Today’s header shows a pair of the Alcatraz Island tour boat fleet.  There are several competing lines, each with their own fleet of boats.  Pictured below is a collection of a few of the more picturesque members of the Fisherman’s Wharf fishing fleet.  For a thousand dollars, you can charter one and go sport fishing for the day.  Since all of the quays were full, I’m guessing that they didn’t have many takers on a weekday.

Several days later, when Chris and I were driving down the coast highway, south of Big Sur, I saw a couple of guys who had pulled off onto a siding.  One on them, kneeling, was aiming part of an old TV antenna out to sea.  The other guy was talking into a radio.  Chris knew what they were doing.  They had set up their own little ship to shore radio and were speaking to a fishing boat far out to sea.

The preceeding photograph shows a single swimmer swimming in the cold San Francisco Bay.  I don’t know what the water temperature was, but I’ll bet that it makes Lake Superior’s summer swimming feel warm by comparison.  He probably had launched from the nearby Dolphin Swim & Boat Club.  Under renovation, while I was visiting was the area’s original swim club, per Wiki:

The maritime museum was until recently housed in a Streamline Moderne (late Art Deco) building that is the centerpiece of the Aquatic Park Historic District, a National Historic Landmark at the foot of Polk Street and a minute’s walk from the visitor center and Hyde Street Pier.  The building was originally built (starting in 1936) by the WPA as a public bathhouse, and its interior is decorated with fantastic and colorful murals.‎

The photo above shows a San Francisco Bay pilot-boat.  Later in the day, I saw this boat or maybe another trailing a salty that had just passed beneath the Golden Gate.  It looks pretty heavy-duty, twin-engined and all.  I like how it has a gap in its stern to dock a zodiac.

Pictured above is the San Francisco Belle.  It is a stern wheeled paddle boat that is used for dinner party cruises.  Its three decks can carry well over a thousand dinner guests.  It reminds me of a Mississippi River boat.