This was our ship: The Hornblower! By the way, The Hornblower is not the little ship in the front, it's the bigger ship behind the little ship!
There are two different one hour cruises on The Hornblower. One goes into the South Bay and you get to see the Naval Station, Naval Destroyers and Frigates, SEAL Training Compound, Coronado Island among other sights.
The North Bay cruise takes you to see the California sea lions, America's Cup Harbor, Nuclear Submarine Base, the Star of India and more! If you're ever in San Diego and you want to take this tour, my suggestion is to pay a couple of more bucks for the package deal of the two hour tour. I can't tell you which half was better as they were both awesome! Just stay on the ship for the two hours and see ALL that there is to see!
Our cruise started with the South Bay. First up were three aircraft carriers! From what we were told, it is highly unusual to have THREE of them docked here. From the left to the right there is: The Vinson, The Ronald Reagan and The Nimitz.
All of this fire power was pretty overwhelming. If you looked out onto the horizon, this ship was stationed watching out over the harbor. If you look just left of center, there is a ship out there.
More about security later. Here is Ron and David, enjoying the ride in the harbor.
This is the Coronado Bridge which goes from San Diego to Coronado Island. A story about the bridge: When this bridge was being built in the late 60s, Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California. In order to get federal funding for this bridge, the bridge had to be at least two miles long. Unfortunately, there wasn't two miles between San Diego and Coronado Island. So, Governor Reagan had an 80 degree bend put into the bridge. Final result? The bridge is now 2.12 miles long! Bingo! Federal funding. That was a heck of an idea!
Edna gave me a head's up of a great shot as the ship was going under the Coronado Bridge. If you timed it perfectly, all of the pilings would like up in a straight line. Great shot! Unfortunately, I'm a millisecond off. Dammit!
One of the ships docked here is the hospital ship, Mercy.
From their website, "Mercy Ships is a global charity that has operated hospital ships in developing nations since 1978. Mercy Ships brings hope and healing to the forgotten poor by mobilizing people and resources worldwide, and serving all people without regard for race, gender, or religion." Awesome. If you're like to read more about the Mercy ships, please follow this link.
Back to vacation. Another long arm shot of the fearsome foursome! I swear, I am squinting in every picture of me! What does that say about San Diego!
Here were a couple of tug boats helping a Navy ship into dock. Cruise ship or not, they kept a close eye on us.
Up a little farther, you see a security boat, also keeping an eye on our docked fleet. I have a feeling that this little boat carried a lot of fire power. We kept a wide berth around it.
Coming back under the Coronado Bridge, I had one more opportunity to get that perfect shot under the bridge. Yeah, once again, so close!
Downtown San Diego as we were coming back into port before starting on the North Bay part of the tour.
Docked down just a little bit from where The Hornblower docks is the Star of India, which is part of the Maritime Museum. It's an absolutely gorgeous ship! More pictures of this a little later.
Heading out by the America's Cup Harbor.
No wonder I'm squinting in every picture. Can you see how freakin' gorgeous San Diego weather is? This place is just unbelievable.
Now on the North Bay tour, we came across a sea lion resting on a buoy.
Obviously, he didn't want to nap in the same place as these sea lions!
Or even these sea lions! Too bad we found all of them during nap time!
After the tour, we are back in port and we walked down the way to the Star of India. Here is Edna getting a good look.
We had to have some posed pictures! Of course, me and Ron.
David and Edna getting comfy for the photo op.
And, just what I thought was a good shot of the lines on the ship, Star of India!
We also looked across the street and saw Santa Fe. This is the train station where we came in on Wednesday night! Ok, I just thought it was a nice view of some of down town.
Once we finished lunch at Anthony's Fish Grotto, we went over the bridge over to Coronado Island. (In case you couldn't tell, we ate GREAT on vacation!)
This is the famous Hotel Del Coronado, also known as The Del. The Del has had some famous guests such as Thomas Edison, Babe Ruth, the Prince of Wales, who later went on to become King Edward VIII, who went on to give up his throne to marry Coronado divorcee Wallis Spencer Simpson.
The Del was also the back drop to the movie Some Like It Hot, with Marilyn Monroe. The place is spectacular!
Outside the front of The Del was this bird of paradise plant.
Our fearsome foursome in front of The Del.
We are back on the Coronado Bridge heading back to San Diego with me holding my camera up and out of the car window trying to get a shot.
It was a fantastic day in San Diego and Coronado Island!
As a side note, not many people believe that I could be in the same room as a dog. Just for proof, here is me with David and Edna's dog, Kali. As you can see, she is taking a treat right out of my hand! And, yes, I still have 10 fingers on my hands! Go me!
And, a better shot of Kali, who is a Shar-Pei. Is she a cutie-patootie or what!
We were running and gunning, and it was hard to get my thoughts together in the evening to sit and write a blog! I just can't stress enough just how much fun we packed into one week! Look out, here comes Saturday!
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