Pat, Patrick, and I took our tour of downtown San Francisco today aboard the “Peking Duck”, a WWII DUKW (amphibious vessel used to ferry troops to a beachhead) and had a blast. We got to the appointed place at the appointed time and found out that they had had a breakdown on one of their fleet, and so we had to wait and catch the next tour one hour later. (In retrospect, since the 4:00 tour was only about half full, it sounds like they combined two tour times to save cost, but…). Here is the mighty SS Peking Duck just in case we made the news:
We left the fisherman’s wharf area and headed down The Embarcadero past the Piers toward the Oakland Bay Bridge (which, I didn’t realize, was completed 7 months before the Golden Gate Bridge and is several times longer). You can see the Bay in the background and one of the numbered piers on the right:
A little further along, here is a nice view of the Oakland Bay Bridge:
We went past AT&T Park (Home of the SF Giants):
And then to the Marina and into the Bay:
We saw a number of ships in the Bay itself:
(This was looking toward Oakland to the East)
And, we got a great view of the Oakland Bay Bridge and Treasure Island:
Near the Marina were two US Navy RORO (Roll on-Roll off) ships used to transport vehicles:
Here you can see the rear ramps in the load/unload position:
There was also a ship in a floating dry dock:
We made it back to shore and after that, the tour took us through San Francisco and back to our origination point after about a total of 90 minutes.
And, so, here’s the intrepid trio after braving the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay and the Pirates that drive on the streets:
All in all, though, a pretty neat day!
