Fleet Week 2006 in San Francisco

**B_and_D** · 10-07-2006, 10:34 PM

We got there just in time to snap this picture of the USS Nimitz going under the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't realize how big it was, compared to the GG Bridge, until I got home and unloaded the pictures!

The Blue Angels were awesome, but my pictures didn't come out too good

. One of them flew (it seemed like) a couple of hundred feet right over our heads and WOWED everyone standing up on the cliff by the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pushing out vapors all around it like a halo, I don't ever think I'll get to see that sight again. They are so fast, and so loud, and so amazing!

They're flying tomorrow again, today they flew at 3 pm.

**B_and_D** · 10-07-2006, 10:49 PM

Well, now DH is saying it wasn't the Nimitz, but a smaller ship? It went by so fast and I was trying to take pictures. It was the last ship to come under the bridge, so I figured it had to be the aircraft carrier.

If any of you know, please help us settle our disagreement!

**B_and_D** · 10-07-2006, 11:23 PM

We've been looking over the pictures of the ships that were supposed to come in today, and we think this ship is the USS BONHOMME RICHARD. Maybe the Nimitz came in later, after we went to get lunch. The kids were hungry, we waited a while, but didn't see any more ships come in.

http://www.military.com/Content/More..._Ships,00.html

10-08-2006, 01:40 PM

I live in Northern California and never get tired of the view of SF from the GG Bridge. Have seen the Blue Angels and the fleet coming through the gate many times and am always inspired. Two years ago I went sailing with friends and we watched the Blue Angels while bobbing off Alcatraz. Talk about a ringside seat!

10-08-2006, 08:34 PM

It is even more spectacular to watch the USS Enterprise when it used to come into SF. They had to dismantle about 60 feet of mast and wait for low tide.

Slightly off topic, but has anyone besides me ever noticed that the USS Montana is number 16? I'm pretty sure the ship had the number before the quarter back did. Always wondered if it was a coincidence.

I live here and haven't been to fleet week in almost 40 years.

**B_and_D** · 10-09-2006, 10:34 PM

The SF Bay was so full of boats, we wondered how they didn't all run into each other during the show. So many boats, of different sizes!

I think that if you couldn't be in a boat to watch (that would be very cool), that being on the bridge itself (on the bay side) would be the best place to watch. Short of those two locations, where we were, above Fort Point, was a pretty good place to see the Blue Angels. We've also seen them before at the Salinas Air Show, but watching them fly over the entire SF Bay from a high vantage point is so much better. The last time we went to watch at Fleet Week (7 or 8 years ago?) a Stealth aircraft flew back and forth a few times. That was incredible.

In one performance that we saw in SF, one of the Blue Angels either flew under the bridge (we all swear that it was possible that they did) or so close to the top of the bridge, over the middle span, between the two towers, that it looked like they did. If I'd been driving a car over the bridge at that moment I would have been quite alarmed. They didn't get that close to the bridge itself this time.

We watched the ships (the few that we saw) come in from a vantage point on the ocean side of the GG Bridge, where the old bunkers are. If you haven't been up there in a while, there are a lot of changes to the area. They are putting in a lot of trails along the cliffs, with posts and wire cables keeping you from straying too close to the edges. As a child, I spent a lot of time running around those cliffs and the beaches there, and it looks so different to me now. They've also cut down a lot of the huge cypress trees along the cliffs, not sure why. When I'm up there I can still hear my mother telling me to "stay away from those cliffs!".

I told DH that it would be fun to take the TM up there next year and set up in the bigger parking lot, southwest of the bridge, in the Presidio, for the day. Chrissy Field was packed, but there was lots of room in that parking lot. We could bring our lunch, BBQ or whatever, and just kind of hang out there between the Parade of Ships and the airshow.

**B_and_D** · 09-02-2007, 11:45 PM

Fleet Week in SF will be on October 6 and 7...

I think we'll be going back, not sure about taking the TM, but it's a possibility. I can't believe it's been almost a year since the last one...boy does time fly.

http://fleetweek.us/fleetweek

http://www.pier39.com/Events/events.htm

**B_and_D** · 10-09-2009, 11:56 PM

Fleet Week 2009 is happening now...we're going up tomorrow to catch the sight of the ships passing under the GG Bridge, hopefully it won't be too foggy to see everything (including the Blue Angels!).

Our favorite place to watch is just below that round building to the southeast of the GG Bridge; the jets seem like they're flying right over your head and there is ample parking along Lincoln Blvd. just before Langdon Ct. (coming from the south) in the gravel parking lot, if you get there early enough. It doesn't start to get really packed there until an hour or so before the Blue Angels perform.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...04474&t=h&z=17