Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
expected to return, and for its Federal Arts Project murals, which will have been
restored. The renovation is slated to end in 2009, when the museum is supposed
to reopen.
There are two other interesting attractions in the area for boat and military
nuts. A 10-minute walk farther east along Jefferson at Pier 45, on the water
behind the Musée Méchanique, the submarine
USS
Pampanito
5
(Pier 45 at
Taylor;
%
415/561
-
6662; www.maritime.org; $9 adults, $5 seniors over 62, $5
students and kids 6-12, $20 families of 2 adults and 2 kids under 18; Sun-Thurs
9am-6pm and Fri-Sat 9am-8pm)
sank six Japanese ships during four tours of the
Pacific in World War II. The vessel, which is not for the claustrophobic or the
infirm, has been painstakingly restored to its 1945 condition by admirers, who
also run a smart, war-themed gift shop on the dock alongside it. Thanks to their
efforts, she's still seaworthy, although, sadly, the last time she was taken out into
the ocean was for the filming of the abysmal 1996 Kelsey Grammer film
Down
Periscope.
How glory fades. . . .
Further down the pier, the
SS
Jeremiah O'Brien
(Pier 45, at Taylor;
%
415/
544
-
0100; www.ssjeremiahobrien.org; $8 ages 15-61, $5 seniors 62 and over, $4
kids 6-14, $20 families of 2 adults and 2 kids; 9am-4pm)
is a Liberty-class ship
from 1943 that served in D-Day; it sailed under its own power to the 1994 com-
memoration in France. Although the ladders can be challenging, it's easy to fig-
ure out where you are using the provided maps. The ship, as well as the
Pampanito,
is a National Historic Landmark.
Although it feeds off the overly touristy traffic of Fisherman's Wharf 's Pier 39,
the
Aquarium of the Bay
9
(Pier 39, at Stockton;
%
800/732
-
3483 or 415/
623
-
5300; www.aquariumofthebay.com; $15 ages 12-64, $8 seniors 65 and older
and kids 3-11, $38 families of 2 adults and 2 kids; summers daily 9am-8pm,
fall-spring Mon-Thurs 10am-6pm, Fri-Sun 10am-7pm)
is actually principled,
well-maintained, and informative. The admirable focus here is the aquatic life
that thrives right outside in the Bay, which, because of its unique mix of water
types and its steady flushing into the Pacific Ocean, is one of the world's best
breeding grounds for oceangoing fish. The aquarium's highlights are two acrylic
tunnels, totaling 300 feet, which pass directly along the bottom of two tanks. One
highlights the kind of fish you'd find in the Bay (including rockfish and floun-
der—this section's the more varied of the two), and the other the kind of animals
found right outside the Golden Gate (10-ft. sharks, 4-ft. lingcod). In between
these two habitats, which you can see multiple times if you wish, you'll view a
mesmerizing tank of jellyfish and get lots of printed lectures about conservation
(preaching to the choir—you came to an aquarium, after all). The final attraction
is called Touch the Bay, where you can lean over thigh-high rock-pool tanks and
touch, with one finger and under regimented supervision, animals such as leop-
ard sharks, skates, and starfish. Feeding times and story sessions happen roughly
eight times daily from 12:30 to 4pm, so ask at the front desk what's upcoming.
For another $6 you can join a “Behind the Scenes” tour (usually 2pm or there-
abouts) that discloses some of the attraction's animal-husbandry secrets and allows
you to peer at tourists in the tubes from a surface vantage point, but only the sin-
cerest ichthyologist need apply. The aquarium's director, John Frawley, is a noted
activist; recently, he's been famous for marking off lines across the city where the
water level would be should the polar ice caps melt. Generally speaking, I'd visit
