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.
