The weather remained to be gloriously hot and sunny so we decided to use the Bay Adventure Cruise ticket in our CityPass. It is a one hour cruise that departs from Pier 39 and sails along the city's waterfront, past the Pier 39 sea lions, under the Golden Gate Bridge, by Sausalito, past Angel Island and around Alcatraz.

We had some time to kill before our cruise departed so we wandered around Pier 39 for a bit. We knew the boat ride would be pretty smooth from our trip to Alcatraz, so we knew it would be safe to eat some lunch first and not feel sick. So we shared our usual ice cream from Dreyers (can't resist the chocolate waffle cone and the flavour of dulce de leche ice cream!) and then we shared a hot dog (totally backwards eating the sweet stuff first, but why not hey?).

There is now a Christmas tree by Pier 39 that has been decorated and it is pretty weird looking at it when the weather is just like summertime! In fact it's so much like summertime that I've suffered from my hay fever, which I never thought I would get in November! At first I thought I was getting a cold, but combined with really itchy eyes I came to the conclusion it must be hay fever so I took an antihistamine and that sorted me out.

Anyway, our cruise was due to depart at 2.30pm and you have to be at the dock 15 minutes before to start boarding. There was already a pretty long queue just after 2pm so we got in line, but the boat is pretty big so all the passengers got onboard and it didn't feel crowded. Quite a few passengers stayed inside the boat, I think to stay out of the blazing sun, but we wanted to get a good view and photos so we went out onto the deck and stood in our usual spot at the back of the boat. From here we got some good photos but we couldn't hear the audio from the boat's speakers that gave information about all the things we were seeing. However, we were pretty familiar with all the sights by now and our main focus was sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge, which was very impressive.

The tour states that you go past Sausalito and Angel Island but that is quite an exaggeration and the word past is used in the loosest possible way, as in reality they are so far away you don't even notice where they are. But the boat does sail pretty close around Alcatraz, so even though we already had photos of the island, we took some more as we got a different angle. When you could see the City behind the prison you could get a sense of the isolation and longing that the prisoners felt when they could apparently hear all the voices and laughter from the people in the City across the Bay.

After the cruise we headed towards Ghirardelli Squarewhere the old chocolate factory has now been converted into shops and restaurants. On the way there we passed a big crowd of people who had been lured by the funky music blaring from a stereo and had gathered around some street artists. They were creating amazing pictures using spray cans and just odd bits of card or plastic tubes to create shapes with. The guy was doing a picture of a round moon with the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground and he was lightning quick so I didn't get a chance to photograph him in action. They were selling them for only $5, but the one Steve wanted (one of Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas film) was sold out so we carried on walking. Luckily there was another bunch of these street artists doing the same thing and they had the one Steve wanted. When Steve went to buy it he pulled out a $10 note and I said, "Make sure you ask him how much the pictures are, otherwise he might just take your $10" and sure enough the guy said the pictures were $10 after spying Steve's money. So Steve said "Well they're selling them for $5 down the street" so the guy said, "Well they're $5 and anything extra is up to you". So Steve gave him $5 and put an extra $1 in the jar.

There wasn't a lot to see at Ghirardelli Square, unless you have cash to splash - there's a posh English tearoom, which says it all really. Our plan was to use our CityPass to get a cable car along California Street, but too many other people had the same idea so the queue was phenomenally long. We didn't fancy waiting for hours, so we decided to walk back to Fisherman's Wharf and get the F-Line Streetcar home instead as it pretty much stops outside our apartment.