San Diego Bay Cruise and USS Midway Museum

After our day at Seaworld, our next day plan was a San Diego Bay cruise followed by a trip to the USS Midway museum.

San Diego Bay

 

San Diego Bay is dominated by the US military, but there is also a large civilian influence including the famous San Diego Yacht Club. In fact there were two ex-America's Cup Yachts moored next to where our cruise boat left from. The two yachts were Liberty, that lost to Australia II back in 1982, and Stars and Stripes that won it back (although by then nobody except the Kiwis actually cared about the America's cup).

 

The military have many wharves and bases around the bay. This one was obviously a Navy Seal training area.
These Navy Seals didn't look like they were training very hard.

 

The USS Ronald Reagan

 

Just after we'd seen the 'Navy Seals', we were very lucky to be treated to something very special. The USS Ronald Reagan, designated CVN-76, is the newest and biggest military ship in the world. It's based in San Diego with it's sister ship the USS Nimitz (CVN-68). These ships are generally away on exercises for 4 weeks at a time (the Nimitz is currently on deployment in the Persian Gulf for 6 months) so to be on the bay cruise right when the Ronald Reagan was entering port was an incredible fluke.
These huge ships are amazing. They tower over anything getting around and carry 6500 crew! They are faster than anything else the navy has but the US military are not prepared to say how fast. The "N" in the designation means nuclear powered. They don't need to re-fuel for 30 years! It's only the jets and the people that need re-fueling.
I saw either this one or one of it's sister Nimitz class Aircraft Carriers off Fremantle a couple of years ago. Getting this close really put it into perspective.

Coronado Air Base

 

San Diego isn't just a Naval base. The Marines have a huge presence and San Diego is one of the main places where the US trains their Navy Seals (the equivalent of Australia's SAS unit).

The aircraft involved in these groups need somewhere to land so there's a military air base on Coronado Island to accommodate anything from jet fighters and helicopters to the huge C-5 Galaxy transports. NATO even had an E-3 AWACS visiting (below).

There's also a re-furb shop along the waterfront of the air base where they clean up decommissioned aircraft for display on the USS Midway (more on that later).

 

 

I'm a bit of an aircraft tragic and to see aircraft carriers and a bunch of military planes was something of a treat.

Coronado Wharf

The San Diego Bay cruise is actually 2 cruises. You can do the north harbour, the south harbour or 2 hour full bay cruise. The full bay cruise is just the other two run consecutively. The northern cruise takes in the San Diego Yacht club, the submarine base, the bay entrance, the air base and the aircraft carrier base. The southern bay cruise begins by heading straight across the bay toward the Coronado wharf (above). It marks the beginning of the civilian part of Coronado Island. Technically it isn't an island because there's a narrow spit of land that connects it to the mainland down near Tijuana.

South Bay

Not far past the wharf we reached the San Diego Bridge (above). It's not as famous or as aesthetically pleasing as the Golden Gate bridge in SFO, but it's impressive in its own way. The military insisted that the city build a bridge high enough to drive their biggest ships (their carriers) under the bridge. Without boring you with engineering jargon, thanks to the height, the bridge needs to be curved as it crosses the bay.

Painting it blue makes it a little more aesthetically pleasing, but it's pretty much a functional bridge.

Once you go south of the bridge, you're back in military territory. The Coronado side is the main training area and barracks for the marines and Navy Seals. The mainland side is the San Diego Navy Base. I've never seen so many war ships in one place. There were Destroyers (above), Frigates, Cruisers (below) and Hospital ships.

 

There were also Amphibious Assault Ships (AAS) (above), which I'd never even heard of before. They look like aircraft carriers and are nearly as big. They do have a landing deck on the top like carriers, but it's for helicopters or short take off and land (STOL) aircraft (like the V-22 Osprey) not for jets. These ships are actually run by the marines. They carry troupes, aircraft and smaller landing/assault ships. Yet another deadly asset in the US arsenal.

 

Even the US Coast Guard dock one of their big clippers there (above). That ship puts most of the ships in the Australian Navy to shame.

 

Close in to the bridge was a large civilian run warship refitting dock (General Dynamics I think). They have quite the operation there as well.

The return journey of the South Bay cruise took us back alongside the naval base and under the bridge, then along the city centre waterfront. Near the north end of the waterfront sits the Seaport Village (above). It's a collection of buildings constructed to be like the old seaport village. We found out late in the afternoon that it's really just a bunch of shops and small restaurants. Some of the shops weren't too bad. Kerri bought a new hat and I bought a couple of new shirts.
Wyland has his main gallery there with a really persistent salesman. One day I may actually buy some of Wyland's stuff. it is an expensive habit though. The sculpture that I really like would be close to $4500 USD by the time I had it shipped to Oz.

The USS Midway Museum

The USS Midway is the longest serving Carrier in the US Navy and served in WWII, Vietnam and Desert Storm. It was decommissioned in 1992 and is now a floating museum.
After our bay cruise, we headed to the Midway Museum for a look. It was very interesting.

 

You can look over the, hanger deck, and the first two floors below the hanger deck. You can also go up into the air control tower and the bridge

 

They allow about 15 people at a time up into Air Control. As you would expect, it has a great outlook forward to the and aft to the Landing Deck.
The guy who is in charge of flight ops is called the "Boss". There's also a 2nd in command called the Mini Boss. Of course you can guess who's chair Kez made a be-line for (above).

We also had a look on the bridge (that's the place where the big knob drives the ship from). The Captain also has a cushy chair. Once again, she couldn't help herself (above).

 

The big interest on the midway is the various retired aircraft on the deck of the carrier. You can even climb into a few of them. I hopped into the T-2 Buckeye (below), a trainer aircraft. There were all kinds of carrier based aircraft from helicopters to jets.

It was another entertaining day and we're excited to see what San Diego has to offer us tomorrow.

Seaworld San Diego

Today was Seaworld Day. It was a must do on our list and since the weekend was over and the sun was out, we figured it was the right way to go. The San Diego version has roughly the same animals the Aussie one has, but in somewhat more cramped, not as well presented quarters. The San Diego version does have a few notable additions; Beluga Whales, Pilot Whales, Walruses, Sea Otters and, the big one, Orcas. Neither of us had ever seen any of those animals in the flesh so it was all very exciting.

 

The only distressing thing was the limited space for the whales. I know there are reasons for them to be in captivity, but it still upsets me. The larger enclosures at the Gold Coast version are much better for the animals.

 

The seal show was definitely geared for kids, but it was cool to go see it anyway. The difference with this one was the trained otters and a walrus of all things. There was also a mime who was more out of place than the walrus.

 

 

The big attraction for Seaworld in San Diego (& Florida apparently) is the Orca show, "Believe". San Diego have 7 Orcas & they rotate them through the 2 shows per day. Seeing such large creatures jump & flip was something else. I can't wait to see them in Alaska & around Vancouver Island.
The show was little bit over dramatized in typical American fashion, but if you can cut through the b.s. it's well worth a look. Again the cramped enclosure was a touch upsetting.

One of Seaworld's little schemes is to get you to fork out a fist full of cash so that you can get up close and personal with the orcas while you're having lunch. I would be a bit more cutting about it, except for the fact that Seaworld do a lot of good with animal conservation and rescue. They can't do that without a lot of money.

Tijuana and Old Town

Tijuana

This morning, we were woken early but this noisy little finch. It turned out to be the first of many. The weather was a bit cloudy, but by the time we set off, the cloud had burnt off making way for a beautiful day.

We decided to head for the Mexican border. The southern suburbs of San Diego share the US/Mexico border with Tijuana. The Trolley (light rail) system in San Diego has a spur that runs right to the border crossing (literally). You walk out of the immigration building heading back to the US and basically step onto the LRT in picture.
The US side of the twin cities is called Ysidro. It's all very clean and westernised. The contrast accross the border was almost immediately apparent. It should be noted that San Diego was in fact part of Mexico at one point.

The photo above is taken just on the Mexican side of the border. You can see the Tijuana arch in the distance. The odd thing was that as we crossed the border we smelled an unpleasant smell. Fortunately it didn't last, but it was as a result of a storm water canal under the walkway that I'm standing on in the photo above.

 

 

Tijuana is a nutty place. It's the biggest tourist trap I've ever seen. It's a city of 2.5 Million people, but the tourist part is only a couple of streets. They are full of dodgy unregulated pharmacies, drinking establishments, Mexican restaurants and trinket shops. To be honest, I was fairly unimpressed, but it had to be done.

The many police all carried semi-automatics and looked like gangsters with their aviation glasses and military boots. It cracked me up when we saw a police dual cab utility driving down the street with a couch in the back tray with one of the cops sitting on it.
Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a photo. The term "Workplace health and safety seems" not to have made it to Mexico yet.

These Mexicans are crazy.
They paint their donkeys up to look like Zebras (well partially) hook them up to a cart so you can have your photo taken with it.

The Nice Part of TJ
We asked the tourist info lady for options other than the main tourist trap of TJ. She mentioned a park a few blocks from the main street. It was a good call. The park was a nice haven from the craziness. All the local families seemed to have gone to church and then come to the park to hang out as a family. It was quite pleasant really.

After an unimpeded crossing into Mexico, the path back to the USA was no where near as straight forward. We spotted a line of traffic banked back at least to the tourist part of TJ. It was 4 lanes wide and at a complete stand still. I'm guessing it was at least a couple of kms long. (I've since seen on Google Maps, that there are in fact sets of 4 lanes for a few kms.) There were even a bunch of trinket stalls along the way with the vendors out in the traffic trying to flog stuff to unsuspecting motorists.
The Tijuana/Ysidro border sees 40 million crossings every year and is the busiest in the world (whatever world means in North America). I'd just finished scoffing at the unfortunate motorists when I saw the pedestrians lines up to cross the border. It took about 25mins, but we eventually got through without any problems.

 

To the North of Downtown San Diego is the original centre of San Diego the locals call "Old Town". It actually has many of the original buildings from back when San Diego was founded by the Spanish. There's a good mix of history, restaurants and variety stores to make it a nice place to spend some time. After our morning down in Mexico, we had lunch there & the food was excellent. We spent the afternoon having a nosy around the place as well.

 

 

For the entire stay in San Diego, we stayed at the Ocean Park Inn (our room was the one with Kerri on the balcony). The location was great. It was right on the beach next to the lovely Crystal Pier and among a bunch of nice restaurants, pubs and shops. We could easily have stayed there for the week and not to have gone more than a few hundred metres for our needs. Obviously there was so much more of San Diego to explore and we spent a lot of time away from the area, but every evening we found our way back just in time for some awesome sunsets.

 

 

 

We wandered along the beach on the previous evening and saw a pod of dolphins messing around in the waves. Tonight we were out on Crystal Pier and saw the dolphins again. They're really hard to photograph from long range in low light. Hopefully we'll have better luck in Alaska in a month or so time. We managed a much closer encounter with dolphins the next day at Seaworld. We didn't see the dolphins again after that evening.

San Diego (Arrival)

We didn't go away one Kerri's last week off so we were itching to get out traveling again. With Canada and the northern parts of the US still being ravaged by the last throws of winter, San Diego seemed to make sense.

The Friday night before we left for San Diego bought a driving snow and by the time we left for Calgary airport on Saturday morning, the roads were a mess. We'd been trying to call a cab since Friday evening but we couldn't even get through. I ended up driving to the airport through driving snow and parked at a long term car park. It was awful! -8 C and snowing like nothing I've seen here all winter. The predictions were for the snow to continue until Tuesday at least.
Our plane had to be de-iced, and after the anti-freeze was hosed on, the plane was fluro green.
We were lucky to get away because they grounded a few flights later that day.
We made it to San Diego without further incident. Stepping off the flight I was immediately aware of heavier air. I've become used to the rarefied atmosphere in Calgary and the change in air pressure at sea level was quite noticeable.
We checked into the hotel which was really nice and the view was excellent (above). San Diego was having an uncharacteristically cold and overcast morning, but we were just happy to be away from the horrible weather of Calgary. The cold weather didn't last. We had a bit of a look around for the afternoon. I didn't realize how much I had been missing the ocean until we took a walk along Pacific Beach in front of the hotel.