Tuesday 10th October
You could really smell the smoke from the Nappa Valley fires today and everything was a bit hazy. We had a hiccup with Iain's camera as it refused to work and said Zoom System Error. However a little later it had sorted itself out and worked fine all day - very strange. We took the bus down to Union Square again and hopped back on the Big Bus for a final time to get to Fisherman's Quay. Here we booked on a 90 minute Bay Cruise that included 30 minutes circling Alcatraz quite close in. We only had ten minutes to wait for the 11.30am cruise and then were pleasantly surprised at how warm it was - I only needed my fleece for a while and Iain stayed in his short shirt sleeves! We had a rucksack of warm clothes we didn't need. It was also quite calm, which was lucky as I had forgotten to bring my seasick pills in my bag. We sailed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge  but we're not sure how well the photos will come out as it was very hazy.
Having returned to shore we wandered up through North Beach (was a beach but now built up on landfill) which is predominantly the Italian quarter. We had a very pleasant lunch at an Italian restaurant and then made our way through Chinatown, marvelling at the Chinese market stalls before catching the bus home from Union Square.
We thought we would take a short walk up to the cliff paths around Land's End and find somewhere nice to sit and read. Unfortunately we got lost and it became cool and cloudy, with the mist rolling in, so we abandoned the idea and came home to read instead!

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