San Diego in California

29 January 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

© ChetChang/cc-by-sa-4.0

© ChetChang/cc-by-sa-4.0

San Diego (Spanish for ‘Saint Didacus‘) is a city in the U.S. state of California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and immediately adjacent to the United States–Mexico border. With an estimated population of 1.4 million as of July 1, 2019, San Diego is the eighth most populous city in the United States and second most populous in California (after Los Angeles). The city is the county seat of San Diego County, the fifth most populous county in the United States, with 3,338,330 estimated residents as of 2019. The city is known for its mild year-round climate, natural deep-water harbor, extensive beaches and parks, long association with the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and recent emergence as a healthcare and biotechnology development center.   read more…

The Star of India

1 March 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Tall ships, Museums, Exhibitions, Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  11 minutes

150th Anniversary Sail © flickr.com - Port of San Diego/cc-by-2.0150th Anniversary Sail © flickr.com - Port of San Diego/cc-by-2.0

150th Anniversary Sail © flickr.com – Port of San Diego/cc-by-2.0

Star of India was built in 1863 at Ramsey in the Isle of Man as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron windjammer ship. After a full career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. Retired in 1926, she was not restored until 1962–63 and is now a seaworthy museum ship home-ported at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in San Diego. She is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still floating. The ship is both a California Historical Landmark and United States National Historic Landmark. Named for Euterpe, the muse of music, she was built for the Indian jute trade of Wakefield Nash & Company of Liverpool. She was launched on 14 November 1863, and assigned British Registration No.47617 and signal VPJK.   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…

FLIP, the FLoating Instrument Platform

25 February 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Yacht of the Month Reading Time:  6 minutes

FLoating Instrument Platform seen from USNS Navajo © Military Sealift Command

FLoating Instrument Platform seen from USNS Navajo © Military Sealift Command

RP FLIP (FLoating Instrument Platform) is an open ocean research vessel owned by the Office of Naval Research and operated by the Marine Physical Laboratory of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The ship is a 355 feet (108 meters) long vessel designed to partially flood and pitch backward 90 degrees, resulting in only the front 55 feet (17 meters) of the vessel pointing up out of the water, with bulkheads becoming decks. When flipped, most of the buoyancy for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves, hence FLIP is a stable platform mostly immune to wave action, like a spar buoy. At the end of a mission, compressed air is pumped into the ballast tanks in the flooded section and the vessel returns to its horizontal position so it can be towed to a new location. The ship is frequently mistaken for a capsized ocean transport ship.   read more…

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