Tag: san diego bay

Views of future Sweetwater Park in Chula Vista!

Sweetwater Park is a large recreational park now being developed in Chula Vista, next to San Diego Bay. It extends between G Street and E Street. When completed, the 21-acre park will feature trails, picnic areas, nature and adventure play areas, and scenic overlooks to the bay.

Yesterday I discovered that one wide dirt trail is already open. It parallels the paved Bayshore Bikeway, with which it sometimes coincides. The trail begins at the north end of Chula Vista’s Bayside Park next to Marine Group Boat Works, and extends up to Sweetwater Park’s future entrance and parking lot, which is located across E Street from the Sun Outdoors RV Resort.

Walking north up the trail, I peered over construction fences to view Sweetwater Park’s progress. In upcoming photos you’ll see connecting trails that aren’t yet completed.

As I got started, I turned south for a moment. That huge structure in the next photo is the parking garage for the big Gaylord Pacific Resort and Conference Center now under construction.

Okay, now I’m heading north. I saw this sign concerning native coastal and salt marsh plants here near San Diego Bay.

Come along on my sunny Sunday walk…

A sign on the fence includes images of how the finished Sweetwater Park will appear.

Looking at the overall site plan, my walk north proceeded from right to left. I’m now at the park entrance and parking lot.

Embedded in the trail at its north end is a circular plaque:

Funding for this path provided by the Urban Greening Grant awarded in 2017 by the California Natural Resources Agency. Port of San Diego Waterfront of Opportunity.

Learn more about future Sweetwater Park by visiting the Port of San Diego website here. You’ll also see a plan for Chula Vista’s Bayside Park to nearly double in size and become Harbor Park!

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Mark Zuckerberg’s super yacht in San Diego!

Two amazing ships owned by billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are now docked in downtown San Diego at Broadway Pier!

LAUNCHPAD, seen in the above photograph on the right, is a 387-foot megayacht that, according to articles I’ve found, cost Zuckerberg around $300 million. It’s one of the largest private yachts in the world!

The second ship, with the bow that comes to a sharp point, is 220-foot superyacht support vessel WINGMAN. It’s nearly as impressive at LAUNCHPAD!

I took these photos yesterday late afternoon under a gray sky, while walking along San Diego’s frequently surprising Embarcadero!

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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 X.

Official tall ship of California begins Sunday sail!

Californian, official tall ship of the State of California, set out today from the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Passengers aboard the schooner, a replica of a Gold Rush era revenue cutter, began another four hour Sunday sailing adventure!

I stood on the museum’s barge out on San Diego Bay as Californian’s volunteer crew prepared the tall ship to get underway. Once well out on the water, the sails would be employed, so necessary actions were performed beforehand.

At noon, when all was ready, lines were cast off and the ship moved away from the dock by using its motor.

I don’t pretend to understand the details of sailing a traditionally rigged tall ship, but I do enjoy watching the action!

If you’d like to go on one of these Tall Ship Adventures, visit the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s website here!

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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 X.

Operation Clean Sweep beautifies the waterfront!

The cities of San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach and Coronado were all made more beautiful this morning! Volunteers with Operation Clean Sweep fanned out to pick up litter on each city’s waterfront!

I happened to stumble upon the above group this morning as I walked along downtown San Diego’s Embarcadero. They posed for a photo!

I learned there are numerous sponsors for the big annual clean up event, which is organized by the San Diego Working Waterfront. You can see all of the sponsors by checking out the Operation Clean Sweep website here. Some of the smiling volunteers I encountered are with Old Town Trolley Tours.

As a resident of downtown San Diego, lover of the city and avid walker, I want to thank everyone involved!

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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 X.

Full moon above a beautiful morning Star.

Early this morning, as the sun rose slowly above San Diego, beautiful tall ship Star of India began to shine.

Beyond the Star’s bright sails, the full moon quietly retired.

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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 X.

Pirate ship arrives for San Diego Comic-Con!

This morning the Voodoo Ranger pirate ship arrived for Comic-Con 2024. It crept silently across the bay and pulled up to the dock behind the San Diego Convention Center. Unsuspecting citizens on shore were no doubt startled by the sudden arrival of the fierce marauders!

No, the crew wasn’t really that fierce. Because they were friendly members of the Maritime Museum of San Diego, and their supposed “pirate” ship was actually the seaworthy Spanish galleon replica San Salvador, one of the amazing ships in the collection of the world famous museum. San Salvador used its motor this morning, but it does sail.

Would you like to see photographs of the galleon San Salvador being built years ago in San Diego? Yes? Then click here!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Measuring the tides in San Diego Bay.

There’s a fascinating sign at the end of Broadway Pier in downtown San Diego. It’s located near scientific equipment used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to collect meteorological and sea level data in real time.

When I read the sign recently, I was surprised that this San Diego Bay tide station was moved to its present location in 2018. It belongs to the National Water Level Observation Network, a system of over 200 stations situated around the United States. The particular tide station has the capacity to support tsunami monitoring. Sensors collect and transmit data to NOAA every six minutes via a satellite antenna. If you want to see that real time data, click here.

The station also gathers information concerning water temperature and barometric pressure, which is very helpful in forecasting the weather.

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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 X.

Danger, dedication and USS Midway’s Engineers!

A fire erupts on the USS Midway while at sea! What might happen? Who would respond?

In a major new exhibit aboard the USS Midway Museum, you’ll learn this and more. The service, sacrifice and everyday life of Midway’s engineers is celebrated below decks. Visitors to the aircraft carrier museum tour the hot, loud and crowded spaces where Navy engineers kept the gigantic ship running, while ready to respond to almost any emergency.

You’ll learn about the hard work done by Hull Maintenance Technicians, Enginemen, and Damage Controlmen. You learn that the Boiler Technicians who created steam on the ship had to regularly endure 150 degree temperatures as they oversaw 2 million gallons of boiler fuel and 166,000 gallons of water. And there are the Machinery Repairmen, Machinist’s Mates and others.

You’ll see where the engineers slept, where they worked, and even experience a simulated fire aboard ship that shows the extreme danger their fellow sailors faced.

If you’ve never visited the USS Midway Museum, it is one of San Diego’s must-see attractions. If you haven’t yet experienced this exciting new exhibit, head on down to San Diego Bay and enjoy the newly expanded self-guided tour! (A second new exhibit concerns the USS Midway Marine Detachment!)

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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 X.

Model of new Freedom Park at Navy Pier.

Near the center of the hangar deck of the USS Midway Museum, there’s a scale model of Freedom Park at Navy Pier. When completed, this large, new public park will occupy the historic pier that the USS Midway aircraft carrier has called home now for 20 years.

One can walk around the model and visualize in three dimensions how Freedom Park will appear when it has its Grand Opening, which is scheduled for Spring 2028. The park will include a formal parade ground, plenty of grass for recreation, gardens, benches, play structures, trees and winding walkways, and a monumental flag at the pier’s end which will be visible from downtown and across San Diego Bay.

This informative presentation provides an excellent overview of the plans for Freedom Park, including a detailed map and timeline for completion.

The parade ground will feature a central statue of John William Finn, San Diego area resident and last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The park will also feature a Family and Sacrifice Monument, honoring the sacrifices thousands of military families have made, telling their stories. Navy Pier was once where many families waved goodbye to departing sailors.

A Footsteps of Freedom interpretive path will follow the length of Navy Pier and circle around the USS Midway, connecting with the present-day Greatest Generation Walk, where many military monuments exist today. (Including this Navy plaque, whose exact origin was a mystery, until some of this blog’s readers provided amazing information!)

Other features will enhance the new Freedom Park, such as a Digital Journey that people can follow with their smartphones.

Today, after viewing the model and taking a few photos, I asked a docent at the Midway Museum: where will visitors park their cars? (Most of the parking lot now atop the pier will be vanishing.) He informed me there is underground parking at the new RaDD complex across Harbor Drive. A small parking lot will remain near the entrance of the museum.

Of course, a project of this magnitude requires a lot of funding. There’s more money to be raised. If you’d like to buy a Freedom Park Legacy Brick and help with this effort, click here.

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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 X.

Cleaning the world’s deepest diving submarine!

The world record deepest diving submarine was cleaned today. The USS Dolphin at the Maritime Museum of San Diego had it’s outer hull scraped clean of algae and barnacles. It’s an operation that must be carried out every four months or so.

The specially designed USS Dolphin (AGSS-555) can list many historic achievements, including several world firsts. She retains the record for the deepest dive by an operating submarine. Learn more about her at the Maritime Museum of San Diego website here.

Nine years ago I climbed down into this incredible submarine and took interior photos. If you’d like to see them, click here. Better yet, head down to the museum and enjoy the experience yourself!

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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 X.