The Mystic Whaler is visiting San Diego. I saw it docked at the Maritime Museum of San Diego this afternoon.
With a name like Mystic Whaler, you might think this tall ship is circling the globe searching for the elusive Moby Dick.
Wrong!
The beautiful ship is from Connecticut, and after a passage through the Panama Canal, it’s making its way up the West Coast. Mystic Whaler’s ultimate destination is the Channel Islands, where it will serve as an educational ship for the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. A bunch of school kids are in for a real adventure!
The 83-foot-long Mystic Whaler is a reproduction of a late 19th-century coastal cargo schooner. You can read a great article concerning its history and future here.
The crewmember I spoke to was super nice. Good luck!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Today is New Year’s Day. The sun was shining in San Diego.
Many people were out strolling beside San Diego Bay.
For some reason, walking along the Embarcadero is a thing I do almost every year on January 1. Maybe it’s the glittering water, cool breeze, sailboats, and a sense of renewal. Whatever it is, that’s what I did today.
And I took these photographs.
(The next photo is strange! I think he was playing for a special group about to board a harbor cruise.)
Happy New Year!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Do you live in San Diego? Do you love adventure, the outdoors, and exciting new challenges? If so, then listen up!
You now have the rare opportunity to learn to sail one of the world’s most famous tall ships, the Star of India! Not to mention other amazing sailing ships belonging to the Maritime Museum of San Diego, such as the replica Spanish galleon San Salvador, and the official tall ship of the State of California: Californian!
The classes are free but require an annual museum membership, which for most individuals is a mere fifty dollars. If I didn’t work full time, I’d seriously consider signing up!
I saw the following sign on the Embarcadero today. As it says, many people dream of this opportunity. The orientation is coming up this Wednesday, January 5, so quickly inform anyone you know who might be interested!
You can also learn more by visiting this page on the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s website!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
One of San Diego’s most famous houses stands in Old Town at 4015 Harney Street. It’s a modest little structure that you might easily pass by without a second glance.
For a couple of years, 1853-1854, the Derby-Pendleton House was the home of Lieutenant George Horatio Derby, an American humorist who wrote articles for California newspapers, including the San Diego Herald, under the pseudonyms Squibob and John Phoenix. It is said his style of writing, employing absurdity, exaggeration, irreverence and good fun, inspired Mark Twain, Artemus Ward, Bret Harte and others.
Derby’s Wikipedia page states: According to the newly (2010) published Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. One, Ulysses S. Grant was a classmate of “Squibob’s” and the General told Twain some stories of Squibob at West Point.
In 1856 Derby’s immensely popular book Phoenixiana was published. It contains many of his humorous pieces, including articles he wrote concerning San Diego. I like the gentle humor of his description of Old Town’s Fourth of July in 1854. It is found on page 123: At 9 A.M. precisely, the San Diego Light Infantry, in full uniform, consisting of Brown’s little boy, in his shirt-tail, fired a national salute with a large bunch of fire-crackers. This part of the celebration went off admirably; with the exception of the young gentleman having set fire to his shirt tail, which was fortunately immediately extinguished without incident.
Why was Lt. George H. Derby, a West Point graduate and engineer of the United States Topographical Corps, in San Diego? To survey the San Diego River and build a dike that would divert its water into False Bay–now Mission Bay.
While in San Diego, he and his wife rented a prefabricated house that was originally brought by ship around Cape Horn. Learn all about the Derby-Pendleton House’s complex history here. It has had many owners, including William Heath Davis and Don Juan Bandini, and has been moved repeatedly.
You can see an historical marker concerning Derby Dike here. You might note that the marker was placed by Squibob Chapter, E Clampus Vitus.
The San Diego chapter of E Clampus Vitus, “a fraternal organization dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the American West,” is named after Derby’s pseudonym, Squibob. The motto of Clampers is Credo Quia Absurdum, which purportedly means “I believe it because it is absurd.”
In 1962 an historical plaque was placed on The Derby-Pendleton House by the San Diego chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution. I took a photo of it yesterday.
Public domain photo of Lieutenant George Horatio Derby.
From the book cover of Phoenixiana.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
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Yes, the older I get, the faster time flies. I still haven’t figured that out.
I remember thinking as a boy: Wow, I’m probably going to be around in the distant future . . . in the 21st century!There’s going to be a year 2000! The very notion I’d be living in a whole new millennium seemed inconceivable.
Now it’s 2022!
In the blink of an eye!
And here comes the metaverse!
Having made it this far, I guess we all deserve a virtual doughnut. (A yummy Donut Bar one, too!)
The Whaley House in San Diego’s historic Old Town is widely considered to be America’s most haunted house.
I found out today that even a world-famous haunted house can be greatly improved!
As I walked around The Whaley House Museum, I noticed workers constructing new outdoor pathways. When I asked, I was told the improved paths will now be ADA compliant. I also learned the historic structure has a new coat of paint and that several of the exhibits inside, including the kitchen, have been recently altered and made even more intriguing! And, yes, that sign in the above photo is new, too!
Sounds like another visit is required!
Over four years ago I took a tour of the Whaley House, whose rich history might actually be more interesting than all the supposed ghost sightings. If you’d like to see inside photos and learn more about the Whaley House, including why it is so famous, check out that old blog post here!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Many beaches in San Diego County will cause you to simply stare. They are that beautiful. The beach at Fletcher Cove in Solana Beach is no exception.
I enjoyed a long walk in Solana Beach today. I photographed some incredible public art (as you’ll see in the next few days), but how does an artist compete with nature’s complex, sublime, and inexhaustible beauty?
That blue sky and clouds reflecting from silvery wet sand were captured with a mere press of a camera button. Then, standing near the ocean’s edge, I turned right and left and pressed the button a few more times…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
One of the best things about taking long, random walks around San Diego is the unexpected discoveries of art.
No matter which neighborhood you move through, more surprising art awaits–if you have lifted eyes.
Many Cool San Diego Sights posts contain these discoveries of art. Before aiming my camera, I like to pause and enter the small worlds that have been created, and wonder at the unique genius of each artist’s vision.
Move through the city with curious eyes and you might be rewarded by observing a particular creative effort in progress.
During a walk early this year I noticed a partially completed mural outside Yohed Coffee on University Avenue in City Heights…
During a walk several weeks later, I noticed the white halo-like space had additions of gold…
Sometimes I’ll find art that has suddenly popped into the world. Sort of like how you and I pop into this world, rather mysteriously.
Here’s a mural I saw recently on Mission Boulevard in Pacific Beach. The artwork appears to be by @saltandpaint. The restaurant it’s painted on has closed, but “Te amo Pacific Beach” lives on and is shared in many hearts…
Here’s an old photo on my computer. I believe this was taken in Pacific Beach, too, but I’m not certain…
More art in PB–tattoo art!
I stumbled upon this strangely spiritual and very beautiful mural in Lemon Grove near the corner of Broadway and Lemon Grove Avenue. It’s by Danny Darkoski.
Walking along in La Jolla I happened to notice an artist at work…
Artist Todd McNeley was placing his own amazing, unique vision on canvas…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Check out these photos of a crazy mural that was recently painted at Seaport Village in San Diego!
You can find this wacky “Horrible Monsters” artwork in a narrow passageway next to Tuk Tuk Eatery in the food court, not far from the carousel. It was created a couple months ago by @barfalamul and @_baby.brother.
The passageway is rather narrow, so it was difficult getting photos that show both colorful walls in their entirety.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
There’s an amazing “hidden” art alley in Lemon Grove that few in San Diego know about!
I discovered a magical world of imagination and creativity when I stepped through a passageway that leads north of Broadway into this alley!
Colorful murals painted on the rear and sides of several buildings were created in 2018 by artists Gloria Muriel, Alex Banach, Maxx Moses, KJ Ashley and Beth Emmerich.
This fantastic art alley runs parallel to Broadway, just east of Lemon Grove Avenue.
My first few photos are of the welcoming passageway, which has several outdoor tables and a bench among lemon trees. Then I emerged into the alley and looked all around with surprise and wonder!
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