"He saw the reflected glare of the lights of the city at what must have been around ten o'clock at night.  They were only perceptible at first as the light is in the sky before the moon rises.  Then they were steady to see across the ocean which was rough now with the increasing breeze.  He steered inside of the glow and he thought that now, soon, he must hit the edge of the stream."
 – Old Man and the Sea

The Embarcadero promenade along the bayfront was only interesting to the old man as the sun set.  The world and the water had quieted then and colors, jagged and irregular, reached up in what he thought a grayish monotony.  He had known San Francisco before it became this city.  He came from such a time when the stories at the street corners still included the names of the famous and not so fortunate gold rushers from a century previous.  The rushers, right up along these banks that now stood so polished, grew shanty towns with every odd and end to that purpose sprawled out at every crack and crevice.  Abandoned schooners littered the Golden Bay back then; other craft came into the bay full of more seekers, sometimes daily depending on the season.  Now it was peace at dusk, a hush of breeze flapping the flag at the stern of the Angelina. The ferries leaving for Sausalito had stopped for now and the sea, he envisioned, even if pure fantasy, his own.  He let slip the anchor chain from the reel.  It plunged at least seventy-five feet through the cold water.  A group of four gulls landed immediately on the railing near the cabin.  "Shoo, you.  Is that you again Charley, Beatrice?" He laughed, for he knew he did not know, of course, the name of these birds but they certainly did look familiar.  By now the sun had set behind the Presidio and the city but a smudge, a dab of gray paint – it was the water now that surrounded his small boat that was illuminated by the lights he had installed around the outside of the decking.  The bay water was not particularly clear but in the dark, as direct lights shown down onto it, any number of creatures could be seen sifting across the top.  It was at this very spot – yes, it was only two early summers ago – when he saw what he thought was the unimaginable.  He opened his bottle of Merlot and poured himself a very small pinch, took a sip, and let the memory fuel.  That night he had rolled out his cot onto the deck, just as he would again tonight in a few minutes, and off-handedly tossed over the side the remaining piece of a flank steak he had prepared back on shore.  Because of the lights he was able to watch that peculiarly small piece sink slowly in the enormous body of water below.  As quickly as it took him to blink, he saw surround the small piece a large round hole the size of a barrel end.  At first, he could not have thought it much more than a deep shadow and his boat light had been lost but then that dark hole emerged out of the water, a broad sleek gray body following in a flash, the long glide of a fin cutting just as quickly through the air and then the water below again, only to slide down directly below the boat.  "I will never see that again," he thought to himself, but carved out one of his cooled oysters and flipped it as if a coin onto the fractured surface and waited. "Come along now, Mr. Great White, come along now, let us see you again for old time sake."