ALCATRAZ - Wednesday

Today was Alcatraz day. We have been looking forward to visiting the rock ever since we took a boat tour round it in 1997. We planned our day and because of the difficulties of parking we thought about taking the ferry from Oakland to Pier 41, then the tour from Pier 33, but in the end thought this to be too complicated and just drove the van into SF, across the Bay bridge that joins Oakland to SF. The weather in San Leandro was sunny, as we approached the Bay Bridge we could see fog ahead. In fact the bridge just disappeared into a fog bank, so in a foggy SF we turned down to the waterfront to find that there was actually plenty of parking available. We were more than hour early for our ticketed tour boat, so we snuck in on an earlier boat. We got a great view of the Bay, well for about 50 yards, but this made it all the more atmospheric for our visit. As the boat approached the island is slowly began to take shape, first a darkening in the fog, then the island loomed above us. We disembarked and began our tour with an official 'orientation', suggesting we do not make extra work for them by throwing ourselves off the cliffs, over walls, or swim in the Bay, all of which we had no trouble complying with.
The island is really in three sections: The Dock, the Cell block area and other bits, like the Agave Garden, which is a walk round part of the base of the island. The Dock and the Cell block are joined by a switchback road with a number of other buildings, such as the Officers club, the prison officers housing, the Wardens house, the electrical shop, laundry and power plant.
On our way up from the dock, we joined a tour entitled 'Escapes' which outlined the efforts of 34 people to escape and included the 14 who actually were able to carry it through, pointing out that only 2 people were unaccounted for and 0 were known to have made it clear (but if you were one of the 2 would you want to tell anyone?).
The escapes included the guy who carefully watched the coming and going of soldiers who had their laundry done on the island, then over ten years he stole items of laundry until he had a complete uniform. He then casually joined in with the soldiers when they returned to SF, only to find that boat he had got on was going to Angel Island, where he was easily recaptured after a head count.
The island itself was originally a fortress to defend the approaches to SF and the Bay area, though it never saw action. It was also used to house POW's from the Civil War, which then became its main function. It would have fallen into disuse but was revived almost as a publicity ploy to deter gangsters in the prohibition era, when it housed many of the famous criminals of the time, including Al Capone.
Once we had arrived at the top of the island, we were able to tour the Cell block, this was excellently supported by an audio tour, spoken by officers and inmates, with some realistic sounds as you passed through the cells. The facilities are indeed very spartan. Prisoners had the right to food, clothes, shelter, health care and nothing else. Everything else was a privilege to be earned. So much of the story of Alcatraz is about the supplying of those basics, the need for security and how prisoners were able to accommodate to the place through privileges. We were able to see and walk across the recreation yard, the library, the dining hall, the administrative offices as well as the whole ground floor of the cell blocks.
We had another fascinating and memorable day, by the time we had finished our tour the fog had lifted, so we could now see SF and most of the Golden Gate Bridge. After we landed back at Pier 33 we took a walk along the waterfront and had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which had been recommended to us by Rich. Now this is an amazing and unashamedly tourist place to eat. It is dark, with lots of accented lighting. It is full of jungle, jungle animatronics and big tanks of tropical fish, complete with jungle music and animal noises. This was another dining experience that was great fun and the food was good as well. After this we fought our way back to San Leandro through the Drive Time Traffic across the Bay Bridge. Oh what a great day.