In the evening we stayed in the cover of Angel Island while waiting for the fireworks. In Raccoon Straight we encountered some of the local cruise ships and the historic Potomac, JDR's "Floating White House".

After sunset it became really cold. We were all bundled up and freezing. It was a choice between being closer to the city front and fierce winds or staying sheltered and further away. We stayed sheltered. Unfortunately there was a low cloud layer over San Francisco and much of Berkeley and Oakland. The clouds hid most of the fireworks. We did get some images, which we think will reproduce the 4th of July mood. On some of them we can clearly see one yacht under sail in proximity to San Francisco. At least one "real sailor" was not scared off by the elements!

On the technical side: These pictures of fireworks were taken with an ISO setting of up to 12,800. Modern noise processing magic was needed to rescue some of the images. Until recently such a high ISO exposure wasn’t even available.