Living on the harbor in San Diego offers a never-ending reality show of sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, expedition and liveaboard and pleasure trawlers, Scripps Institute dolpin and sea lion training, the US customs dock, police and rescue boats, warships and other Navy boats, tankers and cargo boats of all kinds. Not to mention the Apache helicopters and F18s and other interesting, to say the least, air traffic taking off and landing from the base on Coronado Island. Here are a few observations from this morning and the past few days.
A couple of weeks ago I watched the police run down the pier across the way in bulletproof vests and heavily armed to board their inflatables and race off to sea, leaving the what where how who and why all to my fertile imagination. The fact that I can see Mexico beyond Coronado Island only feeds it more.
Here’s a missile frigate coming home to the Navy base in Point Loma, accompanied by two high-speed tugs.
The Dorado Discovery with a mini-sub on the back heads in.
Scripps Institute next door had a lot of activity this morning with their dolphin training boats out. One chase boat, with the dolphin staying right alongside, petted by one of the boaters, and a boat with three divers, and another boat, I couldn’t figure it’s purpose, maybe monitoring. The divers went in and sat in the water and I guess the dolphin may have been doing some rescue-related training work. That went on for about an hour.
About the same time Shogun came in and a bunch of personnel on the Scripps pier scurried about transferring live animals from the tank in the back of the boat via large blue bags. I saw them land with a splash in the tank on the pier, but couldn’t tell what they were. Not dolphin size, unless they were babies.
Then the New Horizons left the Scripps pier.
The other day the largest carbon fiber structure in the world (so said one of the crew) appeared in the harbor, the Hetarios “supermaxi” sailing yacht. It looks like its namesake, a wooden boat, but to say it’s been modernized is an understatement. Just take a look at the photos on the website. It went out to see a few days later with a dozen crew smartly dressed in green shorts and white shirts, the owners at the helm and a teenage girl at the back in sweats talking on her cell phone. Tune in to the Hetarios website and sit back to enjoy the show. Also check out this article.
Meantime, there is always the scurry of sailing classes, I think they culminated in this massive show of tiny sailboats a few days ago. Maybe it was graduation.
