Huntington Beach, Surf City USA

2 November 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

Huntington Beach Pier © Mcclane2010/cc-by-sa-3.0

Huntington Beach Pier © Mcclane2010/cc-by-sa-3.0

Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population is at 200,000, making it the most populous beach city in Orange County. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the southwest, by Seal Beach on the northwest, by Costa Mesa on the east, by Newport Beach on the southeast, by Westminster on the north, and by Fountain Valley on the northeast.   read more…

Dana Point in Orange County

9 October 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  11 minutes

© D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-3.0

© D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-3.0

Dana Point is a city located in southern Orange County, California. The population is at 34,000. It has one of the few harbors along the Orange County coast, and with ready access via State Route 1, it is a popular local destination for surfing. The city was named after the headland of Dana Point, which was in turn named after Richard Henry Dana, Jr., author of Two Years Before the Mast, which included a description of the area. Dana described the locale, including neighboring San Juan Capistrano, as “the only romantic spot on the coast”. Although Dana described the anchorage as poor, it is now a developed harbor and contains a replica of his ship, the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim is used as a classroom by the Ocean Institute, which is located at the harbor. This area is designated California Historical Landmark.   read more…

La Jolla on the Pacific

18 September 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

La Jolla Shores © Dirk Hansen/cc-by-sa-3.0

La Jolla Shores © Dirk Hansen/cc-by-sa-3.0

La Jolla (spanish for Jewel) neighborhood in San Diego, California. It is a hilly seaside community, occupying 7 miles (11 km) of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean within the northern city limits. La Jolla is surrounded on three sides by ocean bluffs and beaches and is located 12 miles (19 km) north of Downtown San Diego, and 40 miles (64 km) south of Orange County. The community’s border starts at Pacific Beach to the south and extends along the Pacific Ocean shoreline north to include Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve ending at Del Mar. La Jolla encompasses the neighborhoods of Bird Rock, Windansea Beach, the commercial center known as the Village of La Jolla, La Jolla Shores, La Jolla Farms, Muirlands, Torrey Pines, and Mount Soledad to name a few.   read more…

USA 17, formerly BMW Oracle Racing 90 or BOR 90

1 August 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, San Francisco Bay Area, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  10 minutes

USA 17 in the San Francisco Bay © Peter Potrowl/cc-by-sa-3.0

USA 17 in the San Francisco Bay © Peter Potrowl/cc-by-sa-3.0

USA-17 (formerly known as BMW Oracle Racing 90 or BOR90) is a sloop rigged racing trimaran built by the American sailing team BMW Oracle Racing to challenge for the 2010 America’s Cup. Designed by VPLP Yacht Design with consultation from Franck Cammas and his Groupama multi-hull sailing team, BOR90 is very light for her size being constructed almost entirely out of carbon fiber and epoxy resin, and exhibits very high performance being able to sail at 2.0 to 2.5 times the true wind speed. From the actual performance of the boat during the 2010 America’s Cup races, it can be seen that she could achieve a velocity made good upwind of over twice the wind speed and downwind of over 2.5 times the wind speed; this means that downwind she was sailing at nearly four times the speed of the true wind. She can apparently sail at 20 degrees off the apparent wind. The boat sails so fast downwind that the apparent wind she generates is only 5-6 degrees different from that when she is racing upwind; that is, the boat is always sailing upwind with respect to the apparent wind. An explanation of this phenomenon can be found in the article on sailing faster than the wind. USA 17’s homeport is the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco.   read more…

Theme Week San Francisco – Sausalito

18 July 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

Sausalito houseboat community © Frank Schulenburg/cc-by-sa-3.0

Sausalito houseboat community © Frank Schulenburg/cc-by-sa-3.0

Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city in Marin County, California. Sausalito is 8 miles (13 km) south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet (4 m). The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to the building of that bridge served as a terminus for rail, car, and ferry traffic. Developed rapidly as a shipbuilding center in World War II, the city’s industrial character gave way in postwar years to a reputation as a wealthy and artistic enclave, a picturesque residential community (incorporating large numbers of houseboats), and a tourist destination. It is adjacent to, and largely bounded by, the protected spaces of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Due to its location at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito receives a steady stream of visitors via the bridge (auto and bicycle traffic) and a ferry service from San Francisco. It retains one of the few ungated marinas in the Bay Area that attracts visitors.   read more…

Long Beach in California

5 June 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  7 minutes

Downtown Long Beach © himefrias

Downtown Long Beach © himefrias

Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the United States and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,000. In addition, Long Beach is the second largest city in the Greater Los Angeles Area after Los Angeles and a principal city of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area.   read more…

Newport Beach in California

29 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area Reading Time:  15 minutes

Newport Beach © D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-3.0

Newport Beach © D Ramey Logan/cc-by-sa-3.0

Newport Beach, incorporated in 1906, is a city in Orange County, California, 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown Santa Ana. The population is at 87,000. Newport Beach is also home to Newport Harbor. The city’s median family income and property values consistently place high in national rankings. The Daily Pilot, a newspaper published in the neighboring city of Costa Mesa but which serves the greater Newport-Mesa community, reported in 2010 that more than a quarter of households have an income greater than $200,000, and the median value for homes exceeds $1 million. The city is bordered on the west by Huntington Beach; on the north by Costa Mesa, John Wayne Airport, the City of Irvine and UC Irvine; and on the east by Crystal Cove State Park. Areas of Newport Beach include Corona del Mar, Balboa Island, Balboa Peninsula (also known as Balboa), Lido Peninsula, Newport Coast, San Joaquin Hills, and Santa Ana Heights, and West Newport. Newport Harbor is a semi-artificial harbor that was formed by dredging Newport Bay estuary during the early 1900s. Several artificial islands were built, which are now covered with private homes: Newport Island, Balboa Island, Little Balboa Island, Collins Island, Bay Island, Harbor Island, Lido Isle and Linda Isle. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries such as boatbuilding, shipbuilding, and commercial fishing, but today it is used mostly for recreation. Its shores are occupied mostly by private homes and private docks. With approximately 9,000 boats, Newport Harbor is one of the largest recreational boat harbors on the U.S. west coast. It’s a popular destination for all boating activities, including sailing, fishing, rowing, canoeing, kayaking, and paddleboarding.   read more…

Theme Week San Francisco – Fisherman’s Wharf

8 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area, Sport Reading Time:  7 minutes

Pier 39 from Coit Tower © DimiTalen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Pier 39 from Coit Tower © DimiTalen/cc-by-sa-3.0

Fisherman’s Wharf is a neighborhood and popular tourist attraction in San Francisco. It roughly encompasses the northern waterfront area of San Francisco from Ghirardelli Square or Van Ness Avenue east to Pier 35 or Kearny Street. The F Market streetcar runs through the area, the Powell-Hyde cable car lines runs to Aquatic Park, at the edge of Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Powell-Mason cable car line runs a few blocks away. San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf gets its name and neighborhood characteristics from the city’s early days of the mid to later 1800s when Italian immigrant fishermen came to the city by the bay to take advantage of the influx of population due to the gold rush. One, Achille Paladini, found success wholesaling local fish as owner of the Paladini Fish Company, and came to be known as the “Fish King”. Most of the Italian immigrant fishermen settled in the North Beach area close to the wharf and fished for the local delicacies and the now famed Dungeness crab. From then until the present day it remained the home base of San Francisco’s fishing fleet. Despite its redevelopment into a tourist attraction during the 1970s and 1980s, the area is still home to many active fishermen and their fleets.   read more…

Theme Week Los Angeles – Santa Catalina Island

30 March 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Greater Los Angeles Area, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  9 minutes

Catalina Casino and Avalon Bay © flickr.com - Justin Ennis/cc-by-2.0

Catalina Casino and Avalon Bay © flickr.com – Justin Ennis/cc-by-2.0

Santa Catalina Island is a rocky island off the coast of the U.S. state of California in the Gulf of Santa Catalina. The island is 22 miles (35 km) long and 8 miles (13 km) across at its greatest width. The island is located about 22 miles (35 km) south-southwest of Los Angeles. The highest point on the island is 2,097 feet (639 m) Mt. Orizaba. Santa Catalina is part of the Channel Islands of California archipelago and lies within Los Angeles County. The total population is at 4,100 people, 90 percent of whom live in the island’s only incorporated city, Avalon (named after Avalon from King Arthur). The second center of population is the unincorporated village of Two Harbors at the island’s isthmus. Development occurs also at the smaller settlements of Rancho Escondido and Middle Ranch. The remaining population is scattered over the island between the two population centers.   read more…

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