In Carlsbad, there’s a special place where a spirit soars forever. That place is known as Dave’s Beach.
Hobbyists who fly radio-controlled gliders, or sailplanes, love to launch their small model aircraft from atop the bluffs at Dave’s Beach. Their gliders dance in the blue sky.
The upsloping ocean wind carries these surprisingly fast RC gliders aloft for sustained, acrobatic flights above the beach. Today, as I took these photographs, I saw as many as four zipping through the air at the same time.
I learned some of the hobbyists using Dave’s Beach as an RC glider port also launch their gliders at the Torrey Pines Gliderport in La Jolla, where similar wind conditions prevail.
In Loving Memory of Our Friend
DAVE KELLOGG
Whose spirit will soar on here forever
April 5, 1948 – October 18, 2006
The above memorial plaque explains why this spot is now called Dave’s Beach. Dave Kellogg loved to fly gliders from atop the bluffs here many years ago.
If you’d like to visit Dave’s Beach, you can find it right next to the intersection of Carlsbad Boulevard and Solamar Drive.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
Those who visit Dog Beach (also known as North Beach) in Del Mar might wonder about some wooden stairs. They climb up the sandstone bluffs to the north. I ascended them the other day and discovered a hidden paradise!
A sign near the foot of the steps indicates the area above is the James G. Scripps Bluff Preserve. Those who explore the preserve are asked to stay on the paths and carry out trash.
During my adventure, I noticed some of the bottom steps are broken, so one must take care not to stumble.
Here’s a series of photographs that I took as I ascended into the preserve. One can gaze south down upon Dog Beach and east to the Del Mar Racetrack and beyond.
Once I reached the top of the main path, an amazing field of early March flowers and wide views of the Pacific Ocean awaited me.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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 was an almost perfect day to head out into the Pacific Ocean beyond Point Loma.
For a mid-February day, the water was amazingly smooth and the cloud cover thin. The chilly wind was not unexpected.
I and many others, wrapped in jackets, enjoyed a four hour trip aboard Flagship’s whale watching ship Marietta.
We saw a mother gray whale with her young calf and followed the two from a respectful distance. In two of the upcoming photos you can see a spout. In my previous blog post, I gazed down upon some of the hundreds of dolphins we encountered very close up.
Enjoy a few hazy, dreamy photos I took from the deck of Marietta. There are sailboats, a line of pelicans flying, downtown San Diego, Point Loma, and the Coronado Islands of Mexico off in the distance.
I haven’t edited these photographs at all, except to crop the one photo where the whale spout is most evident.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
This morning a whale watching excursion off the coast of San Diego intercepted an unusually large pod of 200-300 dolphins.
I stood at the bow of Flagship’s vessel Marietta and marveled at how the Pacific white-sided dolphins raced before us, conveniently riding the water pushed forward by our ship.
A crew member aboard Marietta explained we were traveling 10 miles per hour. The dolphins are capable of going four times that speed!
Pods of dolphins are frequently encountered during trips in the ocean beyond Point Loma. Every time I’ve gone whale watching, no matter the season, we’ve spotted them.
The tightly knit pods move about while using their echo location ability to search for schools of fish. Adult dolphins have to eat about 5% of their body weight in food every day!
We were fortunate to be accompanied by such an unbelievably huge pod.
Every so often dolphins would playfully leap through the air in front of our ship!
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
An old historical marker at the Torrey Pines Gliderport honors the pioneering glider pilots who were the first to launch themselves into the sky here.
The side of the marker that faces the ocean features two bronze plaques. The opposite, facing the Gliderport’s parking lot, was made beautiful with a colorful tile mosaic. The 30-year-old abstract artwork depicts green trees atop the bluffs, sun, water, a sailboat and gliders in the blue sky.
TO HONOR THE SPIRIT, INGENUITY AND ENTHUSIASM OF THE PIONEERS WHO FLEW GLIDERS IN THE 1930’S AT TORREY PINES
AND TO THE FUTURE PILOTS WHO WILL SHARE THIS GLIDERPORT AND CONTINUE THIS TRADITION THROUGH ALL FORMS OF MOTORLESS FLIGHT
JUNE 6, 1992
THE NATIONAL SOARING MUSEUM
HARRIS HILL, ELMIRA, N.Y.
AN AFFILIATE OF THE SOARING SOCIETY OF AMERICA
HISTORICAL SITE NO. 315
THE TORREY PINES GLIDERPORT
THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO
Here’s a fascinating web page of the National Soaring Museum that concerns the Torrey Pines Gliderport. You can see some old photographs. The site is designated the museum’s Landmark No. 5.
I posted a blog concerning the Torrey Pines Gliderport many years ago. If you are curious, you can check that out by clicking here!
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
Our recent winter storms in San Diego thrust small stones high up onto the beach in places. At Torrey Pines State Beach, smooth stones covered much of the pedestrian pathway that runs down to and under the bridge near the north parking lot.
The stones, combined with a high tide and descending sun, made for some silvery photographs this afternoon! Bands of reflected light approached the shore with every crashing wave. Newly wetted stones gleamed like magic.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
A number of unusual Christmas trees can be found atop the coastal bluffs in Carlsbad!
Today, Monday the 26th, is the official observed holiday for Christmas this year. I decided to jump on the Coaster train and enjoy a walk by the ocean.
I walked north along Carlsbad Boulevard (historic Highway 101) from a point near the Poinsettia train station all the way into Carlsbad Village. Imagine my surprise when I saw several of these trees, decorated profusely with dangling ornaments. Most of the windswept trees were dead, which perhaps made the placement of the colorful ornaments more meaningful.
I don’t visit Carlsbad that often, so I don’t know the story behind these trees. If you do, please leave a comment!
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
At Cardiff State Beach, in San Diego’s North County, restored coastal dunes are roped off, protecting fragile habitat from human feet.
Signs posted on the perimeter explain the “constructed dunes” and Our Living Shoreline.
One sign explains that coastal dunes provide a natural buffer against waves, tides and storms in winter.
Made resilient with native vegetation, the dunes provide important wildlife habitat and protect San Elijo Lagoon from flooding.
The roped dunes at Cardiff State Beach constitute a snowy plover and least tern preserve. These birds have decreasing populations, largely due to development, recreation and other human activity. The birds nest in vulnerable bowl-like depressions in the sand.
A second Our Living Shoreline sign concerns native coastal scrub and dune plants. Among these are sand-verbena, beach evening-primrose and woolly-heads.
The plants provide cover and food for native and migrating birds.
This colorful information sign, near the entrance to South Cardiff State Beach, concerns California’s kelp forests.
The underwater “Hidden Forest, Rich with Life” can be viewed from the shoreline as floating brown-green patches of seaweed.
The kelp plants hold to the ocean floor and stretch up 100 feet or more. They support an unseen world teeming with life, including diverse fish, marine mammals, sea slugs, sea stars, sea anemones and spiny sea urchins.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
The long Ellen Browning Scripps Memorial Pier, jutting into the Pacific Ocean north of La Jolla Shores, is operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The research pier is utilized by scientists and students who strive to learn more about our environment and the diverse life within it.
The public is usually restricted from going onto Scripps Pier, but those who register for a once-a-month tour get the opportunity to walk out to its very end. And that’s what I did today!
The tour–every second Saturday of the month (register here)–begins in front of the historic Scripps Building, then circles around several additional campus buildings until it reaches the foot of the pier. As our group walked along, the knowledgeable tour guide told us about the origin and history of the world-renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and how its environmental and biological research benefits us all.
Then we came to the amazing pier and our sense of wonder grew…
The original wooden pier, built in 1916 with funding from Ellen Browning Scripps, was destroyed in 1983 by an El Niño powered storm. The current modern pier was built in 1988. Today it’s considered one of the world’s largest research piers.
Looking back at the foot of the pier we could see these tank-like water filters.
At the end of Scripps Pier is a pump station. The pier slopes slightly upward as you walk to its end. The reason? So that the freshly pumped seawater, propelled by gravity, will run down a covered trough that stretches along one side of the long pier.
The water, carefully filtered, is then used in the Scripps research labs on shore.
Walking out on the pier high over the beach, looking south toward La Jolla Shores. That’s the Village of La Jolla and La Jolla Cove jutting in the distance.
Now we’re gazing north toward the distant sandstone cliffs of Torrey Pines State Beach.
Many surfers were out today! A sunny San Diego day in December.
Looking back toward a portion of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography campus. (Scripps is a part of UC San Diego.)
We observed lots of guitarfish in the water below. When you’re swimming or surfing, you don’t necessarily see all that marine life beneath you!
Amazing views can be enjoyed from Scripps Pier. Looking down, we saw numerous surfers waiting for that perfect wave on either side of the pier.
We followed our tour guide to a group of container-like structures that were recently placed on Scripps Pier. Together they constitute a mobile facility that will be used for a one year atmospheric study by the U.S. Department of Energy.
A wide variety of scientific instruments, including radar, lidar, sky imagers and radiometers will measure cloud formation, reflectivity and other atmospheric phenomena.
We are approaching the end of Scripps Pier, where that prominent gray structure houses a seawater pump.
All sorts of small boats are kept near the end of the pier, where they can be lowered into the ocean to carry out research.
Notice something shaped like a Christmas tree atop the pump structure ahead? It lights up during the Holiday Season! (As do swags of lights along the length of the pier.)
Lifting a lid from that long trough that channels the pumped seawater gravitationally down the pier’s length. We saw barnacles, mussels and a live crab skittering around! (You can understand why those filters are necessary at the foot of the pier.)
There’s additional filtration near the pump!
I believe this device filters out the larger objects from the pumped seawater, before the water heads down the long trough. You can see some slimy seaweed stuck in it.
From this crane boats can be lowered to the ocean surface. On the left you can see the cage-like entrance to a descending ladder.
Our tour group came upon several people in wetsuits, just back from a dive!
A super friendly graduate student explained how they had dived at an artificial reef off Black’s Beach, to the north, near the Torrey Pines Gliderport. They photographed abundant sea life.
The wet spot is from their boat that was recently lifted!
That’s one long ladder down to the water!
I noticed many instruments on the roof of the pump structure, including antennas and wind gages.
And to one side is the Scripps Osprey Platform! (You can see it near the center of this photograph.)
A plaque on the pump structure. The Scripps Osprey Platform is dedicated to Art Cooley, a scientist who helped save the Osprey, Bald Eagle and Brown Pelican.
…
Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 