tour the WWII liberty ship that’s tied up at Pier 37 in San Francisco and since I was a short walk away, I decided this was the time and place.

I was really tired, and even my good knee was aching. So the first thing I see is a steep gang-plank to get on board. Wonderful.

This is a self-guided tour. You can go just about anywhere on the ship, unless there is signage that says don’t go there. The entire ship is a museum – all the cabins have original gear, and each has a description as who slept there, or what it was used for. You can visit the bridge which is functional, climb up to play with the guns, pretty much go anywhere you want within reason.

Funny thing about the bridge. You always see in films, the captain ordering ‘full speed ahead’, and one of the crew members sets the speed on that big contraption with the pointer. I never quite understood what that does. Now I know – actually nothing. There are chains connected to a similar device in the engine room, and it just sets the pointer on that one. The chief engineer sees that, and yells at the crew to turn the dials, valves, light boiler fires and all the other stuff that makes the ship move. Who knew?

Absolutely the best exhibit of all, is not an exhibit – you can visit a working engine room. At your own risk – a big sign says so at the first ladder going down, and there are lots of signs saying “HOT – Do Not Touch”. This is a functional ship – everything works, and the ship still cruises around the bay under it’s own power. There are a series of REALLY steep ladders that descend to the lowest level where you can see the boilers and pistons that drive the ship’s single propeller. The engineer who maintains and runs the engine room was there, and enjoys answering just about any dumb question you have. I almost understood some of what he was saying about steam condensers, and somehow got into the equation for determining the amount of pressure in each of the 3 different engine cylinders…something which inclues pi. He lost me after a while. It was like talking to a software engineer at Google.

Another of my favorite parts of this tour, was the museum they put together in one of the forward holds (this is a freighter). They have a lot of photographs along the walls, giving the history of the ship and liberty ships in general, plus an interesting film on the history of the ship. There are only two remaining, of the thousands built for the war – hundreds of them were sunk by submarines and aircraft bombs. It was a dangerous job working on these ships. The O’Brien served in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of WWII, and carried equipment to support the D-Day landings. Quite a story. Worth watching the whole film (getting into the hold was yet another steep ladder).

After a while, my legs were telling me enough climbing up and down ladders. I even opted out of climbing up to play with the big gun (3”) on the bow. It was time to head back to the hotel. I had planned to wander around, maybe hike up to the Coit Tower, but that was no longer an option. It was Uber time. Followed closely by martini time. When I first made the reservations, I had thought about just staying one night, driving home after I was done at Alcatraz. I was so glad I decided to stay the additional night. No way I could have driven home.

So, that was the end of my mini-trip. Check off two entries from my bucket list. A good trip. Except…and here’s the widower part of this blog. It’s really hard going places by yourself when you are so used to being a pair, and then coming home to an empty house. It gets to you after a while. But, I guess you get used to it over time. Or maybe not. Time will tell but I’m not real optimistic of late.

This may be the last post for a while. I have two full months to kill before my Alaska trip. I’ve got to figure out where to go in-between. I get really bored staying at home. I might go chase whales again, or head up to places I have not been to. Lots of options in California.

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More information on the liberty ship and Alcatraz can be found on their respective Websites:
https://ssjeremiahobrien.org/?v=0b3b97fa6688
https://www.nps.gov/alca/index.htm