A Nice Place to Visit but Not to Stay

Alcatraz is clearly one of the most famous tourist sights of the coast of San Francisco. From memory, the audio tour was very good, and so it was a test to see if my memory served correctly. Mr Flight Centre had already booked our tickets before we left Australia, so it was certainly easy enough to arrange. All we had to do was get to Pier 35 to catch the ferry at the set time.

After a minor panic regarding the emailed tickets that were sent to Peter's Spam section of his email, we ate our complimentary continental breakfast (a croissant with diced fruit) with a side of eggs and bacon and headed to Pier 35, ready for our trip. It was a tad cooler, and as expected there was certainly a little wind as we crossed the bay. As such, I chose to sit inside the ferry while the other three decided to brave the winds and the cold on the ferry deck. Not surprising that Hayley came to join me for a few minutes of the journey.

The captains of this particular ferry are certainly quite gifted in their steering - it's not a matter of driving alongside the wharf to stop on Alcatraz Island. Instead, they had to pull alongside and then move sideways to dock, pretty impressive for such a large vehicle. After exiting, we found the nearest map and headed up through the old buildings which housed aspects of the Islands history which included its time as a fort, a jail, reclaimed Indian Land and now as a National Landmark.

After reading our history, we moved up and into the jail for the much anticipated audio tour, which began in the room where new inmates were first 'welcomed'. Here there was a long line of open showers to which the girls responded: "oooooh yuck....did they all shower together?" Moving along, we received our headphones and player and began our tour, which was as fantastic as we remember. The fascinating aspect of the tour is the narrators who are ex-prison officers or ex-prisoners thus making their stories very authentic and the experience through the prison very 'real'.

There was the story of an attempted escape, by a prisoner who invented his own bar spreader which was used to enter the gun galley and steal the keys which were supposed to open the doors to the recreation yard and supposedly escape. Unfortunately, the keys were kept by one of the officers who fooled the escape; however, this led to the prisoners locking many of the officers up, and sadly the man with the keys was shot.

There was also the story of the well-planned escape of three prisoners which demonstrated patience and ingenuity. Not only did they collectively dig through the concrete at the back of their cells for 12 months using spoons, but they also constructed fake heads which were obviously used to disguise the prisoners still sleeping. A fantastic story; however, none of the three prisoners were ever seen again which suggest perhaps they drowned crossing the channel or perhaps froze in the icy water.

The Island tour was as wonderful as remembered; so we ate lunch and hopped back onto the ferry and headed back to the mainland. We wandered up to Pier 39, which housed the many tourist shops and restaurants; watched a street performer (who was very clever), found the large seals sunning themselves on the pontoons and decided on a place for dinner. So it was back to the hotel for wine hour and then a walk to the Pier for dinner. Another grand adventure organised by our illustrious tour guide.