"You clot," I thought to myself, "they told you that there was no light in a solitary confinement cell."

I felt the walls; they were ice cold. I bent down, and the floor wasn’t any warmer. After what felt like an eternity, the door suddenly swung open and a woman's voice asked: "How long are you going to stay in there?" It was my wife.

I sauntered out wearing a sheepish grin. "So that’s what the hole feels like. Man, that place gives me the heebie-jeebies."

"Oh Richard," my wife sighed, "you were only in there for two minutes."

So far so good — my well thought out strategy to escape from Alcatraz was going as planned. First, get out of my solitary confinement cell — which I must admit was relatively easy, next step — get off the island.

"How much longer until the next ferry docks?" I asked my wife as we walked down Broadway. "Oh, about another 30 minutes," she responded casually, as though she broke out of prison every day.

Making a mental note to synchronise my watch, I replied: "Right, let’s try and take in what’s left so that we can make the trip back on the next boat. I’m starving and I want to try some of those fresh crabs on Pier 39."

Okay, I admit it, my imagination was running riot, and I was loving it. I mean who wouldn’t like to spend a few hours walking around this infamous prison?

Island of the Pelicans
My wife and I had flown into San Francisco the day before, and had found the city very similar to Cape Town. There is so much to write about, but I thought I'd just stick to my prison visit this time round.

Alcatraz sits in the middle of San Francisco bay and is a 10-minute boat trip away from the city. They say when the wind blew just right the prisoners could actually hear people’s voices from the mainland. We did not. The wind was howling and even the ferry ride over was pretty hair-raising — being bald, I can tell you that's quite exhilarating!

Two hundred years ago when the Mexicans owned California, they named the place Isla de los Alcatraces, "Island of the Pelicans". It did not take long for the authorities of the day to realise that this would be a perfect place to house recalcitrants, riff-raff, and unmanageables, which, when I think about it, sounds like most of my friends. Soon it was a high security home for criminal hard cases such as Al Capone, 'Machine Gun Kelly' and 'The Birdman of Alcatraz' — Robert Stroud. The prison was finally closed in 1963 and as I was about to find out, prison life on Alcatraz was extremely harsh.

Welcome to Alcatraz
When inmates first arrived at Alcatraz they were given a complete medical exam, including a free cavity search (now I know where some of the airport security personnel used to work) after which they were allowed to shower. They were then checked and put in Broadway, the main cellblock row. In Broadway they were given innoculations, informed about the rules and told how to be a good prisoner at Alcatraz. The inmates' background would then be looked over by a committee who would decide if the prisoner was allowed to work in the prison industries.

While I could write volumes about some of the unsavoury characters who served time here, probably the most well known was the 'Birdman of Alcatraz' — Robert Stroud — who started his life as a felon by killing a man in a barfight in Alaska. While serving time for manslaughter at McNeil Island, he stabbed another inmate six times. That got him ‘upgraded’ to Leavenworth high security prison in Kansas.

While there he became less agressive and largely seemed to be content to accept his fate, and it was at Leavenworth that he began his famous fascination with birds. However, his mood changed rapidly when his mother’s visitation rights were cancelled. Getting hold of a sharp object he stabbed and killed the officer who had put him on report. After being found guilty of murder he was sentenced to hang. Stroud’s mother successfully pleaded for clemency, resulting in Stroud being sentenced to life imprisonment without the chance of parole.

Stroud’s had an IQ of 134 and he could read and write in four languages. However, history shows that he was a far cry from the kind man played by Burt Lancaster in the well-known 1962 movie entitled "The Birdman of Alcatraz". In fact he was never allowed to keep birds during his 17-year stay at Alcatraz.

Any trip to Alcatraz begins from Pier 41 on the mainland, and once docked on the island you are free to explore on your own. The complex is in a general state of disrepair though, with several burnt out buildings and only the actual prison appears to be as it originally was in its hey-day. Be sure to dress warm, even in summer, because when the wind comes off the chilly ocean waters it's cold!

The day started to draw to a close. As we reluctantly stepped onto the ferry, I thought to myself that in a macabre sort of way it was a day well spent. While extremely interesting, and steeped in history, Alcatraz also carries with it a physical manifestation of so many wasted lives, of so much squandered potential, and a permanent testament to man's inhumanity to man.

Read more of Richard's diaries