Hornblower Harbor Cruise…

Sorry for the delay in publishing this. Had a run of bad luck with things and put working on my blog on the back burner. Nothing too terrible, just a little of this thing and a little of that thing which added up to big things. Mostly the troubles involve the RV & car. Anyway, I’m now parked at a nice RV park in Idaho, weather is in the 70’s and I’ve gotten most of the problems situated, arranged for a solution, or I’m near to solving them. Now, on with the reports of my visit to San Diego back in April of this year.

If you recall, I’d gone to SD to deliver an old satellite antenna and tripod system to a gentleman who still uses Hughsnet for Wifi when he stays for months along the Baja coast. Since I was in town, and the daily RV park rates in the area were outrageous, up in the $50/night range, I’d opted to stay at a county park and paid their weekly rate of $267, which ends up being $34 nightly, which was the best nightly rate I’d found in the area. Turned out they had pretty fair Wifi too.

This was the opportunity I’d looked forward to for years, a chance and reason to visit SD. I’d gone to Navy boot camp here back in the ’60s and really wanted to visit again. Now that I was in town, and had a week to work with, I was enjoying those tourist places I’d not had the opportunity to visit back then. Since I’d already visited Old Town, and the Zoo, it was now time to visit the USS Midway along dockside in downtown. But wait! There’s also the Hornblower Harbor Cruise right next to the Midway. The cruise only takes an hour and the first departure is at 8:30 AM, then the Midway opens at 10 AM. So I bought tickets for both activities and prepaid for parking on the dock between the two venues. How handy!

First thing in the morning, I arrived along the harbor at 8:10, entered the dock parking area from W. E Street, (the dock parking opens early) and soon was walking over to the Harbor Cruise. The dock parking is very convenient, and there was plenty of room since I arrived early. I recommend using it rather than trying to find parking near the area. Very economical too, just $10. And that was for all day as I recall. There is nearby metered parking for $1.25/hour but has a 2 hour limit and I knew the Midway visit would take longer than that.

The cruise of the harbor was something I really wanted to go on because I’d get a much better view of the Navy resources around the harbor, and of Coronado Island, where I’d gone to boot camp. There’s now a bridge that goes over there, back when I was here the first time, there were only ferries to travel between the mainland and the island. (Which isn’t an island at all but I didn’t know that back then).

So, here we are, cruising the San Diego Harbor. This first picture is of the USS Midway, where I’ll be visiting later. For scale, note the human standing on the upper deck area on the right side of the ship. You can just make out his head and shoulders.

A bit of the SD skyline… And we pass by the commercial docks. These are south of the Midway. And near the Coronado bridge, we run into some Navy ships. And it turns into just Navy ships and facilities. Dry dock! Big, huh? Here’s a picture of a newer LSD, Landing Ship Dock, which is the type of ship I was assigned to all those years ago. Went to Viet Nam on the USS Oak Hill, LSD-7. This one may still be in service, I can’t tell, the Oak Hill was cut up into scrap back in the ’70’s. Many of these ships are in the ‘mothball’ fleet. Difficult to figure out which ones though. These ships are a new fangled design I’m aware of, but don’t know much about them. Bet they are fast though. Lots of work going on with the superstructure on this one. They’re probably trying to reduce the radar echo. Using some of those fancy paints I’ve read about. It was a bit chilly but not too bad… A trimaran. Interesting hull shape. Sure would like to visit that one if I get the chance. Even be better to get a ride at sea on one, at max speed. Not likely that will ever happen though. You can see from this shot that radar pulses would glance up and away, reducing it’s echo profile.  A lot of these ships have a ‘stealthy’ look too them. To deflect radar signals I’d guess. Here’s what looks like an out-of-service flattop. An old aircraft carrier. Looks too old to be in service anymore. Maybe they’re trying to sell it to some city as a tourist attraction? Here’s that LSD again. Hmm. Scaffolding suggests this ship is still in service… And here we are heading back under the bridge. Thing is 200 feet tall so virtually any ship can pass under it. On the way back, we pass closer to Coronado (which isn’t really an) Island. Here’s a map of the harbor we were in. Note that we left the dock just to the north of the USS Midway but these pictures should give an idea of how big the harbor is… And here we are pulling into our slip with the Midway just to our starboard side. Well, that was lots of fun. Glad I did that to get an idea of the vast size of the Navy’s docks and facilities here in SD. And this is where we’ll stop this time. In a couple days, I’ll try to upload my visit to the USS Midway. There’s a lot of pictures that go with that visit as the ship is huge! So I’ll split these two postings.

Thanks for reading!