May 14, 2016

May 14  San Francisco first day

   

    We were up on Deck 12 by 5:30 a.m. for the sunrise sail-in to the Port of San Francisco. The predicted conditions were that the morning would be foggy, however, the visibility toward shore was clear, no mist.  As the sun rose, in the mainly cloudy sky, adding a hint of pink to the clouds, the ship sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. You could see Alcatraz Island ahead on the left, further in the distance were the Oakland Bay bridges.  The newer eastern bridge’s support and cables shone white in the early morning light. After 45 minutes, we went down to breakfast on Deck 10 and watched as the ship glided toward its berth at the Port of San Francisco. It was just after 6:30 when we docked. We do not leave San Francisco until late tomorrow afternoon. The weather forecast for the next two days is for temperatures ranging from 14 C to19 C with a moderate wind and partly cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoons.

   We had breakfast and were able to leave the ship by 8.  The temperature was about 15 C and there was the usual marine layer of cloud, but at a higher elevation that did not interfere with photographs clarity.   The ship is docked at Pier 27. It took less than 15 minutes walking along the Embarcadero to arrive at Pier 39. The Information Center did not open until 10, so we started to walk to our second destination – the top of Telegraph Hill to see the Coit Tower and a three meter tall statue of Columbus, given to the city by the city of Genoa Italy.  The sides of Telegraph Hill are sheer because the early supply ships needed ballast to return home and dynamited the hill to use the rocks to fill their holds.  It was too early to go inside the Coit Tower. We had accumulated 3.7 km to get to the top and used over 100 stairs plus inclined sidewalks.  As we started down on a different path, a flock of about three dozen noisy birds circled the evergreen trees above and settled in the trees.  They were green parrots.  A passerby told us that there are two parrot flocks in San Francisco and there is a movie called “The Parrots of Telegraph Hill”. We continued down finding stairs with a street name - Filbert Street.  To each side of the stairway path were the gardens of townhouses built on the hillside, called Gardens of Mallock apartments.  We descended 83 stairs reaching Montgomery Street and could have descended 80 or so more stairs to get down to the next street.  The 50 year old or so newer houses and apartment condos are built of concrete, but looks like clapboard siding.  There are houses or apartments that have wooden clapboard, which are older. We walked through the Telegraph Hill neighbourhood and noticed that all the cars parked on the slopes have their front wheels turned to the curb, so they will not roll down the hill.  Some of the trees here have seed pods now plus red blooms that are spiky, like a brush used to clean the inside of bottles.  We passed the site of the Pony Express’s 1860 western headquarters, close to the old edge of the previous water’s edge known as North Beach.  San Francisco has filled in some of the Bay beaches to build new office towers so the waterfront is several streets further into the Bay than before the 1906 earthquake and fire.  At Bush and Grant, we found the entrance gate to Chinatown, which was given to the neighbourhood by the people of Taiwan. We took about an hour to literally walk down Grant for eight streets of Chinese shops, cafés and restaurants.  The produce stores had their vegetables and fruit in boxes on the sidewalk with the description and price all listed in Chinese letters. We reached Broadway and watched vehicles emerge from the Broadway Tunnel, then walked two blocks over and turned up Powell Street to go another three blocks to the Cable Car Museum. It is housed in the building where the cables for the four routes pass over the winding machines as the cables proceed at an even rate of 9.5 miles per hour.  The cable car operates by the driver operating a device that grips and releases the moving cable as necessary for the route.  The museum’s video and displays gave a detailed history of the cable car and San Francisco’s history including the vote in 1947 to keep the cable cars.  Before the 1906 earthquake and devastating three day fire causing 2,831 acres of destruction, the city had 75 miles of cable car routes. The damage from the fire was six times greater than the 1666 London, England, fire. The earthquake, which shook for 40 seconds with a short pause and then shook for another 25 seconds, was 12,000 times more powerful than the force of the 1945 Hiroshima H-bomb.  Today there are only 4.7 miles covering four cable car routes which, at full capacity, operate with 26 cable cars.  There are 14 others in reserve. Many cable car routes were never revitalized after the 1906 fire. The cable car system was steam driven in August 1873 but is now operated by electric engines.

    As noon approached, we decided to return to ship via cable car, however, all four of the cable cars that passed our stop were full.  We decided to try to ride a cable car at some other time and in less than 25 minutes we were back to Pier 27 and on to the ship.

   After lunch in the Deck 10 buffet, we went out for the afternoon about 1:20, the sky had a few less clouds, some blue sky showing, the temperature was about 18 C and a moderate wind was blowing from the bay. In about 15 minutes we walked the mile to Pier 39.  There was a half mile long line of participants in tomorrow’s Bay to Breakers 12 km run assembling to get their registration papers for the race. The line moved quickly but never seemed to get any shorter.  By the time we had reached the Pier 39 Information Center, we had already walked 10 km for the day.  We asked about the Hop On Hop Off bus routes and decided to each buy a 24 hour pass for $45 which entitled us to take three different itineraries – the Downtown Tour, the Golden Gate Bridge Tour and the Parks and Beach Tour. We hurried six streets to the main ticket office to get the 2:30 p.m. Downtown Tour, about 80 or 90 minutes depending on traffic. It started in front of the Cannery a converted old Dole fruit company canning facility. The tour covered an area 30 blocks by 12 blocks of major streets like Columbus, Mason and Sansome passing through the Financial District and on the neighbourhood boundary streets of China Town, Telegraph Hill, Tenderloin and the Civic Center.  The Civic Center is four buildings bordering a large grassy square including the City Hall with its Gold leaf accents.  It is the third city hall building for the city built after the 1906 earthquake.  The previous two had burned.  One building that was pointed out to the bus riders, was built using burnt brick from the 1906 fire.  The black recycled bricks were noticeable on the dark brown brick building. We passed the Stockton Traffic Tunnel which was used in a car chase in the making of the movie “Bullet”.  We passed the Filbert street stairs leading to the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill where we had been in the morning.

   When the tour ended we walked to Fisherman’s Wharf which was teeming with people. There were many more people per square meter here than there was when we recently visited Tian an men Square in Beijing, China.  We walked along the water side of the street and made our way to Pier 39 for cappuccino.  Along the way we passed a spot where people were gathered along a railing to watch between 150 and 200 seals and sea lions some barking, but most basking in the sun on some empty docks.  We also got a good view of Alcatraz Island and the tour boats going or leaving the island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

   We returned to the ship in time for dinner and had amassed 15.2 km for the day and climbed 68 sets of stairs.  For dinner we ate Cream of Broccoli Soup, seared Ahi Tuna slices with Avocado Sauce and cherry tomatoes and Drum Fish fillet with two shrimp on a bed of steamed vegetables.   For dessert we had either New York cheesecake with caramel sauce drizzled on top or Chocolate Layer Cake.  We returned to the stateroom to write the blog and catalogue today’s photographs.

  The entertainment in the Celebrity Theater tonight is the Comedy of Al Ducharme.  Just one performance at 10:15 tonight, usually the shows are scheduled for 7 and 9 when the ship is no longer in port

Total distance walked 15.90 km, over 23,000 steps.