A beautiful Christmas tree sparkles in their gift shop, and the elegant passenger deck of historic steam ferry Berkeley appears even more amazing than usual. The handsome wooden benches bathed with the light from art glass windows now look upon green wreaths, red ribbons, and Christmas trees large and small!
And I’m told much more holiday decoration is coming!
I know the museum’s Pilot boat is being strung with lights for the 55th annual San Diego Bay Parade of Lights, and a small Christmas tree will soon be hoisted to the top of Star of India’s mainmast!
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Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl is now docked in downtown San Diego at Broadway Pier. It will be visiting our city through Sunday.
This morning, as I walked out on the pier, I noticed crew members high in the sky, preparing a huge banner that would hang like a sail from one of the ship’s yards. I sat down on a bench and watched the action! And took some photos!
Would you dare work so high above the ship’s deck, clinging like a spider to a windswept web? I don’t think I’d have the courage! Or agility!
To the crew member who waved down at me: Hello!
The public will be able to step aboard Statsraad Lehmkuhl this Saturday, November 15, 2025, between noon and 3 pm. It’s free!
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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.
This coming Saturday, November 15, 2025, between noon and 3 pm, the public is invited to step aboard Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl, which is currently visiting San Diego.
The large, beautiful 1914 ship with an intriguing history is docked downtown at the Broadway Pier. It arrived yesterday and will be staying in San Diego through Sunday.
Why is the three-masted barque, based in Bergen, Norway, tied up to Broadway Pier? The Statsraad Lehmkuhl is on a 12-month global voyage as ambassador for the UN Ocean Decade. Its One Ocean Expedition includes sail training, ocean science, education and diplomacy to inspire action for a sustainable ocean.
From San Diego it will sail down to Mexico, then Central and South America. According to a banner that I photographed, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl will visit a total of 26 ports on 3 continents, and travel 30,000 nautical miles!
Yesterday I took some photos from the pier to provide an idea of the tall ship’s immense size and beauty. If you’re downtown on Saturday, you might want to step aboard. It’s your possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
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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.
Many public Fleet Week events have been cancelled in San Diego for 2025 because of the ongoing federal government shutdown. Fleet Week activities were scheduled to begin in earnest this weekend.
Unfortunately, the usual, very popular events at the Broadway Pier have been cancelled, including U.S. Navy demonstrations, STEM exhibits and public tours of ships.
Over the years, I’ve taken photographs at a variety of public Fleet Week events. I thought I share a few of them. Those events have included the Sea and Air Parade, a Veterans Art Exhibit, the Fleet Week Innovation Zone in the Port Pavilion, and a Military & Veteran Appreciation Concert in Balboa Park. That first photo above, taken near the USS Midway, is of cool cars promoting the Fleet Week Coronado Speed Festival at Naval Air Station North Island.
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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.
Today is officially the 250th birthday of the United States Navy. On October 13, 2025, the U.S. Navy was established by the Continental Congress.
Needless to say, the Navy has a very large presence in San Diego, with important bases that include Naval Base San Diego, Naval Base Point Loma, Naval Air Station North Island (where naval aviation was born), and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. Over the years, countless sailors trained at the old Naval Training Center San Diego, and have deployed from San Diego’s harbor on ships in both wartime and peacetime. Until 1997, Top Gun pilots trained at Naval Air Station Miramar.
I’ve published a wide variety of blogs concerning the U.S. Navy in San Diego. Given today’s 250th anniversary, I thought this would be a good time to revisit some of those past blog posts.
Click the following links to bring back some U.S. Navy memories…
Visitors inside the world-famous San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park should look up. Not only will they see amazing aircraft exhibits suspended from the ceiling, but they might notice a very long mural painted along the museum’s circular inner wall.
The March of Transportation mural was created in 1936 for the California Pacific International Exposition. At over 9,300 square feet, it’s the largest mural of its kind found in North and South America.
Because so many cool aviation displays are jammed into the museum, I found it difficult to photograph large segments of the mural. But I’ve captured several glimpses, so you can get the idea of how the art appears.
A couple years ago I photographed the very end of the mural, which depicts futuristic forms of transportation (as conceived almost a hundred years ago). You can see those photos here.
Several murals decorated the Ford Building during the California Pacific Exposition in 1935. After the Exposition, the Ford Motor Company deeded the building to the City of San Diego for use as the “Great Hall of Transportation.” In preparation for the 1936 Exposition, this large mural was commissioned to express the theme–“The March of Transportation.”
The 1936 “Great Hall of Transportation” exhibits included vehicles of all ages, from reed boats, to the locomotive, to the concepts of air and space travel. The mural, 18 feet high, continues along the inner circular wall for 468 feet…
Master Artist Juan Larrinaga served as the Art Director for the 1935 and 1936 Expositions. He was assisted by New York illustrator, Charles B. Falls, and artists P.T. Blackburn, Mahlan Blane and Nicolas Reveles. Larrinaga labored long hours to produced the drawings from the artist assistants to fill in. More than 40 persons eventually contributed their talent and energy to the completion of the mural.
After years of deterioration, the building began a restoration in 1977. In 1979 the mural, too, was restored.
While this artwork depicts world history, it is also an important part of San Diego’s uniquely rich history.
Anyone walking the length of San Diego’s Embarcadero might have observed three very unusual sights today!
First, starting at the south end of the Embarcadero, very close to the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel, an immense NASSCO drydock has appeared!
This floating drydock, the NASSCO Builder, is usually stationed down at the NASSCO shipyard well south of here, in the vicinity of the Coronado Bay Bridge. It’s capable of containing very large ships. The public typically can’t get a close view of its immensity.
Today the NASSCO Builder was docked strangely at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal, where the Dole banana boats usually unload! Someone with the Coronado Ferry said the gigantic drydock appeared there yesterday.
The next photo was taken from Embarcadero Marina Park South…
Nearby, at the Hilton, some wise words…
Next, I noticed some guys were repairing a purse seiner net on the pier adjacent to Seaport Village. This is seldom seen. More often, these large nets are repaired across Tuna Harbor at the longer G Street Pier.
These nets are unspooled into the ocean from purse seiners in order to catch bait fish, which are in turn used for sportfishing.
Finally, I noticed that America’s Tall Ship, the United States Coast Guard training ship USCGC Eagle, has returned to San Diego! It was out on the ocean the last few days, with future Coast Guard officers aboard, transforming themselves from young “swabs” to cadets!
I went aboard the amazing Eagle last weekend and took these photos!
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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.
People in San Diego had an incredible opportunity this weekend to step aboard “America’s Tall Ship,” the USCGC Eagle, which has been docked for a few days at the B Street Pier. Visitors were invited to explore the nearly hundred-year-old, 295-foot, three-masted barque, which is used to train future United States Coast Guard officers.
I took the opportunity to come aboard the historic tall ship myself, and I captured photographs of one amazing ship!
A number of interesting banners hang around the Eagle, explaining its history and current role in training future Coast Guard officers. Eagle is the largest tall ship flying the Stars and Stripes and the only active square-rigger in U.S. government service.
I learned a new batch of prospective officers had themselves come aboard a couple days ago. This week they’ll be sailing in the nearby Pacific Ocean. When the Eagle returns to San Diego, this new group of “swabs” will be considered honest-to-goodness cadets!
I must say all of the young people who are training to become officers were extremely friendly, polite and professional. The Coast Guard’s future appears to be in great hands!
Now enjoy my photos…
Welcome Aboard America’s Tall Ship.USCGC Eagle is both a Coast Guard cutter and a barque.The Eagle has over six miles of standing and running rigging, 23 sails, and more than 22,000 square feet of sail area that allow her to sail at 17 knots (19.5 mph).Eagle was originally German, launched in 1936, and was operated by the pre-World War II German navy. In 1946, after the end of World War II, United States Coast Guardsmen sailed the Eagle to the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.Originally, the Eagle trained German Navy sailors as Horst Wessel. It sailed to the Canary Islands and West Indies, and later, during World War II, on the Baltic Sea. She carried anti-aircraft guns, and her logs indicate that she fired at Allied and German aircraft.A permanent Coast Guard crew of approximately 60 personnel maintain and operate the Eagle year round.The Eagle gives officer candidates and enlisted servicemembers hands-on, teamwork-focused opportunities to lead, train and serve at sea…The Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut produces leaders of character… Nearly 300 high school graduates enroll annually…Sail training offers…a unique and useful training experience. This includes learning the fundamentals of seamanship, weather, and nautical tradition…
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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.
Interesting activity could be observed today around the USS Midway aircraft carrier, which operates as a popular San Diego museum.
I noticed during my walk along the Embarcadero that divers were in the water near the USS Midway’s hull. In addition, there was a large section of scaffolding erected against the bow on the massive ship’s port side.
My initial assumption was the hull was being cleaned underwater. I was wrong. I was told the scuba divers in the water were Navy personnel training to do security sweeps.
Someone with the USS Midway Museum told me that Navy SEALs often train near the inactive aircraft carrier, learning how to maneuver underwater. (Years ago I saw them operate in the night near the Star of India.)
As for the scaffolding–I learned the hull of the famous old aircraft carrier is being restored. Removing rust, painting and such. It’s a monumental undertaking!
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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.
Two enormous Dole container ships are in San Diego today: Dole Caribbean and Dole Chile. I don’t recall ever seeing two of these banana transporting ships in our port at the same time.
The two yellow ships are in my above photograph, plus a bunch of stacked Dole containers at the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.
I suspect the Dole Chile came in on Sunday–that’s the usual ship arrival schedule. The Dole Caribbean has been docked in the same spot for many days now without any discernable activity. I’m not sure why. People I’ve spoken to surmise the ship is in disrepair. I can find nothing on the internet.
There’s an old Port of San Diego sign on the boardwalk between the Hilton San Diego Bayfront and the water. It describes the typical Dole operations…
Some interesting but possibly dated facts from the weather-beaten sign:
Dole is the 5th largest importer of containerized cargo into the U.S. after WalMart, Target, Home Depot and K-Mart/Sears. (You can see how old this sign is!)
Bananas and pineapples are packed in farms in Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Guatemala... After arriving in San Diego, the fruit is distributed throughout the western U.S. and Canada.
Each vessel holds 762 refrigerated containers… Each 40′ container holds close to 1000 boxes of bananas… 2.5 billion bananas and 40 million pineapples arrive at the Port of San Diego each year.
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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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 