Tuesday November 30, 2010

Our destination today was Costa Mesa CA.


We left our hotel in San Diego and travelled a bit north to the suburb of La Jolla, the toniest area in greater San Diego. The downtown is full of high end boutiques, restaurants and studios complete with on street valet parking.


A block of so from the main downtown is the seashore which features tidal pools and sandstone bluffs.


There were some sea lions basking on the rocks at low tide.


From here we travelled a few miles north to Torrey Pines State Park where we did a 3 1/2 mile hike down the bluffs to the beach and back. We did see some dolphins playing but they were too far a way for a good photo.


We were heading to our hotel in Costa Mesa (near Newport Beach) and happened to be driving through Laguna Beach as the sun was setting at around 4:30 pm. This was one of the best sunsets I have ever seen with the sun dipping below the horizon just west of Catalina Island.

A pod of dolphins happened to join in the sunset pictures!


We got settled in to our room for our last two nights and went out for some Asian food at Pei Wei. After returning, I had a task of sorting through the 250 pictures of the day.

Monday November 29, 2010

We were in San Diego for another day so we were looking for some of the hi lights to visit on Tripadvisor when we noticed that the Aircraft Carrier Tour of the Midway was highly rated. We had sailed past it yesterday and it looked like it would be worth a quick tour before lunch.

This carrier went in service in 1945 and was decommissioned in 1992.


The hangar deck had a number of WW2 vintage propeller planes on display.


The 4.1 acre flight deck had about 20 jet aircraft and helicopters on display along with a number of volunteers who explained how they launched and retrieved the aircraft on the deck. They could launch or retrieve planes at a rate of one every 45 seconds.


We also got a tour of the bridge where the ship navigation and air traffic control occur.


The last major operation this carrier was involved in was leading Operation Desert Storm. This is the room from where the attack was planned and launched.


The engine room was interesting, four 55,000 hp cross compound steam turbines driving 4 screws. The stopping time from max cruising speed of 33 kts was 27 minutes.


It seems that it is difficult to take a quick tour of an aircraft carrier. Before we knew it, we had been on board for four hours.

There were three current nuclear powered aircraft carriers in the harbour along with at least a dozen other warships.


We decided to take a drive to Coronado island to explore the area. One item of interest was a view of the Carnival Cruise ship that was towed here after it was disabled at sea last month.


We then drove to Del Mar to visit a friend of Jim & Sharon's. Steve has a great collection of toys. He showed us his two Amphicars and 64 Mustang convertible.


He also had a great collection of garden trains, R/C sailboats and American Flyer trains. You can never have too many toys!

We went out for supper with Steve and Connie and got back to the hotel for an early evening.

Sunday November 28, 2010

We set the alarm and awoke early to get on the road to travel to San Diego. We had booked a special adventure for the afternoon so we had to make sure we did not get caught in any LA traffic. Fortunately it was Sunday morning and I was able to leave it on cruise control for about 99% of the trip. Probably a first for driving through LA.

We arrived in San Diego at around 10:00 am and stopped for a Starbucks before heading to Shelter Island. Here is a video clip of what we were up to for the afternoon.


This is one of the first generation International America's Cup Class Boats. This design was used from 1995 to 2007 for the America's Cup. We had been in San Diego in 1995 for the first event using this design of boat. The one we sailed on today (USA 11) was Dennis Conner's trial horse for his failed 1995 campaign. (it was a rout by Team New Zealand).


This was a first class operation, the boat had been meticulously restored to it's original 1995 condition. The skipper and crew encouraged everyone to participate in the sailing and it was a fantastic day. As an example, it take six grinders working full out at the pedestals for a few minutes just to raise the 110ft high carbon fibre/kevlar/mylar main sail.


For a while it looked like we may not be able to go out because of the upper limit wind conditions (The ACC design boats did not start a race in over 15 kts wind because of the huge sail area and fragile hulls). For the first hour or so it was fairly gusty and we were consistently over 10 kts boat speed, occasionally reaching 12 kts. with a blade jib and full main.


(The upper instrument shows boat speed, the third, smaller display is true wind speed TWS)

We sailed within the harbour and were afforded a great tour of San Diego.

We were pretty well tired at the end of the sail and were happy to check into our hotel. We did manage to venture out to old San Diego to a Mexican Restaurant where the small size Margarita is 17.5 oz (the large is 32 oz).

Needless to say, it was an early to bed evening as soon as the blog was updated!

Saturday November 27, 2010

*** Notice: We had our first suggestion for improving the recent blogs and have gone back and included maps of where we have been. If you have lost us, please review the previous daily blogs to get a fix on us ***

We had a great day today exploring the Santa Barbara / Ventura area. We found an interesting hike on the internet which started in the mountainous area just outside of Santa Barbara. It took us 3 1/2 miles to a 1750 foot elevation overview in the Los Padres National Forest of Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands which are 25 miles offshore. The early morning overcast skies gave way to sunshine and temperatures in the 60'sF


Santa Cruz Island in the distance .....


This area was subjected to wildfires in 2007 & 2008. You could see the reconstruction projects underway.


After hiking, we headed to Santa Barbara stopping at the Mission for a Holy bathroom break.



We then went to the waterfront and explored the marina, yacht club and city pier.

The above is a photo of only about 1/3 of the marina and as you can see, there are many sailboats in this basin.



Around 4:00pm. the weather started to close in and cool off. We checked out one local winery tasting room and returned to our Hotel in Oxnard for the evening. We are off to San Diego tomorrow.

Friday November 26, 2010

We awoke to 25F this morning with steam rising from the heated pool just outside our window. Chris did not feel like a swim before we left so we packed up an went downtown to Chico's for breakfast with Jim & Sharon. We did a bit of a walk around the town square after breakfast. It looked like most of the Black Friday shoppers were at the mall.


Jim & Sharon headed home after our walk so we decided to try a few of the wineries that were closed yesterday before we had to leave for our next destination. Our first stop was at Eagle Castle Winery which had an impressive building but not so impressive wines.



Our next stop was Peachy Canyon Winery which is located in an old school house. they had an impressive array of Zin's.



Our last stop was Wild Horse Winery. An equally impressive selection of Pinot Noir. although the grapes are from a region farther south and closer to the coast.


Our destination for today was Oxnard CA, near Ventura.


We decided to stop in San Louis Obispo to see the Spanish Mission. A beautiful and vibrant downtown with great shops and restaurants.





We continued on to Oxnard CA and got off the road at around 4:00 pm. We relaxed and went out to the Olive Garden for supper. Then back on the computer to process photos and publish the blog.